The New Age

With this issue, the Skeptic comes under a new editorial regime. Vicki Hyde, whose excellent New Zealand Science Monthly has recently hit the stands, comes aboard as managing editor. Vicki's extensive science journalism background, her publishing experience and her literate editorial eye — not to mention her sceptical temperament — make her the perfect person for the job.

This makes my decision to take over as editor quite easy. In fact, it presents an ideal image before the mind. Sitting with a good cigar and a glass of port in hand, I cast my eye over manuscripts and pass them on to Vicki, who then does all the work. (Many women will recognise this kind of relationship.)

We have a tough act to follow, as Phil Bradley and his co-workers, Mark, Karen and Andrew, produced the best Skeptic we've yet seen. With Vicki's professional contribution (and Bill Malcolm's splendid new logo), we hope to continue their high standard.

Just to prove that my image of an imperious, cigar-smoking editor is not all that far from fact, write these very lines in the bougainvillaea-covered garden of my Port Moresby hotel, behind razor-wire fortifications. The comfort won't last long, as I'm on my way to northern New Guinea to continue my studies of — or indulge my passion for — the art of the Sepik River.

Sepik carving is a living art, though not perhaps everything it used to be (the extent of and reasons for its decline are among the things I'd like to learn about). Nevertheless, at its best it possesses great aesthetic and even spiritual power.

I encountered another kind of spirituality just this afternoon in the form of a Catholic missionary. I'd judge the fellow had lost faith of a certain kind — he no longer harboured illusions about saving souls and converting the savages. After twenty-two years in Papua New Guinea, he was content simply to help people out where he could. | was inspired by his humane attitude, a far cry from the ugliness of many fundamentalist missionaries in this country.

High art and human kindness are ennobling ideals. How different from my experience of having wandered into a New Age bookshop in Sydney a couple of days ago. Increasingly depressed amid the astrology, healing crystals and Eastern pseudo-wisdom, | caught sight of a rack of little signs. These could go in the corner of a dressing mirror, though I would prefer to see them hung with fatal tightness around the neck of a few gurus.

The messages were simple and crude: I will attract the man I desire. My favourite read: I

deserve to be wealthy and attractive.

Here was the quintessence of the New Age. Spirituality for the Most Important Person in the World — me, me, me. No denial, no discipline, no need to give up anything. Spirituality for people who take. Spirituality on the cheap.