Creating spiritual safeguards against the New Age wilderness: Testing beliefs

The New Age has been around for as long as I've been around. It was in the 80's that everyone thought it had reached its maximum peak. As a child I was blissfully unaware. Being unaware of the New Age didn't help me any. Instead I was lead right into it as a child who grew up in the world of "alternative medicine".  My father as a Christian naturopathic minded doctor tried to teach me about the difference between natural medicine and witchdoctors. He tried to explain the dangers of oriental philosophies in medicine. He tried to explain this to me, but the world of "alternative medicine" is a culture first and foremost. Cultures come with a shared basic set of beliefs and these slowly began to creep into my mind from a very young age.