The new New Age: an analysis of the New Age participant from a national random sample.

The New Age movement has not received the same level of scholarly attention as other new religious movements, in part because of the difficulty of analyzing the movement quantitatively. Because of this, past research has been mostly limited to anecdotal evidence and speculation. In addition, many aspects of the New Age movement enjoy relatively high levels of mainstream acceptance, making this analysis is particularly timely. The Baylor survey allows for the most complete analysis of the New Age movement to date, as it addresses both beliefs in the New Age and quantifiable consumption of New Age goods. In this research, I consider previous theories on participation in new religious movements, and find that none completely explains New Age participation.