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The Pop Spirituality Dichotomy
All this talk of monsters and entity encounters the past few days has been really energizing. It’s made me see a lot of things in a different light to hear so many first-hand accounts of weirdness from people who are very intelligent and together. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is this big dichotomy that exists in pop spirituality.
On the one hand, we have really successful pop spirituality gurus like Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, or even Ken Wilber. These guys are super popular and make tons of money from their seminars and other materials. Then, at the other far end of the spectrum we have things like UFO abductee conventions. And never the twain shall meet.
I personally don’t see a lot of difference between these two camps and what they’re after, but the culture that exists around them is just so different. It’s kind of a fascinating dichotomy really. I’m not really sure what to do with that realization, but it seems like a rather important one in terms of unlocking the modern phenomena of religion and spirituality. Anybody have any insights into this?
September 15th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
The word conspiracy makes people think of skulls and aliens and CIA hit men
the word spirituality makes them feel warm’n'fuzzy
Chopra, Dyers etc. make big $$$ improving peoples self-esteem and helping them relax.
The Christians see these new age healer types as a huge threat for that reason - helpful and humanistic but not Christ-centered, and thus too close for comfort
Art Bell and those cats OTOH make more $$$ tickling people’s desire to get creeped out and have a naughty thrill. The conspiracy thing is a huge market but doesn’t seem empowering - more like a parallel bizarro universe with its own t-shirts, codewords, assumptions, etc.
You can combine those things. You can be relaxed and happy and immersed in spooky things that give you a kick and keep an open mind about what may or may not be really going on behind the scenes. To me that is being an occultist. SOmewhere between the two world described above.
Can occultism be made pop? By definition it is hidden. Certain books that really inspired me, made me realize what was possible though:
RE/SEARCH : Pranks, Modern Primitives
Peter Carrol : Liber Null & some subtitle I can’t remember
Colin Wilson : The Occult, Beyond the Occult
Jason Black : Urban Voodoo, Pacts with the Devil
A lot like yer own site actually a lot of these books present subversion, creativity, magic as matter of fact things that real people do in and with their lives, speaking from their own experience. Like with seeing monsters, it is very liberating to realize that other people have and continue to do so - you’re not alone, you’re not crazy.
To be exposed to the idea that life, art, religion and magic are all one seamless whole and so symbols you create affect your reality and then vice-versa is very powerful - it makes you want to start experimenting yourself!
September 15th, 2005 at 10:43 pm
The spiritual, or romantic-occultism, ghosts etc. provide a deeper sense of mystery. It serves to revitalize the curious inner child. Most of the UFO / abduction crowd falls under techno-occultism, and they are bent on resolving “the” mystery by recovering some tangible, or physical evidence, slicing and dicing it in a laboratory etc. So it’s kinda like “mystifies vs. quantifies”.
September 16th, 2005 at 2:29 am
I’ve been involved with both camps: Pop Spirituality culture and UFO culture and my observation is that the former camp is searching for meaning by going within, while the later camp find meaning by looking outside themselves for answers. There is also an economic dichotomy: those following a spiritual guru spend a lot more money in their quest. It’s refreshing to attend a UFO conference and only have to spend a few bucks! Ufologists tend to be less pretentious, maybe a little geeky, but at least they know implicitly what they desire. Both camps have kept me greatly entertained.
September 16th, 2005 at 12:02 pm
I think that issue of class is a really important one. Folk religion for somebody with thousands of dollars to blow is going to be really different from someone with only a couple hundred.