New Age Is No Joke, So Don’t Use It for Laughs

Over the past few years you have published several articles regarding the New Age movement. The tone of these articles has usually been snide, if not downright antagonistic. (One exception was a thoughtful essay by Jeremy Tarcher about three years ago.)

The most recent example, “New Age or Old, Aura of Money Persists” (April 30), a column by Dan Akst, was probably the most egregious example of the genre yet, but rather than defending the New Age Expo, or attacking Akst, I want to raise two issues:

Would the article have been published if it had been about a similar event involving Southern Baptists or Hasidic Jews? In those contexts, would lines about a “wacky amalgam of narcissism, superstition and hope” have been permitted?

Would a comment about “nauseating electric organ music” or “ear-splitting Kletzmer clarinets” been OK, as a line about “goofy string music” was? How about making fun of Kosher food, ending with, “Couldn’t wait to get my teeth around a big slab of ham!” I’m not talking censorship here, I’m talking good taste, manners and consideration.

In terms of editorial content, tell me: What was the article about? What was its purpose? To make fun of a religion? In the Business section? To make fun of an entertainment? In the Business section? To say that something is wrong with offering products and services to people who are interested in those products and services? In the Business section?

Perhaps you should ask yourselves why there is such a negative editorial tone toward a fairly large group of people whose focus is on health, preserving our planet and relating. Relating to the Universe, to God, to Earth and to all others on this planet--even to those who make fun without bothering to understand what is really going on. And trying to understand that which is other is really what the New Age is all about.

PETER M. WOLK

Ojai