Whole Life Times

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Whole Life Times

Whole Life Times is one of the more prominent networking journals to emerge in the 1980s to serve the growing New Age Movement. The possibilities of networking as a means of organizing without the burdensome hierarchies of pyramidal structures was placed before New Agers in 1982 by Jessica Lipnack and Jeffrey Stamps in their best-selling book, Networking: The First Report and Directory. Periodicals supplying addresses, phone numbers, and announcements of coming events and gatherings initially appeared in the major metropolitan complexes. In the Northeast, Whole Life served New York and Boston, but soon developed a section including Los Angeles. Whole Life evolved into two editions, one based in New York and one in Los Angeles. By the end of the decade, these had become independent publications with the Los Angeles edition taking the name Whole Life Times.

Whole Life Times follows a model pioneered by Common Ground, the original networking periodical serving the San Francisco Bay area. It is an oversized magazine built around a set of advertisements organized topically into a directory. Groups and events are arranged under such topics as astrology, beauty and personal care, healing and health centers, psychology and counseling, schools and instruction, and spirit and transformation. Each issue also includes an additional supply of display ads, the advertisements paying the cost of the magazine, which is distributed through health food and metaphysical bookstores without charge.

Also included in each issue is a set of feature articles about issues and personalities of interest to the continuing post-New Age community. These range from issues of health and personal spiritual and psychic development to profiles of channelers and psychic counselors. Additional content is supplied with news coverage and columns.

Whole Life Times is the largest circulating of the regional networking periodicals in the United States. It also organizes the Whole Life Expo held annually in the Los Angeles area. Publishing offices of the Whole Life Times may be contacted at P.O. Box 1187, Malibu, CA 90265. Its website is at http://www.wholelifetimes.com/.