Paul Bembridge
University of Exeter

New Light on the New Age

Researchers have shown that as an astrological interpretation of an astronomical fact – Precession of the Equinoxes – the idea of zodiacal Ages is probably no older than the late 18thC, developing only in the late 19thC (See Chapter 3 of Nicholas Campion, Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Movement, PhD thesis, University of the West of England, 2004). And it is clear that most 20thC commentators (eg Carpenter, Yeats, Reid, Jung, Hand) follow this ‘precessional’ line of argument in calculating the timetable of the Ages. However, there is a separate non-astronomical strand of thought concerning the coming of the Age of Aquarius which is of great antiquity, arising within Christian esotericism, but with deeper roots in esoteric Judaism and Zoroastrianism. Transmitted to the Middle Ages (where it emerges in the Parzival legend of the Grail) it may be glimpsed in the early 19thC circle of Shelley, and observed at the turn of the century – in the thought of Levi Dowling and Wellesley Tudor Pole, a founding figure of the New Age movement in Britain whose interest in Christian esotericism led him to establish the Chalice Well centre in Glastonbury as a symbol of the New Age of Aquarius. This paper will comment briefly upon the short ‘precessional’ tradition and more fully on the longer Christian tradition.