[Oe List ...] Speaking of Heresy

[LAURELCG at aol.com]

December 12, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Paranormal Flexibility 
By CHARLES M. BLOW
 
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report on Wednesday 
that  is bound to stir conversation about the increasingly complicated 
cacophony of  spirituality in America — a mash-up of traditional faiths, fantasy 
and  mythology. 
Entitled “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” _the report_ 
(http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=490#1)  points out that many  Americans are now choosing 
to “blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age  beliefs” and that “sizable 
minorities of all major U.S. religious groups” said  that they have had 
supernatural experiences, like encountering ghosts. 
For the first time in 47 years of polling, the number of Americans who said 
 that they have had a religious or mystical experience, which the question  
defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening,” was 
greater than  those who said that they had not.  
(Question: Does the first time I saw Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video  
count?)  
Twenty percent of Protestants and 28 percent of Catholics said they believe 
 in reincarnation, which flies in the face of Christianity’s rapture 
scenario.  Furthermore, about the same percentages said they believe in astrology, 
yoga as  a spiritual practice and the idea that there is “spiritual energy”
 pulsing from  things like “mountains, trees or crystals.” Uh-oh. Someone’
s God is going to be  jealous. 
Surprisingly, in some cases, those who identified themselves as Christian  
were more likely to believe these things than those who were unaffiliated. 
(It  should be noted that unaffiliated is not the same as nonbeliever. Many 
are  spiritual people who simply haven’t found the right church, synagogue, 
mosque,  coven, Ouija board club, or whatever.) 
Furthermore, 16 percent of Protestants and 17 percent of Catholics said 
that  they believe that some people can use the “evil eye” to “cast curses or 
spells  that cause bad things to happen.” I have to say that based on the 
looks my  mother used to shoot me when I was misbehaving, that evil eye thing 
might have  legs. 
Since 1996, the percentage of Americans who said that they have been in the 
 presence of a ghost has doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent, and the 
percentage  who said that they were in touch with someone who was dead has 
increased by  nearly two thirds, rising from 18 percent to 29 percent.  
For those keeping political score, Democrats were almost twice as likely to 
 believe in ghosts and to consult fortune-tellers than were Republicans, 
and the  Democrats were 71 percent more likely to believe that they were in 
touch with  the dead. Please hold the 
Barack-Obama-as-the-ghost-of-Jimmy-Carter jokes. Heard  them all.  
The report is further evidence that Americans continue to cobble together 
Mr.  Potato Head-like spiritual identities from a hodgepodge of beliefs — 
bending  dogmas to suit them instead of bending themselves to fit a dogma. And 
this  appears to be leading to more spirituality, not less. Cue the harps, 
and the  sitars, and the tablas, and the whale music. 

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