Editing New Age (section)

===New Age science===
{{Quote box|width=25em|align=right|quote=The New Age is essentially about the search for spiritual and philosophical perspectives that will help transform humanity and the world. New Agers are willing to absorb wisdom teachings wherever they can find them, whether from an Indian guru, a renegade Christian priest, an itinerant Buddhist monk, an experiential psychotherapist or a Native American shaman. They are eager to explore their own inner potential with a view to becoming part of a broader process of social transformation. Their journey is towards totality of being.{{sfn|Drury|2004|p=11}}|source=[[Nevill Drury]]}}

According to Drury, the New Age attempts to create "a worldview that includes both science and spirituality",{{sfn|Drury|2004|p=10}} while Hess noted how New Agers have "a penchant for bringing together the technical and the spiritual, the scientific and the religious".{{sfn|Hess|1993|p=4}}
Although New Agers typically reject [[rationalism]], the [[scientific method]], and the academic establishment, they employ terminology and concepts borrowed from science and particularly from [[Physics beyond the Standard Model|new physics]].{{sfnm|1a1=Heelas|1y=1996|1p=5|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=1996|2p=62}} Moreover, a number of influences on New Age, such as [[David Bohm]] and [[Ilya Prigogine]], had backgrounds as professional scientists.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|1996|p=63}} Hanegraaff identified "New Age science" as a form of ''[[Naturphilosophie]]''.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|1996|p=64}}

In this, the milieu is interested in developing unified world views to discover the nature of the divine and establish a scientific basis for religious belief.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|1996|p=63}} Figures in the New Age movement—most notably [[Fritjof Capra]] in his ''[[The Tao of Physics]]'' (1975) and [[Gary Zukav]] in ''[[The Dancing Wu Li Masters]]'' (1979)—have drawn parallels between theories in the New Physics and traditional forms of [[mysticism]], thus arguing that ancient religious ideas are now being proven by contemporary science.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|1996|pp=128–129}} Many New Agers have adopted James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis that the Earth acts akin to a single living organism, going further to propound that the Earth has a consciousness and intelligence.{{sfnm|1a1=Hanegraaff|1y=1996|1pp=155–156|2a1=Heelas|2y=1996|2p=86}}

Despite New Agers' appeals to science, most of the academic and scientific establishments dismiss "New Age science" as [[pseudo-science]], or at best existing in part on the fringes of genuine scientific research.{{sfnm|1a1=Hess|1y=1993|1p=11|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=1996|2p=62}} This is an attitude also shared by many active in the field of [[parapsychology]].{{sfn|Hess|1993|p=11}} In turn, New Agers often accuse the scientific establishment of pursuing a dogmatic and outmoded approach to scientific enquiry,{{sfn|Hess|1993|p=68}} believing that their own understandings of the universe will replace those of the academic establishment in a [[paradigm shift]].{{sfnm|1a1=Heelas|1y=1996|1p=5|2a1=Hanegraaff|2y=1996|2p=62}}