[api]

This effect is why pseudoprofound bullshit works so well, like pretty much all of the “new age.”

It strikes me as a broken heuristic. We use elegance as a proxy for intelligence and education and thus likelihood of something being true, but being a proxy means it can be cheated and gamed. You can invest effort in just getting good at language and then use that skill to fool people into thinking you know something.

[mystraline]

New Age thinking was the 1980s through 2000.

We're post-New Age. Dont think theres a name for this time yet.

[api]

It might not be called that anymore but it’s in all kinds of things. Alt-med/MAHA is heavily new age influenced, as is “conspirituality.”

New age itself descends from the occult revival and things like Theosophy and the I AM movement. Some modern incarnations have gone back to these roots instead. You find that on the far right with people getting into esoteric fascism and traditionalism, stuff like Evola. You used to find some of this on the far left too but lately it seems to have hopped over.

All these things are basically big balls of pseudoprofound bullshit. Go try to read a theosophy text for an extreme example.