On the metaphysics of ‘life’ and the production of ‘religion’ in Spiritualities of life: New age romanticism and consumptive capitalism

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Notes

1. Clearly these suggestions raise large questions in philosophy of science that I cannot discuss here; my aim is simply to open up fresh methodological perspectives upon an object of study (‘new age’) that thus far has attracted mainly humanistic and theological explanations. For a sociological critique of these, see Chapter 2, ‘The field of new age studies’ in Wood (2007), and for further reflections on the potential benefit for the study of religion in working out the terms of an extended interdisciplinarity across the human and natural sciences, see my reflections on the implications of C.P. Snow's ‘two cultures’ argument in Sutcliffe (2008).

2. See, for example, work within the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network, founded in 2008. http://www.nsrn.co.uk/