Note: I wrote this after two generous glasses of port on an empty stomach…

Every so often, someone calls my translation of the I Ching or my work-in-progress on the Tao Te Ching “New Age.” They’ll say it dismissively, as if they’ve discredited the authenticity of my work, and the legitimacy of my scholarship. Funnier yet, not one has been able to competently articulate how and why my work is more “New Age” than its counterparts. For some reason, my interpretation is automatically assumed to be wrong if it departs from what some old white guy from the 50s wrote about these Chinese texts, and we give the old white guy, taking a Christianized outsider perspective, miles and miles of grace.

When pressed, their explanation collapses onto itself in circular reasoning. “It just sounds New Agey.” Or “Well it’s because she’s an occultist so she can’t possibly be unbiased, neutral, objective, and scholarly.” They’ll say it doesn’t sound like “ancient Chinese wisdom.” And that expectation is problematic.

Calling a native practitioner’s work “New Age” is not a neutral critique. It’s a microaggression cloaked as an academic judgment. The speaker is always intentionally, knowingly using the term “New Age” as a condescending call-out to discredit me, without actual proof, to imply that I lack intellectual rigor, or authenticity to tradition, or even seriousness, without actually being able to bring the receipts. Please explain how I’m not being faithful to the current Chinese scholarship on how we are to interpret classical Chinese terms and grammar. Please cite your sources and prove how you’re not being uncomfortably ignorant and maybe even a bit misogynist or racist, I’m not quite sure which one. See, these sorts of accusations are never about the work itself, but about who these people perceive me to be.

Calling my work “New Age” is erasing my ancestry in a knowing, intentional, insidious way. You’re assuming Eurocentric Western interpretations of Taoism as a philosophy is more “authentic” than shamanistic, divinatory interpretations of practical Taoism, and so anything that diverges from Wilhelm or Legge, who were both Christians by the way, must be “New Age.” The speaker assumes they are superior to me because somehow, they know “real” Taoism, or authentic Buddhism in a way that I don’t.

Even to say that what I’m transmitting about esoteric Buddhism from Mahayana traditions is “misinformation” because it departs from what a profit-driven egomaniacal self-identified guru who isn’t even purporting to practice the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism native to my part of the world has “taught” you is conflating the illusion of authority with religious or cultural authenticity, and commonly-accepted and popular with what is spoken from a native, lived practice.

Here’s what I know. I was born and raised in these traditions, and not just born and raised, but fully immersed, intensely enveloped and deeply entrenched in these religious and cultural communities. And then on top of it being what I was born and raised in, I do my homework. I do my research. I research how to do research before I do the research. I leverage my juris doctorate degree and my learned experience with research and writing peer-reviewed scholarship. I leverage my personal connections in these communities, someone with deep family ties to lineaged Taoism and esoteric Buddhism. Just because I chose not to be formally lineaged — precisely so I can speak this openly about esoteric Taoism and Buddhism — doesn’t mean I lack deep, culturally authentic and academically true familiarity with lineaged Taoism or esoteric Buddhism.

It’s also evident that some of these people are not so much judging the substance of my work as they are judging that work by my identity. I am a woman, a tarot reader, and don’t quite “look the part” per their expectations of what a serious Taoist practitioner should look. I’m called “New Age” not because something about my work is verifiably diluted or lacking rigor, but it’s because I’m a tarot reader and I like to bake cookies and take Instagram photos of said cookies. And somehow you can’t possibly be a scholar and a tarot reader, oh, and female to boot. So many female scholars feel this same pain or some variation of it. Research consistently demonstrates that woman scholars are scrutinized way more harshly than men. Calling my work “New Age” functions as a proxy for these biases, and not as a genuine, actual critique of the fidelity of my translations.

I don’t even know if I can fault the individual haters dismissing my work as “New Age” simply because of their bias against me as a person. Because it’s structural, it’s systemic. When a hater calls me “New Age,” it’s less about my work and more about me, as the person doing the translation. They’re not commenting about the work, though they’re trying to pass it off as if they are; they’re revealing a bias against my identity markers. It’s ignoring my deep study of classical Chinese texts, my methodology, my native immersion in Taoist and Buddhist practices, my deep familial ties to those communities, and my careful attention to historical and cultural context — it’s about reducing my scholarship and my lived experience in a catch-all Western stereotype about who I must be simply because of how I’ve presented myself. The label of my works as “New Age” is not only inaccurate, it is intellectually indefensible.

Academia and the esoteric community alike are still deeply entangled by centuries of patriarchy (and I know at least a segment of the naysayers hate-reading this now are rolling their eyes at the mention of patriarchy). How could I possibly have a strong culturally authentic and academically rigorous command over complex historical sacred texts? If it wasn’t my face or my name credited as the author, and it was an old white guy with a PhD who was credited with the same exact work, would his book be called “New Age”? I’ve spotted so many citation errors in the published academic works by old white professors but then when I go to read the critical reviews, no one calls them out. Women, though – critics are hell-bent on discrediting female scholars for some reason. Dismissing my work as “New Age” is cultural erasure, gender bias, and reliance on past Eurocentric authorities all wrapped up in one. And they won’t even admit it’s a subconscious bias that’s motivating their critiques.

My translations are not “New Age.” They are the continuation of inherited knowledge and understanding, which I’ve endeavored to articulate in a way that reconciles academic approaches to classical Chinese with living traditions and contemporary practice.

Oh by the way, I’m now on Substack! Going forward, posts like this one and other personal ramblings will be found there.