AUTHOR’S NOTE: Between the ages of 18 and 30, I lived through the 12-year period that saw the hippie zeitgeist reach its brief zenith and then fade. It was a heady time of boundless “New Age” enthusiasm for all things exotic in the realm of metaphysics, as well as the burgeoning of unique psychological and spiritual views about the nature of consciousness (not coincidentally fueled by psychedelics). I cultivated a staunch iconoclastic mindset, and my personal path led me away from mainstream values toward alternative philosophies and unconventional pursuits such as natal astrology and various forms of divination. (In retrospect, I was a “hippie wannabe” because I was too clean to qualify.)

By 1978, the bubble had burst due to drug-induced burnout and the rise of the “money-men” (aka entrepreneurs) who wanted to cash in on the phenomenon by dragging it down to the level of commercial business-as-usual. As it approached its “last gasp” of credibility, I began calling the misnamed Age of Aquarius the “False Dawn” (sidereal astrologers have noted that it won’t officially arrive until 2150) and the “Piscean Pipe-dream,” a gauzy tissue of counterculture mystique that still has a residual grip on our perception of the magical and the mythical despite the high-minded pronouncements of the Aquarian visionaries. (Not even the presumed advent of Aleister Crowley’s “Age of Horus” in 1904 can dislodge the impression of epistemological decline.)

Completely undeterred, modern (and mostly youthful) practitioners have carried on as if nothing has changed. “Mysticism-without-borders” and its henchman “intuition” have hijacked all manner of speculative investigation that at one time was labeled “pseudo-scientific.” Now it is all about “squishier” objectives such as fostering self-awareness, channeling the Divine, dallying with spirit guides and bashing anything that is more literal and analytical than psychic and ethereal. Much of this freewheeling agenda is unproven (and, it must be said, unprovable) in its methods and motives except by personal anecdote. I’ve long believed that we will eventually be able to quantify subconscious insights that are now entirely conjectural, but I’m afraid the current tide of unchecked mysticism is taking things in the wrong direction.

One of the goals of this blog has been to attach a little stabilizing ballast to some of the more imaginative flights of fancy that I see everywhere I look in the post-New-Age metaphysical community. In the process I may have acquired an unsavory reputation as a grumpy, hypercritical naysayer with an ax to grind when all I am is an interested observer with a ton of relatable experience and a long memory. But I do have to admit that I’m suspicious of anything that doesn’t have an empirical leg to stand on and operates solely on the premise that “If it feels right, it must be right.” This is the way of the intuitive mystic who has no use for precedent and “flies by the seat of the pants” in anything to do with spiritual adventuring. I can’t help but think that these individuals have built themselves an impregnable fortress of self-justification that allows no whiff of doubt to cloud their upbeat worldview.

So is the mystical tide rising or falling, and which would be preferable to allay the trivializing of metaphysical practice that plagues so many modern disciplines? Less mysticism and more empiricism would be my choice, but not to the point that one completely overshadows and invalidates the other. The esoteric arts are subtle and benefit from both pragmatism and impressionism in their performance. A narrative that is all facts and no fun would be about as stimulating as reciting a laundry list, while a purely lyrical treatment might be charming but offer little that is actionable tor the seeker to “take to the bank.” As a storyteller I try to harmonize the two to the best of my ability, but always with the aim of giving my clients something they can work with. In divination, entertainment without empowerment is worthless but, with the incipient triumph of runaway mysticism over methodical analysis, that may be all that remains. For an old-school advisory fortune-teller, it’s a depressing thought.