Faith by demonstration: The connection between the history of paranormal phenomena and a New Age spirituality.

摘要

This study draws upon scholarship in history, religion, sociology, medicine, near-death studies, and New Age philosophy to understand recent reports of paranormal phenomena in their historical context. The popularity and frequency of reported near-death experiences (NDEs), ghostly apparitions, and other-world connections alleged by spiritualist mediums, reflect a cultural milieu in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century that might best be characterized as “New Age.” While the more immediate features of the New Age originated from the 1960s counterculture, its roots can be traced to early Protestant America with its expectations of a new millennium. The explosion of religious movements up through the antebellum era and the “modern heaven” elaborated upon by Spiritualists and other writers provide the foundation for New Age sensibilities. Also crucial to the flood of reported NDEs are the historical changes in emergency medicine and hospital care which this study considers before moving on to medical, psychological, and religious interpretations of the NDE. The history of mystical light and religious conversions are linked to the NDE and also the New Age. Some New Age proponents insist that the mystical light observed as the Cosmic Christ in NDEs has arrived to launch a paradigm shift and elevate humanity to a higher consciousness. They argue that only such a transformation can avert the dire portents of a nuclear holocaust or worldwide cataclysmic disaster.; Studies conducted in the late-twentieth century revealed that an overwhelming number of Americans expressed the desire for spiritual growth, yet almost half did not attend church. The New Age marketplace and media reports of paranormal phenomena have provided Americans with a spiritual or magical approach to the world which appears often to have taken the place of mainline religious institutions. While the designation, “New Age,” may change into something else, it belongs to a cultural milieu which turns to reported paranormal phenomena for amusement, enchantment, and spiritual transcendence.