Where the boundaries of our knowledge lies - the beliefs and introspective speculation starts. Before, when our knowledge only included, from our relative view, crude understanding of our environment, childbirths were seen as miracles, rainbows as omens, the seasons as 'alive' and so forth, they were personifications of our own introspection and beliefs. The more we uncover of the underlying mechanisms behind these phenomena and the better we get to understand them, the more the beliefs and the introspection retreats in the wake of that understanding.
Beliefs are wholly irrational, they have a personification method of explanation attached, such as Thor throwing his hammer of lightning, and Poseidon causing storms in a rage. This is only caused by the way we either think or want it to be attached to our own being.
The New Age movements are simply synoptic personification of the intellectual 'struggle' between science and faith. With todays understanding of the underlying omni-present patterns and mechanisms in this Universe and the old discarded faith(s) have resulted into this fusion of belief and science.
Salomon Vágadal Joensen