GroshLink

So much of what we think of as the contemporary New Age was already in place no later than 1950, the year of Waters's Masked Gods and De Angulo's death. These components included ideas of shamanism and altered states of consciousness; an interest in Indian prophecies and lost continents; a thorough mingling of Native American and Asian beliefs; and the mass importation of Mesoamerican mythologies. Within a few years, other ideas that at least potentially could form part of this package included chemical experimentation, psychological self-exploration, envrionmentalism, and even religious feminism, a me`lange that was intoxicatingly different from the orthodox religious currents of 1950s America (p.149, Jenkins).

But it wasn't until the 1970s that Native spirituality was repackaged in a way that made it feasible for adoption by white observers, in however generic or deceptive a form. Once that shift had occurred, once it was possible to live a neo-Indian religion, that change could not be reversed. Once launched, the movement acquired its own dynamic, and it would quickly develop as part of the emerging New Age movement (p.155, Jenkins). According to Jenkins the important interests that led to adoption by a larger audience were ecology, gender, spirituality, and self-help.