Notes on the New Age--Pro and Con

Shirley MacLaine’s statement that the New Age movement is not a new religion (“MacLaine’s Guide to the New Age,” Other Views, Aug. 19) doesn’t harmonize very well with her assertion that “New Age consciousness doesn’t believe these things. It knows them.” Sounds like doctrine to me. And a doctrine that supposedly embraces perceptions that are not logical and places trust in the “whispers of the soul” sounds like a fancy excuse to believe in anything one chooses.

Intuition plays an important role in understanding, certainly, but reason must always remain the final arbiter. I am sure that MacLaine’s beliefs spring from something deeply, and rightly, felt. But to believe anything on the basis of a feeling alone is a road into madness.

The world is very much in need of new ways of thinking, but let’s not exchange ugly garbage for pretty garbage. Here’s hoping for a New Age when narrow-mindedness and gullibility perish hand in hand.

BILL GOODWIN

West Los Angeles