A corner view of a store in Sedona, Arizona, that calls itself "The Center for the New Age". The mural visually depicts the kind of religious syncretism, or perhaps cultural appropriation, typical of new age spirituality. The sign of services extends the heterodoxy on offer inside, for a fee. In the bottom right, a small Buddha statue completes the bricolage.  ​

A centre for a new age. © Susannah Crockford

Sedona, Arizona, is a town known for its "vortexes", areas said to have a special, spiritual energy perceived in spiral formations, and as a result, a haven for new age spirituality. This picture shows a side of Bell Rock, one of the major "vortexes" in a town, also a rock formation around 479-feet high. It has become common for visitors to leave piles of rocks at the vortexes, as a way of marking the sacrality of the sites. Some piles are left in shapes that evoke other religious symbols, perhaps as a way of reclaiming or contesting the definition of that space as sacred.

A cross on Bell Rock. © Susannah Crockford

Dr Susannah Crockford is a postdoctoral researcher in anthropology at the University of Ghent, Belgium, as well as Assistant Editor for the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. Susannah is the author of Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona (2021).