In the 1960s the first signs of what would be called “New Age” appeared in the Netherlands. Then in the 1990s the holistic practices and beliefs associated with New Age seemed to transform into new spiritualities. In this chapter, I would like to reconstruct what happened during this half century in the field of these holistic practices and beliefs, drawing on empirical examples collected in the Netherlands. For this purpose, I will summarize descriptions and interpretations of the main events and complement these with some case studies. Moreover, I would like to develop another direction for the definition of most New Age and new spiritual activities and ideas – a direction that does not perceive them to be self-evidently “religious”, but as various forms of “secular sacralizations”! I am convinced that a careful exposition of some Dutch cases can clarify what can be called “religious”, and what can be seen as “secular”, but with a religious connotation: what I call a “sacralization”. This means that I concentrate on the levels of persons – their practices, beliefs and experiences – and of their organizations. My approach is that of the comparative study of religion.

First, I present an overview of the main New Age and spiritual phenomena of the past half century in the Netherlands, with special attention to three case studies. In the second section I analyse this Dutch situation with the help of accepted scholarly characterizations.