NEW AGE PRO AND CON

So Jeremy Tarcher wants the New Age covered more sympathetically by the media. How amusing that this spokesman for a movement that can’t even define itself expects others to report on it with warmth and understanding.

Surely the media are obligated to report on the egregious nonsense (reincarnation, extraterrestrial contact, out-of-body experiences) and self-important language (“world view,” “paradigm”) of this smug cult. Tarcher seems to say that it is somehow unfair for reporters to call the ridiculous and the bizarre by their right names.

Further, The Times did its readers a disservice in printing Tarcher’s broadside without explaining that his publishing company earns much of its income from books of this stripe.

MIKE FERGUSON

LOS ANGELES