The Gotham Skeptic…
You can’t be open to absolutely all beliefs with no standards at all and still have any respectability. And while certain modalities might like the advantages that come with being associated with a New Age community that’s so credulous they’ll buy whatever you’re selling, being associated with New Age beliefs also keeps you from reaching the more rational, discriminating markets. If you trade in humbug, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
This is not about open-mindedness. If it were, New Agers wouldn’t be so hostile to critics of particular religions, paranormal beliefs, conspiracy theories, etc. No, they just like to think they’re open-minded but are unwilling to critically examine their own beliefs. They’re often as dogmatic and close-minded as it comes. They demand everyone play by their rules. That’s not open-mindedness; they’ve perverted it to the point where it’s just Orwellian Newspeak meaning the opposite. And they dismiss all critics as arrogant, close-minded, and dogmatic when it’s just a projection of their own position. I’m more than willing to change my mind about a particular idea if you give me a good reason. But you have to give me a good reason.
“It’s great to have an open mind, just not so open that your brain falls out.” -Anonymous
“Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
-Frederick Douglass
