This article was downloaded by:[Zaidman, Nurit] On: 3 November 2007 Access Details: [subscription number 783496998] Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Culture and Religion An Interdisciplinary Journal Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713694811 New Age Products in Local and Global Contexts Nurit Zaidman Online Publication Date: 01 November 2007 To cite this Article: Zaidman, Nurit (2007) 'New Age Products in Local and Global Contexts', Culture and Religion, 8:3, 255 - 270 To link to this article: DOI: 10.1080/14755610701650230 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14755610701650230 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.informaworld.com/terms-and-conditions-of-access.pdf This article maybe used for research, teaching and private study purposes. 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Similar markets of New Age goods do indeed exist in Israel and New Zealand, but these markets are not identical. In Israel, Judaism is a force that restricts trade in certain types of objects and at the same time expands the scope of the market to include others. Other factors that affect the market of New Age goods are related to the values that societies attribute to the cultural products of the ‘other’. I argue that the New Age is an open system that is manifested differently in each context. Contextual influences prioritise the acceptance of particular notions that are part of the New Age network, and these priorities in turn shape the market of New Age goods in each country. The paper’s findings also illustrate that the New Age shop, especially in Israel, is a place where customers and shop owners negotiate their views. Many of these interactions are about the fit or lack of fit between global trends in the New Age subculture and its encounter with local ideologies. KEYWORDS New Age; shops; Judaism; Israel; New Zealand Introduction The term ‘New Age’ refers to a self-conscious movement that emerged in the early 1970s in the West. The message of the New Age is its hope for personal transformation, which can be reached through body work, spiritual disciplines, natural diets and renewed human relationships (Melton 1992). Others suggest viewing the New Age not as a movement but as a series of social networks (Sutcliffe 2003a), or as a network of ideas (Ruah-Midbar 2006). New Age research has been dominated by the globalised approach that makes intensive use of the ‘global spiritual marketplace’ metaphor and attributes little importance to the interplay between local and global forces. Scholars argue that intensive marketing activity is associated with the New Age and label Culture and Religion, Vol. 8, No. 3, November 2007 ISSN 1475-5610 print/1475-5629 online/07/030255-270 q 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14755610701650230 Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 256 NURIT ZAIDMAN it a ‘spiritual marketplace’ (Bruce 2002; York 1999, 2001; Bowman 1999; van Otterloo 1999; Van-Hove 1999). York argues that the New Age is modelled upon and is an outgrowth of liberal Western capitalism—one that seeks ever extended markets, new sources of marketable goods, and expanding profits (York 2001). Similarly, Hanegraaff (2001) argues that New Age spirituality is an aspect of global Americanisation. Values of democracy and religious freedom are linked to the spiritual supermarket, where customers pick and choose the commodities they fancy. Other studies show that in the process of growth, the New Age movement has appropriated and commodified historical and cultural assets from different parts of the world (York 2001; Possamai 2002). It is argued that the world’s various spiritual traditions are now public property. Spiritual commodities can be bought and sold according to basic free-market principles (York 2001), and the opportunity to produce new objects and introduce them to the market is open to all (Zaidman 2003). Yet, unlike this stream of research, Ivakhiv (2003) argues that New Age pilgrimage rejects the consumerist impulse. The basic arguments of the ‘spiritual global marketplace’ approach are similar to the more general literature about globalisation and consumption, which focuses on the spread of goods in the global world. Appadurai (1995) discusses commoditisation and Hannerz (1996, 24) describes a global ‘takeover by giant cultural commodity merchants’. Within this stream of research, however, there are studies showing that local groups are not only passive consumers of Western culture and commodities and that the cultural flow from centre to periphery does not enter a void (Schuerkens 2003; Hannerz 1989). Processes of local absorption of global culture and the mixture of global and local cultural elements are increasingly the object of study (Schuerkens 2003). Salcedo (2003), for example, argues that malls are geographically bound expressions of both global and local characteristics. Other scholars focus on the intensification of local particularism and the revitalisation of traditional cultures (Strassoldo 1992; Beyer 1994). Ritzer (2003) introduces a comprehensive conceptual framework of global and local forces. ‘Globalisation’ represents the imperialistic ambitions of nations and organisations to impose themselves on various geographic areas. Ritzer argues that it tends to be associated with the proliferation of ‘nothing’, a concept that is discussed in reference to place, thing, person and service. Ritzer defines ‘nothing’ as a social form that is comparatively devoid of distinctive substantive content. ‘Something’, on the other hand, is defined as a social form that is generally indigenously conceived and controlled, and that is comparatively rich in such content. Some types of ‘something’ (e.g. indigenous crafts) have been globalised to considerable degree. My findings challenge the claims of this ‘global spiritual marketplace’ approach. They show that in addition to global forces, New Age markets are shaped by local (often collectivist) ideologies and by other contextual factors. The paper is based on a systematic and wide-scale empirical investigation of objects that Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 NEW AGE PRODUCTS IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS compose the New Age market in two countries: Israel and New Zealand. The two countries are similar in population size (New Zealand, approximately four million; Israel, approximately 6.2 million), and the New Age markets are close in size as well. On the other hand, the great distance between these two countries allows the examination of global distribution and the impact of local influences. I ask whether such geographically disparate markets contain a similar range of objects. I adopt in this study a culturally sensitive approach to the analysis of the market of goods. Consumer goods have a significance that goes beyond their commercial value. The significance consists largely in their ability to carry and communicate cultural meaning (Douglas and Isherwood 1979). According to McCracken (1988, 71 –72), meaning ‘is usually drawn from a culturally constituted world and transferred to a consumer good. It is then drawn from the object and transferred to the individual consumer’. In McCracken’s model, the culturally constituted world is the world of everyday experience, which is fully shaped by the beliefs and assumptions of the individual’s culture. Cultural categories of time, space, nature and person combine to create many other secondary categories. Meaning also comprises cultural principles—the ideas or values according to which cultural phenomena are organised, evaluated and construed. Kopytoff’s (1988) analysis of two main processes—commoditisation and singularisation—can also be used to shed light on the influence of culture on the selection of goods. Commoditisation is the drive to extend the fundamentally seductive idea of exchange to as many items as the existing technology will comfortably allow. Commoditisation takes place in two ways: first, with respect to each thing, by making it exchangeable for more and more other things, and second, with respect to the system as a whole, by making more and more different things more widely exchangeable. The counter drive to commoditisation is culture; while commoditisation homogenises value, the essence of culture is discrimination. Kopytoff discusses those things that are publicly precluded from being commoditised because of their value (i.e. ‘singular’ goods). In this paper, I suggest that one can distinguish between two kinds of singularisation. The first is ‘positive’ singularisation, as described by Kopytoff, and the second is ‘negative singularisation’, which merely excludes goods from the positive sphere of exchange. My initial research questions can be summarised as follows: What products make up the core of the global New Age market? What goods are rejected or adapted in specific locations, and why? And, who are the main actors in the process of selecting and distributing objects? After a discussion of my methodology, I present the results of a survey regarding the objects that are displayed for sale in New Zealand and Israeli shops. The main body of the paper includes analysis of these results, with a focus on the influence of both global forces and local influences on the New Age markets in Israel and in New Zealand. 257 Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 258 NURIT ZAIDMAN Method The primary sources of information for this study are observations at New Age shops and interviews with shop owners. These observations and interviews were conducted primarily by the author with the help of research assistants. Altogether, the data includes observations in 25 shops in Israel and New Zealand in 2003 and 2004. In Israel, we visited 16 shops. Six shops were in Tel Aviv, and the others were located in cities in other parts of the country (e.g. Jerusalem and Beer Sheva). We also observed nine stores in New Zealand. The stores were located on both the North and South Islands, although the majority were on the North Island. They were located in both large and small urban areas (e.g. Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton, as well as Raumati and Akaroa). We conducted interviews with 21 shop owners and a friendly conversation (Spredley 1979) with two others. We asked each shop owner to tell the story of the shop (e.g. when it was opened, what prompted him/her to open this kind of a store, what his/her vision or agenda might be). We also asked: How do you choose the goods you offer in the store? What objects will you not sell? Why? In addition, we attempted to identify change over time, by asking about past merchandise no longer carried, and vice versa, as well as the reasons for such stocking decisions. Finally, we inquired about sources of information regarding new tendencies and new objects in the New Age, and about the origin of the goods sold. I also surveyed 10 web sites of Israeli shops and five web sites of practitioners as well as 13 virtual New Zealand shops and five web sites of New Zealand service providers. The New Age Market in New Zealand and Israeli Shops The New Age subculture has roots in both New Zealand and Israel. New Zealand has long been a remarkably fertile field for esoteric religion. Although attendance at conventional churches is low by world standards, per capita membership in spiritualism and theosophy as well as the late 1980s New Age is as high as, or even higher than, in any similar modern ‘Western’ society (Ellwood 1996). To cater to the interest of New Zealand society in New Age spirituality, several mystic and New Age shops have been established, along with Web shops, festival centres and magazines. The receptivity to spiritual movements in New Zealand is explained by nineteenth century British immigrants who were willing to rebuild their religion in a new country (Ellwood 1996). Religion in contemporary New Zealand is characterised by a decline in adherence to mainline Christian religious groups, the growth of Hinduism and Buddhism by immigration, and the growth of small sectarian groups. Contemporary religion has increasingly polarised into a visible and vocal fundamentalist core on the one hand and, on the other, a fluid and proliferating variety of individualistic cultic groups that appear to function Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 NEW AGE PRODUCTS IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS as religions for many adherents—providing cosmologies, rituals, a language and a social context (Hill 1994). The primary manifestation of the New Age in Israel became noticeable in the early 1990s. It is practiced in parallel to, as well as in interaction with, various streams of Judaism in Israel. The New Age subculture has several noticeable manifestations in Israeli society, such as several settlements, communes and neighbourhoods with such an orientation. By the mid-1990s it was reported that 400,000 Israelis had participated in New Age activity, and 870,000 were customers for New Age products and services. New Age books have been on lists of best sellers in Israel. Dozens of New Age activities take place every day, and the three main annual festivals sell between 30,000 and 50,000 tickets each (Ruah-Midbar 2006). At present, according to my observations and estimates, there are about 35 New Age shops in Israel. They are scattered in different areas of the country and can be found in both major and small towns. There are a number of New Age centres and several colleges. The 2003 edition of the New Age ‘Yellow Pages’ listed 4000 individuals and businesses that offer hundreds of workshops. Consumers can also be exposed to the variety of New Age goods and services at festivals and exhibitions, and in magazines. Systematic observation reveals that shops in both countries offer a similar but not identical range of objects (Table 1). The popularity of particular objects differs in each country, however, and there are objects that one can find only in one country. The most popular objects, which one can find in all the shops in both countries, are crystals, incense and oils. Yet among the most desired objects in Israel are also candles, dream catchers and ‘hamsa’ (Jewish amulets), which are less TABLE 1 Objects according to popularity High Israel Crystals, incense, oils Candles Hamsa (Jewish) Dream catchers Medium New Zealand Crystals, incense, oils Low Israel New Zealand Israel Chinese animals Chinese animals Fairies and angels Mobiles, wind bells Tarot cards, jewelry Mezuza, menora, pamotim (Jewish) Hoshen stones, key of Solomon (Jewish) Mobiles, wind bells Tarot cards, jewelry Magic accessories Buddha Egyptian sculptures, Buddha, candles, dragons Dragons New Zealand Fairies and angels Dolphins Chinese balls 259 Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 260 NURIT ZAIDMAN popular or unavailable in New Zealand. Objects that are of middling popularity in both countries are sculptures of Chinese animals (e.g. frogs), stone jewelry, mobiles, wind bells and tarot cards. In Israeli shops, one can also find several Jewish objects, such as Mezuzah (small scrolls on which passages from the bible are written, which are nailed to the entrance to Jewish houses), candle holders for Shabbat and Hoshen stones (i.e. stones similar to those that were carried on the chest of the principle priest in the ancient Jewish temple), which cannot be found in New Zealand shops. New Zealanders’ favoured goods include Buddha sculptures and dragons – which are less popular in Israel – and magic accessories, which like certain Egyptian sculptures are absent from Israeli shops. Objects that are low in terms of their popularity in both countries are fairies and angels. In New Zealand, the ranks of the less valued also include Chinese balls and dolphins. Internet New Age shops in Israel suggest a variety of Chinese, Celtic and Gothic style objects; like the street shops, however, Jewish symbols (e.g. the Star of David, fish and Hamsa) have a strong presence. There is one shop that provides magic accessories which are, for the most part, not displayed for sale in the physical shops. Virtual shops in New Zealand differ little from their brick-andmortar counterparts in terms of their offerings. In the remainder of this paper, I endeavour to explain these findings. Global Forces During our visits to New Age shops (mainly in the morning hours), we often met with suppliers. The following description of one of these encounters in a shop in Tel Aviv sheds light on how globalisation works: A supplier enters the shop and approaches the shop owner. They exchange a few words of greeting. The supplier talks about the business, and the shop owner blesses him: ‘I wish that everyone makes profit’. The supplier hands the catalogue to the shop owner. She looks at the pictures and occasionally asks about the price of a specific object. The supplier responds, and she asks why it is so expensive. He explains that it has to do with the number of items she orders. She continues to look at the catalogue. ‘Do you need angels?’ He asks. ‘No, I have enough’. He explains: ‘This sells very well today. It is for the garden’. The shop owner notes that she cannot find the kind of beads that she has on a cabinet. The supplier answers: ‘No, it is passé’. She finishes looking, puts the catalogue aside and tells the supplier that she saw another supplier’s merchandise for sale in the market at half the price. She keeps on stating that she does not feel comfortable because her customers might think that she is cheating them. The supplier explains that the vendors in the market buy in huge quantities, and that is why customers get a discount. He suggests an item, but she refuses to buy it, as she does not like it. After a short time the supplier leaves the store. The majority of shop owners in both New Zealand and Israel buy products from local suppliers. These suppliers provide information about objects and Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 NEW AGE PRODUCTS IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS trends. Suppliers use catalogues to set the content as well as the boundaries of the world of goods. In the description above, the supplier defines the goods that are in fashion and what has fallen out of favour. Suppliers move from one shop to another and spread knowledge and opinions about preferences and goods. Shop owners often noted that they accept the recommendations of suppliers along with considering their own tastes and customer demand. One way to find out the meaning and values that shop owners attribute to globalised goods is to examine whether they are aware of and attribute importance to the origin of the goods they buy. We found that the majority of both Israeli and New Zealand shop owners do not know where the goods in their shop come from. A few provided only a general response, saying that objects come from China or India. Moreover, most do not care where the objects come from. This attitude reflects these owners’ perception of one undistinguished global market. Moreover, these findings support earlier research that New Agers, unlike followers of traditional religions, do not need an external proof of object authenticity, and thus the object’s origin is not important. They care about object perfection of physical properties and object uniqueness or novelty, which in a way suits the spirit of globalisation (Zaidman 2003). However, one shop owner in New Zealand was a vocal critic of globalisation, especially with regard to the labour associated with it. She said: Almost all our shop’s products are brought from China. I was in China and saw the huge industrial parks in which people work from morning to evening every day, all their life. They are born and they die there, and it is sad. Huge containers that are filled with goods are coming from these parks, and are distributed all over the world. Even the crystals from Brazil are processed in China. And so do we, we have here mainly objects from China. What we get into the store depends on what there is in the shipment. The same Buddha sculptures, the same crystals are everywhere. Thus, even the shop owner who is aware of the pitfalls of globalisation accepts this trade. There are a few shop owners who import goods directly via the Internet or by travelling. One example is a shop owner who travels to exhibitions in Western Europe. These shop owners are themselves catalysts of globalisation. Another aspect of globalisation evident in the data is that customers’ demands fluctuate over time. An example is the following response from an Israeli shop owner: ‘Today I think there is more awareness of Feng Shui. People ask for waterfalls, stones, crystals and dragons. We also get fairies and angels. Peoples’ requests are changing all the time’. The changing demand for goods reflects fashion. This tendency is elaborately expressed in the following quotation from a New Zealand shop owner: On September 11, they bought angels. It was an amazing phenomenon. They bought these angels all over the world. What you find now in the market is the 261 Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 262 NURIT ZAIDMAN things that are going on in the USA and whatever they produce in China is related to the USA. So, everyone wants angels. New Zealand customers follow the world trend. Ten years ago everyone was into crystals. They bought also big and expensive crystals. And then the North American stuff was in trend, like dream catchers, and then it faded out and everyone was into Celtic stuff, Celtic notes and candle stickers with notes. And then Feng Shui came, and everybody was looking for frogs; it was very popular. At the moment dragons are very popular. Thus, New Age customers are major players in the global market. Like other ‘modern consumers’, they live according to the velocity of fashion (Appadurai 1988). The centre of New Age ‘taste makers’ (Baudrillard 1988) is beyond the local, beyond New Zealand or Israel. It is located in the United States (Hanegraaff 2001). This view is expressed by both New Age sellers and customers and it is a view supported by research. Finally, globalisation creates huge markets of what Ritzer (2003) labels ‘nothing’. There is a far greater demand throughout the world for ‘nothing’ than for ‘something’ because ‘nothing’ tends to be less expensive, and its comparative simplicity and lack of distinctiveness appeals to a wide range of tastes (Ritzer 2003). The mass production of ‘nothing’—in our case, cheap goods that are produced mainly in China—affects not only the New Age market but also other markets. We found that New Age shops in both New Zealand and Israel contain many goods that are displayed for sale in other sorts of venues, such as gift shops, health shops and open markets. Objects that are sold in these other locations include wind chimes, sculptures, candles and soaps. In Israel there is a growing market for goods associated with the tradition of saints (Zaidman 2003), and despite its difference from the market aimed at a New Age audience, some amulets and blessings are sold to both groups of consumers. Yet, although we found that many of the goods sold by New Age shops in both countries contain ‘nothing’, the setting of the New Age store itself, as well as the role of the sellers in it, is based on the logic of ‘something’. New Age shops are not perceived and managed entirely as market places, but rather as spiritual centres as well. There are processes and activities in these shops that are not associated with commodities; they instead are oriented toward the creation of sacred space (Zaidman 2007). Local Influences in Israel A major influencing force on the Israeli New Age market is Judaism, which forms in a way, the religion and culture of New Age adherents in Israel. Judaism is a force that restricts trade in certain types of objects but simultaneously enables commerce in others. During our fieldwork, the influence of Judaism was revealed in many ways. Jewish objects appeared on the store shelves, shop owners talked about Judaism Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 NEW AGE PRODUCTS IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS and Kabbalah, and practitioners used Jewish terms and concepts to present themselves at exhibitions. One of the dominant themes that appeared in the field is related to the biblical ban on making masks and sculptures (Exodus 2, 4 –5). For example, during my visit at one store a woman came in who was looking for a present. The shop owner suggested an abstract sculpture of a person, but the woman refused, averring that ‘sculptures are not allowed’. The shop owner replied that only sculptures that carry a human face are forbidden, but the woman still refused to buy it. The shop owner turned to me and noted that many people, religious and non-religious, ask for sculptures that do not have faces. She recalled another example in which a customer brought back a cabinet on which human faces were drawn after getting criticism from a family member who said that it was not allowed in the house. Both customers and shop owners are hesitant or resist having or holding masks and specific sculptures, in light of the biblical ban on the carving of human or animal forms in stone, wood, etc. for the purpose of worship. This ban is one of the cultural principles, in McCracken’s (1988) terminology, that is of relevance to understanding the world of goods among Israelis. The ban reflects the principle that God is abstract. Idols, masks and other concrete forms representing God are false. Thus, this cultural principle excludes certain categories of goods from the sphere of exchange (Kopytoff 1988). Besides Judaism, shop owners in Israel referred to other systems when they explained their reluctance to get sculptures and masks. One of them said that ‘the mask is a symbol of idol worship—and I don’t bring into the store these things’. He also said, however, that the energy of masks and Egyptian objects did not ‘suit the store’. Another told us that she got rid of all the masks that were in the store because they reminded her of the Golden Calf and ‘how people used to worship it’. ‘Besides’, she said, ‘I believe in the Feng Shui energy, and I felt that the masks have negative energy and that they bring bad luck’. For these shop owners, then, the Jewish ban is not a single authoritative reason to avoid masks. Rather, some rely also on Feng Shui, a Chinese teaching that focuses on the creation of harmonious surroundings. On the other hand, one shop owner from Tel Aviv refused to stock objects related to Feng Shui, as well as objects that symbolised idol worship. He said: I don’t bring sculptures related to Feng Shui because people develop expectations beyond logic. A person takes a plastic frog and thinks that it would improve his relationship with his partner. I don’t want to cause people to be engaged in idol worship or to initiate it. Unlike the first two shop owners, his argument does not include any references to energies. Instead, he alludes to the Jewish ban on idol worship, indicating his reluctance to encourage it. In addition, he adopts a rational stance as well. In order to understand his claims about beliefs that are associated with Feng Shui, I quote an explanation of the frog symbol that appears on a New Age 263 Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 264 NURIT ZAIDMAN shop’s website. Similar descriptions appear also in notes attached to objects in New Age brick-and-mortar shops. The explanation states: This symbol refers in Feng Shui to affluence, since the frog lives in water, and it breeds quickly. In order to enjoy this affluence, it is recommended that you place a small Chinese coin in its mouth and place it on an 8-angled mirror in your office or in a place where you keep your valuables. How can we label these responses? Is the last shopkeeper’s comment an exception to New Age thinking? The responses we collected reflect two characteristics of New Age thought. The first is the coexistence of several cultural systems (Heelas 1996, see also Zaidman 2003, about New Age Israeli customers). The second characteristic is the existence of inherent contradictions (Ruah-Midbar 2006). The New Age is an open system. As such, it is influenced by the local belief system and culture in Israel, namely, Judaism. The exclusion of certain objects from New Age shops in Israel can be interpreted as ‘negative singularisation’ (Kopytoff 1988). The drive that counters commoditisation, according to Kopytoff, is culture. Kopytoff discusses those things that are publicly precluded from being commoditised because of their positive value and the negative value of commodification. Here, the exclusion is characterised by a negative attitude toward the objects and positive attitude towards the sphere of exchange. Masks and sculptures are singularised negatively and thus excluded from the sacred space of the shop and from the exchanges that take place within it (Zaidman 2007). Judaism in Israel also has an impact on the inclusion of objects that are associated with the religion in general and with Kabbalah in particular. Our results show that the New Age market in Israel overlaps with the market of goods and services that is associated with Kabbalah. Starting in the 1970s, a renewed interest in Kabbalah and Hasidism transpired in Israeli society as well as in Jewish communities in the United States, and in the West more generally. Contemporary Kabbalah concentrates mostly on practices, such as meditation, spiritual and physical exercises, proper nutrition and healing. The commodification of Kabbalah comes to the fore in Kabbalah stores and online shops as well as in the provision of services for fees or donations (Huss 2007). We found more evidence of an overlap between these spiritual markets while visiting a mystic exhibition in Tel Aviv. Four of six practitioners there, in addition to being involved with healing, colour therapy, tarot, astrology, graphology and numerology, promoted Jewish prayers and blessings, Jewish practices (like removal of the evil eye), mystic devices (e.g. amulets), Jewish approaches to reading dreams and Jewish Reiki. Concepts from Judaism and Kabbalah are also incorporated into the activities of Israeli practitioners as they present themselves on their web sites. Among other topics, they teach numerology (Kabbalah), removal of the evil eye (Kabbalah) and the higher energy of the God of Israel. Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 NEW AGE PRODUCTS IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS Kabbalah can also be found in a modest way in New Zealand. There is one Kabbalistic order which traces its origins back to the twelfth century among working-class Christians who maintained close relations with Jews, in Auckland; another centre exists near the capital (Ellwood 1996). These centres, however, have little or no impact on New Zealand’s New Age market. In the rest of this section, I seek to explain why certain objects, such as magic or Egyptian accessories, that one can find in New Zealand cannot be found in Israeli shops. One virtual shop run by Israelis includes mainly witchcraft paraphernalia. On the web site, the owners explain that they opened the shop because they could not get the items that they needed in Israel. Indeed, the shop offers many objects that are not presented for sale in Israeli brick-and-mortar shops; among them are small brooms for the altar, daggers, pentagram cookie pans, candles in different shapes (e.g. black cat candles, death candles and witch candles), and scourges. The limited market for magic accessories reflects the relatively small interest in shamanism and witchcraft in Israel. It is estimated that just a few hundred people are involved with these practices (Ruah-Midbar 2006). Most likely, the dominance of the Jewish culture and its objection to non-Jewish ritualistic activities restricts the growth of these movements in Israel. Even if some customers may be in favour of these goods, others may object, and quite vocally. When I talked to shop owners about carrying magic accessories, several of them distinguished between ‘light’ and ‘darkness’. They said that their shop is associated with ‘light’. An example is the following quotation: All the objects in the store are associated with alternative medicine or with spirituality. Spirituality means all the topics: Tarot, astrology, numerology, philosophy. I also have books of approaches that I don’t accept such as channeling with the dead, but I don’t carry the paraphernalia. I don’t carry objects of negative elements, or ‘dark’ elements, such as negative magic or the cult of the devil. Never. It seems that in this manner shop owners solve the dilemma that they have about goods that they perceive as inappropriate. Namely, they sell books about the topic, but they do not carry accessories. On the one hand, then, shop owners are interested in expanding their sales and getting more profit. At the same time, however, most of them have a vision of the store and their way that set limits on commercialisation and on the selection of objects they offer (Zaidman 2007). Carrying books is a compromise with the dominant culture, since books are not associated with the domain of actual practice but with the more distanced and abstract domain of knowledge, though it also reflects the general openness of the New Age to different teachings and opinions (Ruah-Midbar 2006). As I have indicated above, one cannot get a large variety of Egyptian sculptures in Israel. My initial observations show that there is a significant presence of Egyptian sculptures as well as papyrus in New Zealand shops, while these objects can hardly be found in Israeli shops. To the extent they carry anything 265 Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 266 NURIT ZAIDMAN Egyptian, New Age shops in Israel contain mainly crystal pyramids that represent the sacred geometry of ancient Egypt. This difference is probably related to the fact that more people from New Zealand attribute sacred meaning to these objects, while Israelis are reluctant to do so because of their Jewish background. In a visit to the home of a New Zealand New Age follower, I saw a variety of Egyptian sculptures. The owner of the house dedicated one room to these objects. They were kept with much attention and pride. She explained to me: ‘The jackal, you ask him to protect you wherever you are, or you can ask Anubis, please look after my car’. This attitude can scarcely be found among Israelis. Furthermore, New Age followers in New Zealand attribute sacred meaning to papyrus, and again this meaning is almost completely absent among Israelis. Within the general context of Israeli society, papyrus documents are considered merely souvenirs. Because the pyramids are geographically close to Israel, Israelis used to visit them get papyrus souvenirs. These souvenirs had no mystical meaning for Israeli tourists. My mother, like many other tourists, used to hang it in her living room. She removed it recently and placed more fashionable objects on the wall. Thus, although the scientific and mystic knowledge of Ancient Egypt as well as the objects and practices that are associated with it comprise a centre within the global New Age network of thought, followers in a specific location might select several ideas, practices and symbols and neglect others. Israelis, for example, ignore Egyptian sculptures because they are associated with idol worship and papyrus goods because they are associated with old-fashioned, middle class tourism. To summarise, the shops that we study are public institutions. They represent the perspectives and feelings of a variety of populations. Much of the dialogue between different Israeli New Agers takes place in New Age shops. The findings of this study illustrate that the shop is a place where customers and shop owners negotiate their views. That is, it seems that the shop, as a New Age instituted place, provides a public space for debate. Much of these interactions are about the fit or misfit between global trends in the New Age subculture and its encounter with local ideologies. Local Influences in New Zealand The most prevalent phenomenon that has an impact on the New Age display window in New Zealand is Neo-paganism, particularly its association with female spirituality. In the 2001 New Zealand census, 5862 people, out of a total population of 3.7 million, identified themselves as some variety of pagan, of which 2196 said they were Wiccan (Rountree 2004). Wicca is one group under the general umbrella of paganism. Wiccans hold a holistic worldview, revere nature, use rituals and embrace Gods as well as Goddesses (Rountree 2004). In September 2000, the Federation of New Zealand Pagans was established; the first New Zealand Pagan Festival was held in 2002. Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 NEW AGE PRODUCTS IN LOCAL AND GLOBAL CONTEXTS The interest in Neo-paganism is reflected in the New Age market. There are several shops and wholesale companies in New Zealand that provide mainly witchcraft and occult supplies, including ritual tools, altar equipment, tarot cards and crystals, magical inks, runes and ritual oil blends. Among others, two stores carry the name Arcadia, a name for a Goddess used by Italian witches that is commonly used by many Wiccans now. One of these shops is owned and run by a practicing witch. The history of another store was described to me by its current owner in terms of types of magic: ‘At first the shop was low magic, associated with earth, and now the shop is associated with high magic, with gods or angels’. These observations are supported by other accounts. It is said that all New Zealand cities and a few large towns have shops catering to pagans, selling everything from candles, incense, crystals and herbs to organic menstrual cloths, individually crafted wands, and freshly mixed potions (Rountree 2004, 8). Another account reports on the opening of a shop in 1995 in the Wellington area focusing on women’s alternative spirituality. The shop stocked, among other items, Goddess artifacts and witchcraft ritual supplies (Benland 1996). Thus, both physical and virtual shops in New Zealand carry magic accessories. It is worth noting that the influence of American feminist witchcraft on feminist witchcraft in New Zealand is well documented. Famous American witches are quoted frequently, and most literature on the subject available in New Zealand comes from the United States. Many witches follow the format for rituals set out in American books; invocations, chants and spells are sometimes borrowed from them, and the important beliefs and values and few rules of the craft are noted (Rountree 2004, 85). Nevertheless, although the source of feminist witchcraft is the United States, it seems that it has been transplanted more completely in New Zealand than in Israel. Finally, the appropriation of indigenous culture by New Agers has been documented in the literature (see Possamai 2000, for a review). Yet it seems that this is not the case with local Maori spirituality. A few shops offer Maori jewelry, but Maori spiritual objects or texts are rarely found in New Zealand’s New Age shops. Why do not we see representations of Maori spirituality in the shops? My discussions with shop owners on this topic suggest that Maori spirituality is not perceived as part of the New Age. Several shop owners said that they are not souvenir shops and thus do not carry Maori goods. The absence of Maori items is of special interest since several aspects of Maori culture have been incorporated into the mainstream of New Zealand society. Children learn the Maori language and Maori stories, dance and ceremonial behaviour in schools. Often, secular ceremonies at institutions such as universities are opened with the blessings of the spiritual representative of the local Maori tribe. Yet it seems that Maori spirituality has only a marginal place in the New Age movement in New Zealand. Membership in the women’s spirituality movement in New Zealand rarely includes ethnic minorities such as Maoris (Benland 1996; Rountree 2004). Rountree (2004) argues that there is a hypersensitivity in New Zealand about appropriating any kind of cultural property from 267 Downloaded By: [Zaidman, Nurit] At: 19:57 3 November 2007 268 NURIT ZAIDMAN indigenous peoples. Because of this, the Goddess movement in New Zealand does not attempt to pursue or incorporate it to any great extent. Conclusions The market of New Age goods resembles ‘the globalised market of “nothing”’ described by Ritzer (2003). New Age shop owners prefer inexpensive goods that are produced mainly in China. They attribute little or no importance to the place of origin of these objects. The market of New Age goods also reflects customers’ demands, which fluctuate with time as well as fashion, and which are governed by ‘taste makers’ beyond the local region, whether Israel or New Zealand. But the global spiritual marketplace has its own rules. Unlike goods that are associated with the domain of ‘nothing’, New Age goods, once placed within a store, go through several processes by which they are given meaning (Douglas and Isherwood 1979; McCracken 1988) and become ‘something’ (Ritzer 2003). The results of this study should be interpreted in light of earlier research (Zaidman 2003, 2007) that show that there are processes and activities in New Age shops that are not associated with its commodity context but rather with the creation of sacred space. Once cheap objects are placed in the sacred space of the store, they acquire special meaning from their location and through the attitudes and activities of the seller and his customers (Zaidman 2007). Thus, the ‘spiritual global marketplace’ metaphor and the ethic of Western capitalism that is associated with it should be reinterpreted in light of the unique characteristics of the New Age as they manifest themselves in the actual field of trade and exchange. Moreover, it was found that the New Age markets of goods in Israel and New Zealand are not identical. The most prevalent influences on the New Age display window in New Zealand are Neo-paganism and female spirituality. In Israel, Judaism is a force that shapes the trade. Other contextual factors that affect the market of New Age goods are related to the values that societies attribute to the cultural products of the ‘other’. Israeli New Age followers ignore Egyptian papyrus goods because they are associated with tourism and are considered merely souvenirs. In New Zealand, Maori cultural products are perceived as souvenirs; in addition, Maori spirituality has not yet been embraced by the ‘taste makers’ and the local New Age activists are hesitant to appropriate it on their own. My research indicates that the New Age is an open system that manifests differently in each context. For example, Jewish mysticism has an influence on the market in Israel, and Neo-paganism plays a similar role in New Zealand. Both ideologies are part of the general New Age phenomenon, yet the particular socioreligious and political context (Sutcliffe 2003b) prioritise the acceptance of notions of the New Age network. Furthermore, these factors also have an impact on the selection of concepts and practices from a specific teaching. 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