I have seen this sometimes, and I think, to be honest, that the people in question want to believe the same about themselves. As for the other aspect of privilege in the New Age community, I remember having discussions with a spirituality-minded friend in Shanghai about how working with privileged people would be very interesting; there are a lot of people in privileged positions who can’t understand why they aren’t able to access a deeper sense of meaning, and yet they have a deep and authentic desire to do so. Maybe someday I will be able to help people like this. Maybe not. :)

Given that New Age spirituality is far from monolithic, I’m lucky that my own New Age friends (primarily people I met outside of Shanghai) are open-minded and down-to-earth types who appreciate and advocate true personal empowerment: thinking for yourself, and grounding in love. Their influence was an invaluable barometer while I was in Shanghai; having such grounded, warm-hearted connections to fall back on as a standard honestly helped me re-orient myself many a time. It was a weird period in my life, but one I’m very thankful to have experienced and processed as I did!