The Age of Aquarius, celebrated in the musical Hair, may have started in the 1960s or at the turn of the century or may not yet have begun. Though it is hard to say exactly how many Americans believe in which parts of the New Age, the movement as a whole is growing steadily. Bantam Books says it's New Age titles have increased tenfold in the past decade. The number of New Age bookstores has doubled in the past five years, to about 2,500. If some of those have a slightly greedy tone, the reason is that New Age fantasies often intersect with mainstream materialism, the very thing that many New Age believers profess to scorn.
Some millionaires have their own private gurus who pay house calls to provide comfort and advice.
Big corporations too are paying attention. Even the U.S. Army has commissioned a West Coast firm to explore the military potentials of meditation and extrasensory perception. For all it's popularity, the New Age is hard to define. Somehow, the New Agers believe, there must be some secret and mysterious shortcut or alternative path to happiness and health. And nobody ever really dies.