Not to answer for anyone, but I'd think that New Age types would imagine lots of benefits.  After all, they come from the tradition of believing that doctors are quacks and the real way to cure cancer is waving quartz crystals around.  If that turned out to be true, what an amazing benefit to everyone except insurance companies and doctors!

 

Newage, rhymes with 'sewage'...

 

Ya take an old superstition, wrap it up in s shiney new package, and sell it to idiots like Luminin....

 

LC >;-}>

 

I think the amount of intelligent substance in the New Age movement is about as much as that behind Cartman's attempt to travel back to 1776 in an episode of South Park where he had to complete a history report on the Founding Fathers:

Cartman (While hanging suspended over a water bath next to a plugged in DVD player): I am just about to flashback to the days of our founding fathers. I have programmed TiVo to record over 150 hours of the history channel. When Tivo is full, both TiVo and I will drop into the water, combining our              electro-whatever fields and sending me into a flashback of history"

Must ... control ... fist ... of ... death!

*cash desk bell ringing sound*

New Age is very broad cultural movement, and as we know, the only thing the most of people has in common, is idiocy, and thus the crowd is seen as stupid. For example, the human population as such behaves as a bacteria colony, consuming it's environment in self-destructive tendency.
There's a multitude of New Age types, there's even a "typical NA type", often caricaturized. These people rejects the unpleasant cold of a  solid church floor and at the same time, even worse cold of a materialistic universe, which is 0 Kelvin degrees. I haven't really met such NA followers, I know about them just from TV and doubtful magazines.
A lot of NA people started like that, from a curiosity, and after a time, they obtained real experiences and became convinced.

All N. A. followers, deluded or not, are generally not organized, definitely not in the broad sense. You won't see anyone to preach New Age on the street, at least not here, in Europe. There are NA festivals full of NA folk of various opinions, it is unique, for example, you wouldn't find a festival, featuring thousands of various christianic congregations, orders and sects. NA doesn't claim there is only one way or truth, unlike greater religions and atheism. It's a symbol of tolerance. Well, in general sense. As I mentioned, NA is really broad cultural movement, which means, that there are also many uncultured  movements.

Many people I know - which you would call New Age nutcases, became such because of numerous personal experiences.
They personally saw or experienced telekinesis, UFO, telepathy, miraculous healing, out-of-body experience, prophetic dreams, and so on. They just followed their multiple personal evidences wherever it leads. They don't automatically accept whatever is generally aligned with New Age, just what happened to them. This is something I can really agree with. Accept only what you can see or touch. If you can see or touch spirits, then don't ignore that fact.
Most of New Agers won't feel threatened by atheistic arguments, because they have their personal evidences, which is more than a claims of some guys over the internet. They know, that they're a minority - it is obviously natural to have a valid, mystical experience, while commoners wouldn't bet a crap on it. You know a logical fallacy of appeal to popularity. New Agers are also resistant towards an appeal to unpopularity.

What is New Age good for? At least it's a hobby - it gives a meaning to a life of a modern man or woman, who isn't satisfied by materialism. Our society is based on materialism, and it has it's disadvantages, so some people seeks for something more. At it's best, some New Age directions are philosopies, or downright sciences of finding the individual's purpose in modern society, shortly said, the sense of life, either individual, or even a life as such. It helps to understand the mechanisms of life and social relationships beyond the level you would consider possible and attainable, to what you'd consider an utopia and would be afraid of. It explains where are we from, who we are and where are we headed. It can accelerate the human development, help to create a permanently sustainable society. And it's nothing new at all, it's everything humans secretly knew, wanted and needed for millenia, but they mythicized, demonized or just forgot about it.

Now it's the time when we either start heading towards a permanently sustainable society, or die in the fire of our advanced technologies. Such a society inevitably must be based on such an utopic themes like freedom, justice and sharing, otherwise it won't be permanently sustainable. Things like lies, manipulation or repression are unstable elements, which after a time, always causes a fall of the empire, no matter how big. The only entirely beneficial rule is being a master over self.