The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life report on spirituality in America just came out, with some interesting numbers. These surveys have been going on since the 1960s, and the latest survey showed increases or stable numbers in the usual categories. The U.S. is a faithful nation, but highly eclectic. The churchgoing percentage is high (35%), but a quarter of us blend traditional Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs such as reincarnation, astrology and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects. According to Pew, “sizeable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups say they have experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts.”
But one figure has really spiked. Nearly half of the public (49%) now reports that they have had a religious or mystical experience, defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening.” This figure is much higher than in 1976 and 1994 and more than twice as high as in 1962, when it was 22%. How do we explain this?
Understanding why people are ‘awakening’—and why the percentage will be much higher in future surveys—flows from knowing that larger forces are at work. Those forces impact the energy states, or consciousness, of each of us around the globe. We are energetic beings, composed of vibrating waves of light. As more energy is poured into our system, including our bodies and earth, everything vibrates faster. As we vibrate faster, our consciousness—our thoughts and emotions—change. Suddenly, many of us recognize, at a deep level, that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. We ‘awaken.’
