On the homepage this weekend, Clay Routledge has a piece in which he notes that Americans believe in the supernatural and paranormal even as they drift from organized religion. These are the “nones.” They are “religious” in no conventional sense, but many are “spiritual.”
“Young adults are less religious than older generations but are more inclined to believe in ghosts, astrology, and clairvoyance,” Clay writes. He suggests that belief in such putative manifestations of the supernatural, or in the “supernatural-lite,” as he calls it, is “alternative.” Belief that ghosts and clairvoyance exist is consistent with a lot of mainstream religion, though, and obviously no one doubts the existence of astrology. The question is how the believer should respond to spiritual phenomena and occult practices.
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