Three Aboriginal Responses to New Age Religion: A Textual Interpretation

Abstract

Contemporary students of indigenous religions begin their inquiries by deconstructing misrepresentations about the people they wish to study empirically. Such scholars simultaneously dismiss the New Age as hegemonic and intrusive or destructive of native traditions. The relationship of indigenous peoples toward the New Age, in this case Australian Aboriginal religionists, is ambiguous by comparison. It is the task of this article to examine the continuum of relationships between New Age religion and Aboriginal religions, and to make clearer some of the reasons for this ambiguity.