CHAPTER 1

Spirituality and the present climate

Can you see any hope for this homicidal, neurologically crippled species otherthan a mass religious ecstatic convulsion?TIMOTHY LEARY

In 1963 the mere mention of the God concept was good for a laugh. By 1965 it wasmany people's most serious concern.JEFF NUTTALL

THE 'SPIRITUAL QUEST OF YOUTH'

There is a serious danger at present in some writing and thinking around thearea of youth and spirituality that the 'spiritual quest of youth' will beexaggerated and distorted to such an extent that the more widespread phenomenonof extreme conservatism in social attitudes will continue to spread unchecked.To some extent indeed the latter can be seen as a reaction against the former:the revolt of many of the young both against western materialism and against theprevailing political malaise has provoked many adults to a defensive andreactionary posture. But to an even greater extent, the present climaterepresents the persistence of a tradition which never died out among theyoung. Most young people never revolted, never protested, and never undertookany spiritual pilgrimage. They remained, like their parents, conventional andconservative.

In an earlier study, I attempted to describe some of the characteristics of the'youth culture' of the 1960s with specific reference to its search for aspirituality. I was criticized by a number of reviewers for doing what Ispecifically denied that I was doing: describing the movements of youth in thatperiod in exclusively 'religious' categories, and generalizing on the basis of asmall minority of young people in central London. It is essential therefore torecognize the wider context and to define one's limits. I do not believe thatthe movements associated with the 'counter-culture' and the 'radicalization ofyouth', which have now been described in a number of studies, have so faraffected modern society to more than a marginal extent. The impact on the bigcities, with their concentration of journals, meetings and access to the media,can help to promote exaggeration. But the fact is that the cultural trends whichI and others have described represent significant minority movements. As onesociologist noted: 'Life in Burslem, Tadcaster and Crewe was not greatlyaffected.'

At the same time, the movements are more significant and their influence moresubtle than is often appreciated. Moreover, the interest of young and not soyoung in spirituality never was confined, and is not confined today, to the'counter-culture' even in its widest connotations. It is a phenomenon whichstill awaits adequate research and documentation. For me, it marked the startingpoint in my ministry of taking personal spiritual guidance seriously, and led meto re-examine my own inner life and inner resources. I found that the demandsmade upon me required more than personal planning or sociological skills, andthat I was being led to a deeper exploration of the most neglected area ofclergy training, ascetical and spiritual theology.

During the 1960s it was frequently being argued that the future of humanity was'non-religious', that society was secularized, and that the church's missionmust be based on that assumption.

We came increasingly to believe that all this was true. Even our religiousestablishments, our various Vaticans came to believe that it was true. They havebeen operating, more or less, on this assumption ever since. This assumption isnot true: it has been discredited not by theologians but by events. In fact wewere entering—not a secularized age, as we thought—we were enteringan age of incredible religiosity.

The view that society was increasingly and inevitably 'religionless' wasseverely criticized by the American sociologist Andrew Greeley. Arguing that'the basic human religious needs and the basic religious functions have notchanged very notably since the late Ice Age', Greeley concluded:

I do not believe that religion is in a state of collapse and none of theempirical data that I have available lead me to believe that it is ... Thereligious crises of the intellectual community by no means reflect the religioussituation of the mass of the people. 'Western man', 'modern man', 'technologicalman', 'secular man' are to be found, for the most part, only on universitycampuses, and increasingly only among senior faculty members, as the studentsengage in witchcraft, astrology and other bizarre cultic practices.

By 1968 it was clear in many sections of modern life that there was a renewedinterest in 'spiritual' issues.

It was a confused and bizarre interest which many who worked with young peopleencountered. There were those who used LSD and other psychedelic drugs andimmediately sought guidance, both from other trippers and from those outside thedrug cultures altogether, about further explorations of consciousness. Thewritings of Alan Watts and Ronald Laing became very popular. Both were concernedwith the breaking down of the barriers by which the ego, the transitory wakingself, prevented the experience of transcendence. For many young people, it seemsthat LSD initially helped this process, but they wanted to move on from thisexperience. They described their need in openly spiritual terms, so that eventhe Interim Report of the Canadian Government's Commission was led to comment onthe degree of interest in religion among drug takers. These young searcherslooked wherever they felt their need might be met—meditation schools,paperback mysticism, Yoga, even the church. But the church seemed ill-preparedto meet that need.

These young people were not restricted to any one social class or culturalgroup. Not all among them were drug users, and most of them were not 'hippies'.They were a very mixed group. What they did seem to have in common was a searchfor meaning in their lives, and by this they meant an inner meaning, aspiritual meaning. Ronald Laing referred to their search as a quest fortranscendence of the ego, for 'meta-egoic' experience.

People who explore states of ego-loss, or are precipitated into themwilly-nilly, search for references: maps of the worlds within worlds, of meta-egoicspace and time. Most people involved in this don't refer to the Christiantradition for their terms of reference. They go not to the Bible but to theTibetan Book of the Dead, the biography of Milarepa, the Tao Te Ching, theSecret of the Golden Flower, to the Buddhists, Zen, Tibetan and other schools,the Taoists, the Sufis, the Hindus. Such texts that seem able to speak to thecondition of...