A New Look at American Spirituality
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
According to the Fetzer Institute's recent study about spirituality in the United States, 86% of survey respondents considered themselves spiritual; about 66% aspire to be more spiritual; and people who identify as spiritual are more liable to be civilly engaged and get involved in politics and vote.
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Hack the Brain!
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Contemporary neuroscience is an essential ingredient in our understanding of human development, including our capacity for greater happiness and wisdom. In this podcast, author and educator Jim Hickman explains how our evolving understanding of the brain's functioning gives credence to the value of certain forms of spiritual practice, how spiritual practice "sculpts the brain," and how we can use what we're learning about the brain to develop enhanced cognitive, emotional and spiritual skills.
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The Mystic, the Psychic, the Paranormal
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
JeffreyJ J. Kripal mission is to extend religious scholarship into the realm of the preternatural. A professor and Associate Dean of Humanities at Rice University, he's pioneer in broadening religious studies to include things like mysticism, the paranormal and near-death experiences.
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Into the Mystic
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Former pharmacist Paul Corson explains how his transcendental experiences fundamentally changed his way of being in the world. He shares his born-again experience, the nature of miracles and, the relationship between spiritual substance and the material world.
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The Sara Minkara Story
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Don't think of Sara Minkara as a blind person. Think of her as as person who is blind. Social activist, speaker, and a winner of multiple awards, the founder of the advocacy organization Empowerment for Integration (ETI) has never let used her absence of vision of an excuse or crutch. A Blind, Muslim, first-generation American, Sara Minkara has spent her life on a journey toward not only acceptance but also real empowerment—for herself and everyone she meets.
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"Touching the Jaguar"
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Author, activist and renegade economist John Perkins traces his journey from Peace Corps volunteer to co-founding the Pachamama Alliance, a non-profit devoted to establishing a world future generations will want to inherit. Perkins is best know for his best-selling book, Confessions of an Economic Hitman.
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Digital Disruptor: The Internet's Impact on Religion and Spirituality
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Digital culture is transforming religion in multiple ways, from how people draw from multiple sources to define where they fit spiritually, to how they relate to institutional authority. According to Texas A&M Professor of Communication Heidi A. Campbell, the internet allows people to create their own religious tribe, apart from the confines of whatever congregation they belong.
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Galvanizing Change in this Pandemic Moment
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Most of us progressive-minded folks are members of multiple communities, be they religious, spiritual, environmental or political. What unites us are our values, the foremost of which is an innate sense of our sacred interdependence, or reverence for both the entirety of the interconnected web and all of its connected parts. This podcast explores the possibility of harnessing our energies for the full expression of the higher values that unite us: a project here called The Network of Light..
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Lucid Dreaming as a Pathway to the Divine
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Dream researcher Ryan Hurd explains how anyone can begin the process of working with their dreams, his studies on the impact of galantamine paired with meditation and dream reliving on subsequent dreams, and how dreams can be portals for the expansion of consciousness.
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Healing the Wounded Masculine
The podcast of the Sacred Inclusion Network
Men who exhibit toxic "Me Two" behavior are not just predators, but victims, says leadership coach and spiritual teacher Wendy C. Williams.
info_outlineWhen Casper ter Kuile and Angie Thurston began their research on their fellow Millennials in 2014, they discovered there were a lot of people who were just like them. Like many of the people they interviewed, neither were affiliated with traditional houses of worship. ter Kuile was a former activist who'd grown up in a secular household, while Thurston was deeply influenced by the Urantia Book, a spiritual and philosophical book popular in New Age circles.
They and the people they studied were members of what demographers have labeled "the nones," or people who said they had no religious affiliation. According to some studies, the number of Americans ages 18 to 29 who had no religious affiliation has nearly quadrupled in the last 30 years.
But, as ter Kuile and Thurston discovered, Millennial disdain for traditional religion didn't mean they'd abandoned the search for belonging and meaning. Instead, many were getting their spiritual needs met within secular organizations, many of which served roughly the same function as traditional churches.
But in a larger sense, ter Kuile said, "nothing has changed" in terms of people's need to fulfill their religious or spiritual needs. "The way it's expressed and the cultural context is changing."
ter Kuile here shares his own story, what he and his colleagues discovered in their research, and his thoughts on what traditional religious institutions can do to support this emerging landscape.
Links:
- How We Gather - home of a series of reports created by ter Kuile and his colleagues
- Casper ter Kuile's website
- The OnBeing Project
- Diversity and Spirituality Network's site
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