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New Everyday Spirituality Blog

Riots, looting and the search for an alternative

During the election campaign of 2010 David Cameron was pictured astride a Quattro with the slogan ‘It’s time for change’, with Labour’s comeback replacing the slogan with: ‘Don’t let him take Britain back to the 1980s’. The ad of course mimicked the much loved ‘Life on Mars’ character Gene Hunt, who was always ready to fire up his dream machine and leap into aggressive action.

I doubt even Mr Cameron realised at the time just how close he would end up taking us back to the 1980s. The cuts, strikes, riots and disaffected youth that have erupted since he took his seat at Number 10 have brought us eerily close to the ‘Ghost Town’ immortalised by The Specials in 1981. Yet today as Britain faces another night of potential violence and destruction, and politicians and the police are vociferously insisting (on every news channel, blog or social networking forum they can get access to), that the full force of the law will be used against the perpetrators, I wonder whether there may be a less aggressive, less violent, and more positive way of trying to turn the tide of social disintegration and urban anarchy we appear to be facing.

Former atheist, Shelley Yates experienced communicating with spirit beings when she died before being brought back to life. She now believes we are all spiritual beings capable of creating miracles, and that collectively we have the potential to heal the world, not just destroy it. In 2007 and 2009 she co-ordinated two global meditations, and is planning the third for November 2011. In the first of these ‘Fire the Grid’ meditations millions of people took part in over 80 countries, spending an hour doing something that brought them joy, with the aim of shifting the earth’s vibrations to produce a better future for our children.

A cynic would say this is wishful thinking, and that looking for the joy in everything simply ignores the very real misery and suffering we see around us everyday. This is a fair point, however, there is something to be said for focusing on the positive and joyful things that are going on around us everyday, rather than allowing the negativity to expand and fill every waking moment. It is a core principle in things like mindfulness or cognitive behaviour therapy for instance, which aim at changing the way people think about and react to the world around them. And although this may not always be sufficient to change the world in itself, it can give people the tools and confidence to tackle issues which previously appeared insurmountable.

The problem is we rarely see anything positive portrayed in the media – and if we do it comes as the ‘and finally…’ story at the end of the ‘more important’ news of misery and destruction. What if every single one of Shelley’s millions of people in their 80 countries had been given media time to show people that there are some positive things going on in the world if we just sit up and take notice? Could we retrain the media to see the positive in the world, or is nobody interested?

What has this to do with this week’s looting? Well I was one of the peaceful marchers on 26 March in the London March for the Alternative this year. I spent all day surrounded by millions of other peaceful marchers, supportive police and a genuine sense of being in this together, for each other. Yet in the days that followed all I saw in the newspapers and on television were reports of the tiny minority of protestors who had decided to use violence and force to get their message across and shatter communities as a result. People I spoke to knew only this side of the story, and heard nothing about the genuine sense of togetherness and community spirit that arose for those who had taken the time out to march and make a positive stand.

What if the headlines the following day had been about this instead? – Cameron’s ‘big society’ out on the streets and ready to come together in the hope of making a positive change for our kids. It was an amazing sensation to be a part of that, it felt liberating, empowering and potentially (if rather idealistically!) world-changing. Whilst some may argue it had no real impact and didn’t change the world for the better, many thousands of people who took part in that march have since gone on to stand up for services in their local communities, to volunteer to keep community initiatives running despite the cuts that have closed so many others down, or to lobby their MPs and secure changes - however small - in the cuts being proposed. They continue to believe in an alternative. But our media has chosen to ignore this potential for peaceful change and focus instead on the more headline grabbing violence of the few, reinforcing in the reader’s mind that we are a society out of control on self-interest and mindless violence.

But are we? Shelley Yates and the millions of participants in her global meditations think not, yet where were the headlines when they performed their peaceful demonstrations to heal the world rather than destroy it? It would appear it doesn’t make good news, however many millions are involved. Perhaps it is time for an alternative - not to fire up the Quattro and return to the misery of the Ghost Town, but instead to take a leap of faith and fire up the grid! Whether or not it has any concrete impact in our material world, at least it won’t involve a massive clean-up the following morning, and nobody will get hurt. At the very least, it will ensure everyone thinks about something joyful for an hour instead of all the misery. Surely that can’t be a bad thing.

Medium Madness on the BBC?

Broadcaster Rosie Millard had a right bee in her bonnet this weekend, over the question ‘should money making mediums be banned?’ discussed on this week's Sunday Morning Live. She had a double pronged attack: firstly, that charging by these ‘con-artists’ should be banned, and secondly, that if mediums have a ‘gift’ then they shouldn’t charge for it. It should be offered freely. As one of the studio guests pointed out, her reasoning was therefore slightly flawed and contradictory, and the programme failed to open the floor for intelligent debate.

The ‘experts’ in the studio consisted of the irate Rosie Millard and a Radio talk show host, neither of whom seemed to have any genuine insight into the issue under discussion (or should that be ‘under attack’). The exception was Seema Malhotra, Director of the Fabian Women’s Network, who kept pointing out that it is not up to ‘us’ to impose our own values and beliefs on others. She said if those who consult mediums – and pay for it – get comfort and guidance, others have little right to denigrate it just because they don’t believe.

Seema also pointed out that if Rosie wanted to ban people paying mediums for their ‘gift’ or ‘service’, then we would presumably have to start judging on whether we can charge or pay for other ‘gifts’ and ‘services’, such as art, psychology or even journalism (though whether the latter is either a gift or a service is debatable right now).

For a programme which is meant to debate moral issues intelligently this item was poorly put together. When they did actually talk to a medium, this was only on a video link and they did not do the courtesy of putting her name up on the screen like they did for the other guests. And during the entire video-link Rosie looked down her nose at the medium as if she was something nasty she had just trodden in.

Rosie wanted to know where the ‘scientific proof’ was that mediums can talk to the dead and that there is life after death. Presumably if she had this proof she would be happy for mediums to charge, even if they are invested with a gift? But my feeling is perhaps the programme was asking the wrong questions of the wrong people. If they had taken a little more time to research the knowledge we do have about the social and psychological value of things like visiting mediums or believing in life after death, then they might have had a more interesting discussion about whether people (mediums, psychologists, artists, journalists, or whoever) should be able to charge for bringing comfort, healing and security to some people’s lives.

Professor Chris French began to explore the reality (as opposed to Rosie’s hysteria), by pointing out that such beliefs can bring psychological help and comfort, and if people take comfort from that, and they are adults, then that is their choice. But they spent little time talking to him, and completely failed to address the spiritual links and underpinnings to the whole issue. They also completely missed the point that professional mediums are only one small part of a much larger population that is actively exploring the whole ‘life after death’ question. As Seema tried to make clear, we need to know more about the impact of this in people’s lives and only then should we pass judgement. They couldn’t do this on the show because they hadn’t done the necessary research beforehand.

If the BBC had invited me I could have answered Seema’s point, and told them that there is a wealth of scientific knowledge out here. But Seema apart, they didn’t really seem to want to know, and besides, I don’t think I could have braved Rosie’s arrogance and condescending looks.

Grave stones and kipper ties

At The Open University we pride ourselves on being at the forefront of developments in distance learning. In the early days, this meant late night television programmes with mad scientists wearing kipper ties – the hallmark of what our University stood for. Today it is about high profile prime time television series such as ‘Coast’, but it is also about using the online environment creatively to deliver course materials to students in the best possible ways.

As academics at The Open University, we can feel cut off from our student body, and students can find the faceless course materials a little impersonal – never knowing who really produced the things they are studying. One of the ways we can overcome this is to build on the OU’s history of audio-visual expertise, and many of our online courses now have embedded within them carefully crafted video presentations so students can meet the academics behind the scenes, learn about their research, and get a sense of that face-to-face learning they might enjoy at a more conventional university. Of course putting yourself in front of camera requires certain skills and competencies, and the confidence that you can ‘get it right’.

So staff at the OU are offered opportunities to go on intensive ‘media training’, where they can learn how to record a piece to camera. And this is why yesterday afternoon I found myself striding through a graveyard, chucking tarot cards over my shoulder and talking earnestly into the lens of a camera held by a cameraman backing away from me; both of us trying not to trip over fallen gravestones in the process.

When I mentioned to the production team that I was thinking of using tarot cards as a prop they had immediately jumped on the idea of using the graveyard as the location. I found myself feeling a little ambivalent however. I was talking about my research - and my research shows that people’s relationship with spirit, otherworldly entities and the deceased is not all about graveyards and churches. The message from my research is that, for some, the power of spirit is all around in everyday places, and not restricted to stereotypically ‘spooky’ sites or encounters.

Yet there’s no denying that gravestones and churchyards speak symbolically of spirit and otherworlds, and I have to admit that shooting on location next to the church was a lot more appealing than sitting behind a desk in the recording studio. So there I was, pacing slowly forwards through overgrown grass and grave plots, wondering whether I was going to get to the end of my piece-to-camera without falling over, wondering how we might be able to use a similar technique in our new course, and wondering of course if I was 'getting it right'… But I think above all else, I was wondering whether I should have worn a kipper tie for the day.

Is there anybody there...?

'In a secularised Protestant society such as Britain, the living and the dead are separated not only physically, but also conceptually, with transgressors across the boundary (ghosts, prayers for the dead, appearances of the dead to the bereaved, spiritualist mediums) treated with suspicion’ (Walter, 2004. 472).

As I near the end of this particular stage of this project I have been reflecting on the process of crossing Walter's 'boundary' for research purposes. For those who regularly weave a ‘spirit world’ into their everyday living, it becomes a vital component in the fabric of their social and material worlds. As a researcher, seeking, encountering and interpreting these worlds, I know they cannot be extracted from how we think and theorise about the visible and material worlds we think we know.

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However, when speaking to an audience of peers - with both feet firmly planted on one side of Walter's boundary - I have found it is not only the transgressors who are treated with suspicion, but also myself for choosing to present them as valid research concerns. And so I have had to tread carefully in terms of how I present what I have found, to whom and in what context.

I am now fully immersed in the process of 'disemmination'. Of course the main 'output' will be the book with Palgrave Macmillan, but under pressure as academics always are to publish widely and present far and wide, I have to find as many different dissemination roots as possible, to make the most of every bit of data and every insight gleened.

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In this process audiences are of course diverse - I have included some of my research findings in a chapter on living with ME in a book on long term conditions coming out with Sage in the Autumn. The audience here is likely to be students and practitioners wanting to develop insight into caring for and coping with long term conditions, for whom the 'spooky' angle touched upon in my chapter may be pushed aside in favour of concentrating on more concrete matters of the here and now. I have presented at the Vital Signs Conference on 'Engaging Research Imaginations' at Manchester University, here the audience were a receptive mix of social scientists and humanities scholars, unusually open (for academics!) to the idea that for some people spirit lives alongside them in everyday spaces and places. And today I have a piece in the latest issue of The Journal of Paranthropology, the readership of which I should imagine will have no concerns about the legitimacy of crossing Walter's boundary.

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And then there is my day job. Senior Lecturer in Health and Wellbeing, where I work with practitioners and scholars who stand in high regard in their field and whom I admire considerably. But it is slightly more difficult sometimes amongst them to explain precisely what the place is of transgressing the boundary for those who use spirit connections to enhance their health and wellbeing. This is how a conversation went with one of my colleagues over coffee one morning:

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Sara: I’m interviewing people about their experiences with angel healing.
Colleague: Angel healing? What’s that?
Sara: It’s where the healer channels energy from angels.
Colleague: But angels don’t exist do they, so how can they heal? That’s just ridiculous! [Nervous but self-righteous laughter]

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Now according to our code of ethics, researchers within The Open University have to: ‘Treat all those associated with their research with respect.’ So how should I have responded to my colleague? I know how she was expecting me to respond. She wanted me to laugh it off with her, to support her own unease and discomfort, and say of course angels don’t exist and it is all nonsense. But how would that be showing my research participants respect?

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So as I throw myself back over the boundary, and into the very earthly process of dissemination, I find myself grappling with precisely how far, when and with whom, I can push against that invisible divide. For social scientists to be interested in their place in the world, it really doesn't matter whether angels 'exist' or they don't. What matters is the effect that believing in angels can have on a person's world of experience. And that, as I have been finding out, can be immeasurable!

Harvest Festivals: What does it all mean?

The Corn King gives his life for the land

We toast his sacrifice with ale in our hand,

And eat the bread, from the harvest made,

As sheaves of corn to the earth are laid.

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It's the harvest festival at my kids' school today. And I sent them off, no not with loaves of bread or bags of fruit, not even the tin of baked beans or bottle of stout that it used to be when I was a girl, but with a bag of loose change. For today when they learn about the annual celebration of what the land has given us through our sweat and toil, they won't be compiling food parcels for local people in need, but will be counting coppers to send to charity.

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Ok, so the end result might be the same - giving to help those who need it, and I don't object to that at all. But there are plenty of other opportunities for them to put pennies into buckets and boxes, or raise money for relief campaigns. What I wonder about is what the harvest festival is meant to signify. Isn't it about our relationship with the land? Wouldn't this be an ideal time for the school to discuss not just notions of 'Christian charity' (with a Pagan festival!), but also to raise kids' awareness of just how precious the land is for our survival. Rather than send the message out yet again that all that counts at the end of the day is hard cash.

ME Awareness Day: All in the mind?

Today is ME Awareness Day and people with ME everywhere (myself included!) are fighting to get wider recognition and understanding of this debilitating and often devastating condition.

As a strange coincidence I am also writing a chapter on ME for a forthcoming book on longterm conditions. For this chapter I'm particularly interested in finding people who use 'alternative' healing approaches for their ME, from the obvious homeopathy and accupuncture, to less conventional alternatives, such as crystal therapy or angel healing.

But what is interesting is that there seems to be quite a lot of animosity amongst ME sufferers towards any suggestion that such healing approaches might be of any benefit to them. It seems that because ME is already often dismissed as 'all in the mind' by some people, that many who are diagnosed with ME are then reluctant to subscribe to anything else which is seen as equally 'non-provable'.

Yet in my mind, does it matter if something has been scientifically validated if it exists or works in the lives of those it affects? By this I mean - I know I have ME and that it affects my life, regardless of how many scientists or medics might try and dismiss it as 'all in the mind'. As a student of Reiki I also know that when I receive or give myself Reiki healing it energises me and can ease pain. Now I have no idea either what causes my ME, or what it is that is happening when the Reiki relieves me. But I do know that for me, both have very real effects in my life, ragardless of their lack of scientific credibility.

Surely there must be more ME sufferers out there who would agree..?

Psychic Beliefs: do you share yours?

Let me introduce to you my great grandmother - who was a practicing spiritualist medium at a time when she could still have been convicted under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. Police officers would regularly attend her seances undercover, trying to prove she was up to no good. Unfortunately for them, her guides would always draw her attention to the fact that there was 'someone with big feet' in the room who shouldn't be - and she would calmly welcome 'the police officer amongst us' and scare the living daylights out of them!

Today Alan Power is going to court to claim that his psychic beliefs led to his sacking from the police. Alan is using rules designed to prevent religious discrimination in the workplace. His former employers are claiming his beliefs did not amount to a 'religious conviction' - despite Alan having been a member of the Spiritualist Church for 30 years. As the Spiritualist Church is one of only two legally recognised religions in Britain today, my feeling is that Alan has a point. Good luck to him.

The police regularly use psychic investigators to try and gain insight into problematic cases, but appear to prefer to keep this aspect of their work out of the public eye. In 2006 apparently 28 police forces denied using psychics at all - which still leaves many more who either do, or are unwilling to commit either way.

Given Alan Power's experience such silence is understandable. And I'm sure he is far from alone in facing discrimination in the workforce because of his spiritualist beliefs - namely, that there is life after death and it is possible to communicate with the dead. After all, wasn't there some other famous man who was meant to have returned from the dead and communicated with his people..? And I'm not sure any employer could get away with sacking someone for believing in Jesus; even in this secular age.

Divine guidance? Angels, tooth fairies and what we can 'know'

"Do we really know anything and, if so, what?

And how do we know it?

And how do we know that we know it?

And how do we know that we know that we know it?"

(Jones and Wilson (1987) An Incomplete Education. Page 302).

In a recent posting on the website of The Telegraph Christopher Howse reported on the possible presence of angels amongst us. Suggesting 38 per cent of Britons believe in angels he said ‘a university lecturer’ had criticised parents for dismissing their children’s reports of angel sightings.

Howse doesn’t say who that university lecturer is, but his article raises interesting questions and provoked heated comments from readers. These ranged from numerous reported angel sightings by both adults and children, to a fair number of postings expressing a huge degree of animosity, from those who hadn’t seen angels and knew they never would.

What is it that makes people so angry about the possibility of there being things we are yet to fully understand?

And even if angels don’t ‘exist’ (whatever that might mean), for those who believe they exist they have a very real impact on their lives.

One irate commentator said there has never been any tangible evidence of anything like Angels, Father Christmas or God. I’m guessing he would probably include the tooth fairy in that list. Yet thousands of lucky children have tangible evidence of the tooth fairy’s existence. They believe that if they put a tooth under their pillow at night the tooth fair will come and take it and replace it with a coin.

And thousands of children have their theory proved right by the very tangible evidence of a coin the next morning.

Who or what the tooth fairy may be is disputable, but their belief in the existence of a power which can manifest that coin is strong enough to bring that coin into being. The child who knows there is no tooth fairy refuses to put the tooth under their pillow. And hey presto they too have their proof of its non-existence because they don’t receive a coin.

If we believe there are people – or angels – out there who are there to generate good and positive experiences in our world, then chances are we will come across people and opportunities that generate those good experiences.

Whether or not there is ‘tangible evidence’ of the precise origin of that good experience seems somewhat irrelevant to those whose lives have benefited.

Spiritual spaces?

One of my research participants had an interesting experience recently. Upon trying to get his Tarot workshop advertised he was excluded from a particular publication on the grounds that it did not cover anything to do with 'spirituality'.

Upon a quick flick through said publication he came across an advertisement for a 'church walk'. He was informed by the editors that churches had not been seen as 'spiritual' and had therefore been included. Fairly ironic given the fact that they remain one of the most widespread physical expressions of spirituality in the British landscape.

My participant felt discriminated against.

I am sure many church goers would also be horrified to know their sacred spaces had been deemed non-spiritual.

What does consititute a spiritual space and can we distinguish between mainstream and minority spiritual interests in today's society?

Magical circles

In the summer of 2008 a beautiful stone circle appeared on the beach at Aberystwyth. As the days passed, people added to the circle, created baby circles alongside it, a pathway up to it, they washed the stones, photographed it, meditated on it…Perhaps surprisingly the only thing they didn’t do was destroy it – that was left to the sea during a particularly strong high tide some weeks later.

People have used the circular form in many types of guides for centuries. From stone circles such as Castlerigg and Stonehenge designed to align seasonal changes and agriculture, to manmade circles such as the compass and clock-face which have been key to human exploration of our planet. The circular mandala serves as a spiritual tool and meditative aid. In all its forms the circle represents our human drive to create order out of chaos.

The circle is so common to human life that it easily draws our attention, but is equally easily overlooked. What was it about this circle that inspired admiration, nurture and reverence, rather than the more common response in this day and age of destruction, vandalism or even official removal in the interests of ‘health and safety’ or some equally spurious justification?

Have you come across similar appearances in the landscape?What did you do there and why?What do you think inspires people to make such features and what is it that makes people add to them and admire them rather than disturbing or destroying them?

Feature in Soul & Spirit Magazine

Readers may be interested to see a recent feature I had published in February's issue of Soul & Spirit magazine.

It's generated lots of interest, and hopefully will boost traffic to the blog too!

www.soulandspiritmagazine.com

Spiritual triggers

‘The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new
landscapes but in having new eyes’ (Marcel Proust)

I’ve just returned to work after a period of longterm sick leave. Illness often sets us off thinking about questions such as:

What happens if I can’t go back to work?

What happens if I’m too ill to go out on Saturday night?

What happens if I die?

Very different questions, but all are directed at a central sense of what makes life meaningful for us and how we comprehend a meaning to life if we cannot see ourselves in it making the contributions we are so used to making.

At the heart of it is a need to connect on some level to something meaningful, which obviously for those bed-ridden and suffering from longterm illness isn’t always easy to do physically.
An ill person is embodied in a semi-functioning physicality. And what this does is to highlight both the importance of the body and its insignificance:

• Important because through illness we suddenly feel let down by our bodies, we realize how much we rely on them functioning efficiently to get us to work, to maintain relationships, to do meaningful things with our spare time.


• Yet insignificant because a really chronic or severe illness can show us just how it is possible to survive and exist meaningfully outside the confines of that body which is letting us down.
  

So the body might be a site for ‘triggers’ which propel us into a search for meaning beyond our embodied selves. And this is often where a spiritual journey begins. This trigger may be in the form of illness, but it can also come from suffering abuse, a mid-life crisis, or it may even come in less earthly forms such as an encounter with an angel or a spirit guide.

What triggered your spiritual journey…?

Divination discrimination?

My husband and I enjoyed one of those Jungian moments of synchronicity last night. As one of the first clues came up on Only Connect (the BBC’s answer to mindless quiz shows for people with a knowledge of the Greek alphabet), he turned to me and said ‘Is there some kind of Tarot connection?’

There wasn’t. But in the next question there was, they were all other forms of divination - astrology, numerology, palmistry and tasseography. However, this wasn’t the only link to the world of divination in last night’s programme. On a later question four of the Major Arcana from a deck of Tarot cards featured as players for spot the connection. Although nobody could actually group the four together, one contestant did ask if they might be cards from the Tarot. Victoria Coren confirmed his guess, yes they were all cards from the Tarot, and, she added, they probably all foretell death and doom like all the Tarot cards do.

Those who use the Tarot as a tool for divination or simply to explore their link to a wider spiritual story will tell you however, that even the Death card rarely actually refers to death. So why does Tarot still have this outdated image of evil, darkness and the occult? There is more death and destruction within the pages of the Bible than your average Tarot deck, and the Bible itself is often used for divination – Bibliomancy.

So what is it precisely that people like Victoria Coren are so fearful of?

Do you use divination?

What form and why?

What reaction do you get from others?

Me, myself and I..? Or something more important..?

‘What we need to understand here is

the moral force behind notions like

self-fulfilment. Once we try to explain

this simply as a kind of egoism, or a

species of moral laxism, a self-indulgence…

we are already off the track’

Charles Taylor (1992) The Ethics of Authenticity

There is a debate in the social sciences I wanted to share with you. Some might say it would be best left where it is. However, I am going to try to give it an airing here because I am interested in your thoughts.

There is much criticism, amongst social scientists, of contemporary forms of spirituality. They see it as nothing more than self-obsessed navel gazing, the product of a society of individuals obsessed with nothing but themselves. For others however this argument is missing the point. For them there is something beneath the veneer of self-obsession which is about a moral ideal we seem to have lost sight of. They would suggest there is a reason people are ‘looking within’ - and that reason is to find the moral compass that guides human actions and notions of what is right and wrong.

Alister Hardy suggested there is an innate spirituality in the human race based on a relational consciousness which has been maintained because it serves us well in terms of survival (this is a spirituality quite divorced from any cultural articulation of this into ‘religion’). So this might also suggest that we have an innate moral drive to connect beyond the immediate state of isolation we find ourselves within by virtual of being individuals. And that ‘self-spirituality’ therefore isn’t an end in itself - i.e. reflecting that we are merely self-obsessed and don’t want to look any further than what we can find within ourselves - but that self-spirituality is in fact a process which leads us back to that innate inner drive to seek out our connection with others.

All around us we see examples of people embarking on ‘personal journeys’ to ‘find the real me’, and the process itself, the ‘journey’, becomes the end in itself, rather than it being a means to an end. Or alternatively it is presented as a process to engage with in order to become a 'better person', a 'better' worker, a 'better' mother, father, lover… there is always room for improvement and always the threat that we just might not be 'good enough'.

Have we have lost sight of the purpose of being in touch with the inner self?

Is it all about the self?

Or is there something more?

Are those who follow a path to inner spirituality solely engaged in that soul-searching for the purpose of getting to know ‘themselves’, or are they engaged in that process in an attempt to get in tune with that innate essence which is in fact shared across all other individuals, and once awakened can serve to reunite and reignite some sense of transcendence or significance beyond that individual self?

I guess basically I am asking – are you in this just for the journey, or is that journey actually going somewhere more significant than yourself..?

New name for a new age..?

Everyday I come across people who are involved in some kind of spiritual exploration, including those of you who are part of this blog. I hear stories of connecting with spirit through meditation or mediumship, I hear tales of walking with nature, I hear descriptions of crystals carried in pockets and prayers said to angels.

But when I ask anyone to label what it is they are doing for me, they struggle. Some say they are 'workers for spirit', others describe themselves as 'happy generalists' content in exploring whatever works for them.

Ten or twenty years ago, these sorts of practices would most likely have come under the heading of 'New Age'. But nowadays New Age seems to carry a distinct stench of cannabis, caravans and, dare I say it, mothballs (metaphorically speaking, of course). It was something which implied 'leaving behind' much of what contemporary society stood for.

Yet the crystal carriers and meditation practitioners I am talking to today do not tell me they have left behind the trappings of modern life in this way, indeed quite the opposite, they often bring these spiritual tools and experiences right into their everyday lives. I myself carry crystals but remain quite happy in my 1930s semi in suburban England.

So does 'New Age' still serve as a useful label for alternative spiritual practices, or is it time to find a new name?

The New Agers heralded quite literally a New Age, one where we would be spiritually enlightened and at one with the earth; they drew on many traditions including Eastern philosophies, Paganism and Gaia theories. And many New Age camps, communities and individuals continue very much in this vein. But does this adequately describe what the people I am talking to are telling me about?

New Agers were on a crusading counter-cultural drive to change the world for the better. They used techniques, practices and everyday lifestyles which seemed unfamiliar and unusual to mainstream Western capitalist society. Perhaps it is the years of very visible 'New Agers' that now makes it more ‘normal’ to do things which were once considered ‘alternative’, such as meditation, Tai Chi, or crystal healing.

The New Age pioneers were the ones who stressed self-actualisation, recycling, animal rights and green consumerism. And these are now mainstream middle of the road middle-class values... So perhaps what I am exploring has been an unintentional spin-off from the original more purposeful counter-culture.

So what is the new name for this new age..? Answers and comments most welcome...

For God's sake....?

"If there were no God, there would be no Atheists"

GK Chesterton (1874-1936)

In the UK less than a third believe in God, whilst in the US only one member of Congress has ever admitted being an Atheist. So what is our relationship with God in contemporary society?

What does 'God' mean to you?
Is there 'a' God?
Are there many, or none at all?

What purpose does 'God' fill for you ...if any?

Any room for Baby Jesus?

As I sat yesterday morning in the school hall, perched precariously on a tiny plastic chair with my knees in my armpits, eagerly awaiting the arrival of my youngest and her class mates onto the stage set ready for this year's nativity play, I mused on the annual controversythis event in the primary school calender causes.

From informal conversations in the playground, I am fairly sure that the majority of parents in the audience would not be practising Christians. Although I know there were certainly Atheists, practicing Muslims and Pagans in the assembled parent body. Yet nobody voiced concerns that the nativity play was out of place in a school, may be offensive, or in anyway biased towards one interpretation of events (although I'm a little bit dubious that even Christians really believed there were dancing snowflakes and a talking rabbit at the crib-side).

Yet a few weeks ago, some members of the parent body had complained, as Christians, that they did not celebrate Halloween and they therefore re-named the 'Halloween Disco' to the 'Autumn Festivals Disco'. (If they are objecting to the Pagan origins of the festival, perhaps they should look more closely at the origins of some of our other festivals now adopted by mainstream Christianity).

So - it got me thinking. Whilst adults are busy arguing over which festivals we should be allowed to 'promote' in the classroom, there is less debate going on about how we promote these festivals to young minds. As a non-Christian, I for example, have no objection to 'the Christmas story' as told in the nativity play, as long as it is presented as one version of many. I am more interested in my children having a broad education, and learning to be open minded, tolerant and curious about the world, rather than breeding in them the sort of knee-jerk reaction some people demonstrate to select aspects of their curriculum.

As a non-Christian, I thoroughly enjoyed the dancing snowflakes, the talking stars, the singing camels and the plastic Baby Jesus swung around by a four year old Mary more intent on waving at the audience than producing a convincing portrayal of a woman who may or may not have given birth to the Son of God.

Although in an ideal world I might prefer my kids to be learning about spirituality rather than religion, children do have an innate curiosity about what makes us all different, and what binds us together, and events like Christmas can help. I know that alongside participating in the nativity, my children are also learning about 'Christmas around the world' this term, and if we banned the nativity, surely we'd have to stop that too? And what sort of Christmas story would be left to tell then?

How do you think Christmas should be presented to children in schools?

Is there room for Baby Jesus?

Do we throw the baby out with the bathwater?

Or is there an alternative?

Where do you go...?

When you need big answers to big questions, where do you go?

Last night Simon Amstell hosted Never Mind the Buzzcocks with Jermaine Jackson as one of his guests. Jermaine Jackson, a convert from Christianity to Islam, has been quoted as saying Islam gives him the answers Christianity never could. In his characteristic style, Simon Amstell could not resist commenting on this apparent jumping about across religions, and remarked along the lines of -

each to his own, that's no problem

whatever gives you the answers you need.

He personally, he said, gets his from Google.

Although the God of Google was summoned for comic effect, does it say something more profound about the level of question we permit ourselves to ask these days? But if you haven't stopped asking the big questions, where do you get your answers? If you have no specific religious framework to offer you the answers you need to these 'big questions', where do you go?

Within?

Your own spiritual guru?

The Mind-Body-Spirit section of Borders?

Google..?

Spiritual props?

Who or what do you need to help make sense of - or to experience - 'the spiritual' in your life?

For many centuries various religions have provided organisational structures to help followers understand and practice their spirituality - from churches and pews, to rules for everything from patterns of prayer to dress and diet.

But what if you do not follow a particular religion or are trying to develop a spiritual path that makes sense to you? Do you still need these orders and structures and 'ways of doing'?

And if so, what orders and structures do you use?

In the words of one of our bloggers:

'spirituality...is a letting go of everything.

And in this state of having let go,

peace, happiness, openness and wonder well up…

Inevitably we bring with us to this state

our own background and experience,

and this influences how we accept the new realization.

Angels, gods, spirits, Wicca,

whatever helps to put it all into context.

Great spiritual thinkers

like the Buddha, Christ, Lao Tsu can help us,

but we must each find our own way.'

How do you find your way?