Editor’s note – This piece traces how New Age spirituality recruits people less through argument than through atmosphere: curiosity, an unmet longing, and unresolved pain. The author uses Debbie Fong’s graphic novel Next Stop to show a grieving child drifting from mild interest into full conviction without ever hearing the word ‘occult’ spoken aloud. We’re running it because that quiet drift is how many people we know have moved from curiosity to real belief – not through one decision, but a hundred small, unexamined ones.
New Age spirituality is a blend of ideas from modern psychology, Eastern religions, witchcraft, and holistic health that aims for self transformation and transcendence.
Unlike other faiths, New Age spirituality doesn’t rely on formal doctrine. Instead, it’s a spiritual buffet where each practitioner can pick and choose what seems to work for them.
That freedom from institutional control is one reason the movement has become so popular. But that doesn’t fully explain why so many people are getting involved.
There are two additional motives that often factor in:
- Spiritual curiosity
- A search for practical solutions to life crises and trauma
Let’s start with the first one.
Spiritual Curiosity and the New Age
Americans are rapidly losing their affiliation with institutional religion, but remain interested in spirituality.¹
The Christian explanation for this phenomenon is simple: humans are made with a built-in drive for the transcendent.
We are wired for worship and to seek connection to a higher power. To be reunited with our Creator. And as millions have shifted away from the Christian faith, the resulting God-shaped void still longs to be filled.
Editor’s note – The author’s diagnosis is exactly right: losing institutional religion hasn’t eliminated our longing for God, it’s just left that longing looking for a substitute. Scripture names the ache directly – “He has also set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
New Age spirituality offers a low barrier to entry to satisfy the curiosity. Social media (and other media) is full of content about tarot card readings, manifestation, astrology, and more.²
There’s no initial membership process, intensive study, formalized vows, or challenging lifestyle changes.
It’s a low bar to clear for those who are curious and open to the novel and unconventional.
New Age Interest in Next Stop
Debbie Fong’s middle grade graphic novel Next Stop follows main character Pia in her journey exploring New Age spirituality.
The book never uses the words “New Age” or “manifestation” or “occult.”
Instead, the author’s website describes it as a “magical road trip about grief, friendship, and the lengths one girl goes to in order to heal her family.”³
Nor does Pia know she is exploring a new spiritual realm when she embarks on a cross-country bus tour to a mysterious subterranean lake. A lake that is supposedly imbued with mystical powers.
Instead, the novel shows the young girl having her curiosity piqued and then progressively going deeper in her exploration.
It starts with a conversation with a school librarian.
Pia listens wordlessly as the librarian emphasizes that the lake has the power to accomplish impossible things.
And as we’ll see, Pia is very interested in pursuing what could make the impossible into the possible.
So she makes plans to join a cross country bus tour to the lake. Even when an injury short circuits her father’s participation, she continues on her own.
The bus makes stops along the journey at various destinations full of esoteric oddities.
Like this enigmatic stop where she sees an odd meteorite and a static-y TV that can purportedly capture “messages from the other side.”
These curiosities are not explained to Pia nor to the reader. They are simply experienced.
There are also stops at a roadside lodging in the shape of a giant chicken, a cactus petting zoo, a stairway to nowhere, and other bizarre destinations. These also serve to heighten the sense of curiosity in the unknown.
Taken together, they draw Pia slowly into a world where the line between reality and mystery is increasingly fuzzy.
Along the way, Pia’s fellow travelers discuss their ultimate destination. There is more and more excited talk about how the lake seemingly responds to the intentions of visitors.
Pia listens quietly to these conversations that deal with the lake somehow making wishes come true.
The idea of wish fulfillment comes up more and more.
Like the experience in the image below where Pia and a fellow traveler learn about whispering wishes to a caged bird before setting it free.
It’s reminiscent of something called “sympathetic magic” or a “release ritual” in Neo-pagan or New Age spirituality.⁴
The idea is that by liberating the trapped bird, the person making the wish is energetically “liberating” the wish that has been communicated to the bird. It’s similar to the Fangsheng (Release of Life) ritual in Buddhism where captive animals are purchased and then freed.⁵
Editor’s note – The bird-release scene is telling: a real spiritual practice, borrowed and repackaged, handed to a child with no explanation of what she’s actually invoking. That’s the pattern the whole story follows – rituals lifted from Neo-pagan or Buddhist sources, stripped of their meaning, and offered as neutral magic.
At no point does Pia learn the details of the spiritual beliefs underlying the practices. She’s simply curious about them and participates in them as she moves along.
The end result of the subtle enculturation is that Pia becomes a true believer.
And she eventually becomes an evangelist herself.
Here she is below preaching the gospel of wish fulfillment to a younger girl.
Pia is naturally curious and the New Age offers something that she thinks can satisfy her longing. But that’s not the only reason she is exploring.
Trauma and the New Age
Children who have suffered traumatic emotional, physical, or sexual experiences are more likely to turn towards “non-religious” spirituality like the New Age.⁶
This happens with religious faith as well. Plenty of people first turn to Christ because they realize they are broken and need a salvation from outside themselves. But with more people rejecting Christianity, there are more broken people looking for alternate solutions.
Unlike Christianity which is based on giving up control of one’s life to a God who loves us in His grace, New Age is all about taking control.
Whether it’s through meditation, energy work, or manifestation, New Age practices are designed to give a sense of mastery and control over past trauma, health, finances, career, or relationships.
Pia is no exception.
Next Stop tells her story in reverse. As the tale unfolds it’s increasingly clear that there are major problems in her family.
We get hints that her mother is angry with her through a conversation Pia overhears through an open door.
When she’s not experiencing rejection from her mother, Pia is being isolated at school.
No wonder she’s looking for new solutions for life.
The isolation a young girl would feel from such rejection by parents and classmates is explains why an individual might to turn to New Age or occultism. Both seem to hold out an offer to find belonging and make sense of a world where the traditional support systems have been torn down.
New Age spirituality has a heavy emphasis on self empowerment and holistic individualism. The promise is that survivors of trauma can reconstruct their identities outside of the past.
This can give a sense of power and control to people who are stuck in a cycle of powerlessness.
These times of brokenness could also be an opportunity for someone to turn to God. But with unreliable parents, it can be hard for a neglected child to imagine God as a “Good Father” who is worthy of trust and worship.
Even the one adult figure in her life who seems the most stable appears to often treat Pia as an afterthought.
Untrustworthy Parents
In the exchange below, Pia’s father is late to pick her up from school. He then cuts her off in the conversation. Happy birthday, by the way.
When the idea of a loving and present God seems impossible to imagine given flawed human parents, the more abstract ideas of energy-based New Age spirituality may be much easier to stomach.
Editor’s note – By this point Pia’s search isn’t really about curiosity – it’s a child trying to control what she cannot bear to feel. That instinct is human, but only God actually bears our grief rather than asking us to master it (Isaiah 53:4).
Pia’s Need
As the graphic novel unfolds, we learn why Pia’s mother is angry.
She blames her daughter for the death of her son.
A young Pia had been left alone on the beach with her even younger brother. And her mother and father returned to find Pia desperately trying to save her little brother who had drowned.
Pia’s trip to the “magical” subterranean lake is her attempt to somehow save her brother and save her family.
We’ll take a look next time at the practices of magical thinking, talismanic manifestation, and necromancy that she uses on her quest into New Age and occult spirituality.
See you in a week.
A Word from the Editor
Next Stop never gives Pia a warning, and that’s the real point here: drifting into New Age belief rarely feels like leaving God. It feels like curiosity, comfort, or control, offered to someone who is genuinely hurting. Scripture answers that hurt differently – not with mastery over pain but with a Father who invites us to hand it to Him: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
Related Reading
- From Atheism to New Age to Christianity (Sienna Krieg)
- The Secret Hidden in the Garden
- Inside the Cult of Knowledge
- Watchers and Nephilim
- The Occult in the Bible
Sources and References
- Young Americans aren’t abandoning faith – study suggests they’re rebuilding it
- How tarot became the latest social media craze
- Debbie Fong, Next Stop
- Releasing Ceremony and Ritual
- Why Buddhist ‘fangsheng’ mercy release rituals can be more cruel than kind
- Childhood Trauma Is Associated with the Spirituality of Non-Religious Respondents
Salvation – Eternal Life in Less Than 150 Words
Distributed by – BCWorldview.org
Editor Comment: You put into sharp relief how the ache for transcendence God built into every person can be rerouted into curiosity instead of worship, and that is a truth every believer needs to hear. You let Next Stop unfold in reverse, and that choice keeps Pia's grief hidden until readers have already watched her chase the lake.
This article appeared on Medium and is reprinted with modifications and by permission.