Both New Agers and Neopagans emphasize the importance of creating altered states of consciousness, with drugs or by sensory deprivation or sensory saturation techniques. Does this get in the way of building socialism or can it advance it? Neopagans are further away from mainstream culture than New Agers. Can this assist or hinder socialist attempts or organize and sustain socialist organizations. Many New Agers are convinced that paranormal psychology is real and that we must cultivate those skills. How will this be received by socialist theoreticians and socialist recruites from the working class?
Both movements reject reductionist science for the new, non-linear science in the fields of physics, and the brain. Will socialists jump on this bandwagon or dismiss this science as pseudo-science? How will socialists greet the New Age notion that people are good and only turn our badly because they are uneducated, ignorant, short-sighted. Will they agree with Neopagan characterizations of the New Age as Pollyanna.
Freedom is highly valued by both New Agers and Neopagans. But is there such a thing as going too far? How will it go over with working-class people when Shirley MacLaine tells each working-class individual that they "create their own reality"? Some New Agers claim to believe in reincarnation. Some say individuals are working out karma based on past lives. What will this do to socialist organizing. How might it help a working-class person to know they were a prince or a pauper in another life? The class composition of New Agers is primarily upper-middle class. How easy will it be for socialists to integrate them into a socialist organization. Many wiccans are organized into covens. Will that organization help or get in the way of building a socialist mass party? New Agers are more hierarchical than Neopagans and they are more likely to accept a spiritual leader, who is most of the time, a man. How will this be received by socialists?
Many women into feminist wicca are anarchists. How will this work with a socialist party organized along Leninist lines? Some New Agers are libertarian and commercial capitalists. Do these folks have any redeeming value for socialists? If a radical socialist union were taken on a tour or Findhorn, Soleri's Arcosanti city, or an admission to a nine-day Burning Man, what would they think? What would it be like for the same group to be invited to one of the Spiral Dance rituals of Starhawk's organization, Reclaiming? We will address and provide answers to these questions in Part II of this article.
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