Quote:
Originally Posted by sshenry
Indigos, crystals, rainbows and aliens,
starseeds and walk-ins and wonders abound
shop for your favorite feel-good feeling
Will you know when the right mix has finally been found?
~sshenry 2008
The argument for - and against - the various New Age beliefs is as old as the movememt itself, and a quick search of the internet will provide an absolute avalanche of inforamtion, dis-information, self-help books, CD's full of "life-changing discoveries", offers for channelings, tarrot readings, astrology readings. Read far enough and you'll find references to starseeds, walk-ins, rainbows, crystals, octarines, indigos...well, you get the idea.
So how does a rational person decide what is legitimate, and what can be discarded? How does one determine where they belong - what label applies to you?
And I say -
WHAT DOES IT MATTER?
Everyone on this planet has had moments of thinking that they might not belong here - that they might have been born into the wrong family. But I don't think that this is because the person is a changeling or an alien in disguise, I think it is because the person has finally become aware, they have woken up, and in a world full of sleeping people, being awake can be a very lonely and isolating thing.
It is my humble opinion that most New Age beliefs are just another set of illusions to wrap our senses up in in order to keep us from waking up to the true nature of reality - just one more layer of the Matrix if you will, like nationalities or sexes or cultures...
Because at the heart of it, if the soul/spirit is real, then it would by definition trancend any physical or genetic differences. The body would be a vehicle, a vessel for the soul. So it wouldn't matter if the "soul" were from earth, mars or the second galaxy to the right of eternity...all souls or spirits would be part of the greater source (call it whatever you will....god, shakinah, tao, whatever).
To be able to see beyond the physical differences....to be able to see the ghost in the machine, is to trancend the need for "us" and "them" and work together instead for the awakening of any and all who can be persuaded to see through the illusion.
Just a thought 
Note: Thank-you to MiamiSound for the original inspiration from his 'new age' thread, BMoody for her insightful contributions and encouragement and Roier for his insistance on the possibility of all things, especially the possibility of their not being.
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Respect. The whole point of awakening is to break your identifications with the world, and find who you really are in essence underneath your mind's concetual map of reality. To simply adopt a set of 'new age' or 'spiritual' buzzwords and beliefs is, as you say, simply another layer of illusion created to enhance the ego. "I'm more spiritual/enlightened than you"
There is some truth in this 'movement', but there is a lot of erroneous fasehood, misunderstanding, misinterpretation (and in some cases just plain geeky weirdness) to sift through in order to find it. We must be careful to avoid the pitfalls that have rendered most religions practically useless in identifying with the practice and losing sight of the truth, leaving you with nothing but empty words, spiritual though they may sound. There is an old Zen saying "The finger that points to the moon is not the moon"
In terms of Spirituality it matters far more how deeply you know yourself than what colour you think your 'aura' is.