OCT. 17, 2006

BELIEFS AND PRACTICE
Popularity of paranormal soars

As children know, Halloween is a time to let the imagination run wild. A new survey of religious beliefs, however, shows that adults do the same, and not just for Halloween. Baylor University’s expansive survey, released in September 2006, found what it termed a “surprising level” of paranormal belief and experience. According to a 2005 Gallup Poll, about 75 percent of Americans hold some form of belief in the paranormal – extrasensory perception, ghosts, telepathy, clairvoyance, astrology, communicating with the dead, witches, reincarnation or channeling.

Some religions, such as Wicca and neo paganism, draw deeply from the wells of reincarnation and spells. Some traditions or cultures mix elements from traditional, organized religion with the supernatural. Yet most religions are laced with elements of mysticism or the surreal: Consider a voice coming from a burning bush, water turned into wine, lamp oil that lasted eight days, prophets and angels in the Quran.

October is a rich time to explore why so many people believe in the paranormal and how those beliefs are reflected in everyday actions and popular culture. After all, religion and the paranormal share a common challenge: Just because we can’t prove it, does that mean it’s not there?

Why it Matters

Both nonbelievers and people of faith keep blurring the lines between what they’re sure about and what they sense could possibly be. Ordinary people have had dreams that came true, encountered coincidences that don’t feel like coincidences, felt the presence of someone they love who has died. Many wonder: How big is the world, and what does it mean to believe in the divine?

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Background

An earlier version of this tip is Ghosts, the paranormal and pop culture (Oct. 11, 2005).

Supernatural sightings: story ideas

Editors often beat the drums for Halloween stories. Here are some paths into the paranormal maze:

DAY OF THE DEAD
Starting at midnight Oct. 31, many Hispanics, particularly Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, celebrate Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. This celebration in memory of those who have died fuses elements of an indigenous Aztec celebration with the Christian commemoration of All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2) and is built around the belief that on this day, the spirits of the dead return home to their loved ones. The spirits of children (angelitos or angels) come first, followed by the adults. Festivities include candlelight vigils in cemeteries, altars set up to welcome departed spirits home (often adorned with favorite treats, including liquor and cigarettes), and decorations of skeletons, skulls, wreaths and crosses.
• View a photo essay on Dia de los Muertos on Beliefnet.com.
• Read an Oct. 19, 2000, Beliefnet.com story, reprinted from World Magazine, about a Unitarian minister who has adapted some Dia de los Muertos rituals of remembering the dead, and found that people brought forward in gratitude and with tears photographs of friends and family they had been mourning for years.

SUPERNATURAL SHOPPING
The Web site eBay has a metaphysical section (which falls under the category: “Everything Else.”) This is where shoppers can visit the “Old Hags Metaphysical Mall” to buy a Wooden Pentacle Altar Table or pick up an 83 Magical Herb Spell Sampler Kit. Sellers advertise haunted dolls that can move on their own or cause lights to flicker. There are traveling witch kits, spells, daggers, potions, crystal balls, haunted rings and love spells. Sometimes, a glimpse into the marketplace – what aficionados are interested in and likely to buy – can open the mind up to the world of the practitioner. This Halloween season, what’s kitsch, what’s fun, what’s serious for practicing pagans, and what’s hot?

SAMHAIN
Many Wiccans and neo pagans celebrate this end-of-summer holiday on Oct. 31. Samhain, with roots in ancient Celtic tradition, marks the closing of the harvest season and the beginning of winter and is seen by some as a time when the space between the living and the dead is especially thin.
• Read an article from the Witches’ Voice Web site explaining Samhain and how it has contributed to Halloween traditions, and view a Samhain Rite from the Web site of Ár nDraíocht Féin, an international fellowship of neo pagan Druids.
• A 2004 ReligionLink tip on Wiccans includes advice from the Witches’ Voice on “do’s and don’ts” for reporters covering Wiccan and neo pagan celebrations at Halloween.
• Read an Oct. 10, 2006, story from the Santa Maria Sun in California about Wiccans who say their practices are misunderstood.

PARANORMAL ROMANCE
The market for romance books is huge. It’s a $1.2 billion industry, according to Romance Writers of America. Paranormal romance books, with everything from sexy shape-shifters to My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2006), are one of the hot trends in the field. Romance Writers of America gives an award each year for the best paranormal romance book and has a special-interest chapter for authors who write futuristic, fantasy, time-travel and paranormal books.
• Read a June 28, 2006, USA Today story about vampires as hot yet cold-blooded heroes.
• Check out The Ultimate VampList, a compendium of more than 3,000 books on vampires. What are the spiritual implications of werewolves, ghosts and vampires – characters who might not be mortal, who are tortured, who practice the dark arts and can inflict pain – offered as heart-swooning protaganists? Is it possible to fall in love with evil?

MARIAN APPARITIONS AND MIRACLES
Rumors regularly fly about Marian apparitions and miracles – ways in which the Virgin Mary reportedly appears and sometimes heals. Mary is said to have appeared to the Mexican peasant Juan Diego in 1531, to Bernadette in Lourdes in 1858 and to children in Fatima, Portugal, in 1917. Some say Mary still does appear. There are periodic reports of statues or relics that weep or move, often drawing huge crowds of the curious and faithful. Consider exploring these phenomena against the backdrop of official Roman Catholic Church teaching.
• A report of a 10-year-old, partially eaten toasted cheese sandwich with the image of Mary drew big attention on eBay. Read a Nov. 17, 2004, story from BBC News. Mary is said to have appeared at a farm near Conyers, Ga., and on a highway underpass in Chicago. Visit the Web site of the documentary Living Miracles, chronicling stigmata, healings and other supernatural happenings in Catholicism today.
• Millions have made pilgrimages to Medjugorje, a village in Bosnia-Herzegovina where the Virgin Mary has reportedly been appearing and giving messages since 1981. Read a June 16, 2006, Catholic News Service story about the 25^th anniversary of the Medjugorje apparitions, including debate over whether they involve supernatural elements. Talk to Catholics from your area who’ve made the trip. What do they think about all this?

SUPERNATURAL YOUTH
Are teenagers and young adults more likely to believe in the paranormal than their elders? Does level of education play any role in people’s views? The Baylor survey determined that “education explains little of the variation in paranormal experiences” but found that those who’d attended college were actually more likely than those with a high school degree or less to have witnessed a UFO or used alternative medicines or therapies, and those aged 18 to 30 were more likely to consult horoscopes, visit psychics or visit a place they thought was haunted. In other words, more education did not make people more skeptical.
• A poll of nearly 500 college students, reported in the January-February 2006 issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, found that college seniors and graduate students were more likely to believe in paranormal concepts than freshmen.
• The National Study of Youth and Religion, in a nationally representative survey of more than 3,000 American teenagers, found teens to be open to the idea of the paranormal while remaining somewhat skeptical. Relatively few were certain they believed in things such as psychics, astrology or communicating with the dead. But 40 percent of the teens surveyed said they may believe or definitely believed in astrology, 39 percent in communicating with the dead and 27 percent in psychics or fortune tellers. Teens were less likely to believe in the paranormal if they routinely attend religious services. For example, 49 percent of teens who never attend services said they definitely or maybe believe in astrology, compared with 35 percent of those who attend services weekly and 22 percent who go more than once a week.

SCREAMS ON THE SCREEN
Television and movies reflect popular culture. Shows with paranormal and supernatural twists in the 2006 fall TV lineup include Heroes on NBC (superhumans abound), Smallville and Supernatural on The CW network, Ghost Whisperer on CBS and Bleach on Cartoon Network. Medium comes back on NBC in 2007. And who could forget Lost?

On the big screen, check out The Covenant (teenage boys from supernatural families), The Return (Sarah Michelle Gellar haunted by visions of murders), Déjà vu (Denzel Washington with precognition), Stranger Than Fiction (Will Ferrell hears a voice), Bug (Ashley Judd with creepy-crawlies everywhere, but are they real?) and Eragon (check out the dragon).

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National sources

• Dr. Margaret Poloma is a professor of religion at the University of Akron who wrote about miracles as supernatural/ paranormal phenomenon in Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism (Alta Mira Press, 2003). She says one reason for the Gallup Poll's results is that religious people regularly experience the supernatural and the paranormal, two things she says form the basis of religious belief. She describes herself as a Pentecostal Christian who has experienced paranormal phenomena within the framework of her religion. Contact 330-972-6837 or 330-328-7860 (cell), mpoloma@uakron.edu.
• Emily D. Edwards is an associate professor of broadcasting and cinema at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is the author of Metaphysical Media: The Occult Experience in Popular Culture (Southern Illinois University Press, 2005), which looks at how movies and television portray supernatural beliefs and the influence of the occult on popular art. Contact 336-334-4135, ededward@uncg.edu.
•Alan Jacobs is an English professor at Wheaton College in Illinois. An evangelical Christian, he wrote about how Harry Potter's magic fits with faith in a January 2000 essay in First Things. Contact 630-752-5784, Alan.Jacobs@wheaton.edu.
• William Dinges is a professor of religious studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and an expert on American Catholicism. He says the growing divide between what is "religious" and what is "spiritual" has resulted in spirituality that lends itself easily to supernatural and paranormal phenomena. Contact 202-319-6890, dinges@cua.edu.
• Lynn Schofield Clark is an assistant research professor at the Center for Mass Media research at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She is the author of From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media and the Supernatural (Oxford University Press, 2003) and can discuss how media, including television and film, influence belief in the supernatural. She says that the current fascination with the supernatural speaks to the uncertainty of the times and that stories of the paranormal offer a mystical way of resolving discomfort with that uncertainty. She also says there is a trend toward the "normalization" of psychic powers and mystical experiences reflected in the current crop of television shows and movies. Contact 303-492-5007, lynn.clark@colorado.edu.
• Christine Wicker is the author of two books on the supernatural and paranormal, Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead and Not in Kansas Anymore: The Curious Tale of How Magic is Transforming America (both Harper Collins, 2003 and 2005 respectively). She says there is more "magical thinking," in part, because people are more skeptical of science and because theories of the "so-called new physics" support various religious, spiritual and magical ideas. She can also discuss the history of "Christo-magic," the magical thinking of different types of Christians throughout American history. Contact via Donna Gould, publicist, 732-441-1519, donnagould@sprintmail.com or Christine@christinewicker.com.
• Wendy Martin is a professor in the department of classics and religious studies at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa, Ontario. In 2004, she presented a paper on how television shows depicting the supernatural influence people's belief systems. Contact wendymartin@yahoo.com.
• Mary Roach is the author of Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (W.W. Norton, 2005), in which she investigates claims of life after death and attempts to understand why people believe in reincarnation despite a lack of "proof." Contact via Norton publicity, publicity@wwnorton.com.
• Leonard Norman Primiano is an associate professor of religious studies at Cabrini College in Radnor, Pa. He contributed a chapter on the supernatural on television in God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, edited by Eric Mazur (Routledge, 2000). Contact 610-902-8330, leonard.primiano@cabrini.edu.
• Alexander Seinfeld is a rabbi and an expert on Judaism and the supernatural and has given talks on the subject of Judaism and ghosts, necromancy and astronomy. He is based in Baltimore. Contact 650-799-5564 or info@jsli.info.
• The Rev. Lesley A. Northup, associate professor of religion and culture at Florida International University, is an expert on the subject of religion and broadcasting. He says that the television shows in general confirm some of the more simplistic ideas rampant in religion, for example, that miracles will happen if you are good. Contact 305-348-2956, Northupl@fiu.edu.
• Melissa Caldwell, is research director of the Parents Television Council in Los Angeles, which tries to bring more family oriented programming to television and monitors network programming. Contact Kelly Oliver, 703-683-5004.

PARANORMAL PROPONENTS
• Jeff Belanger is the founder of Ghostvillage.com, an Internet community dedicated to the supernatural, and the author of several books on ghosts and the dead. Contact via Linda Reinecker, New Page Books, 201-848-0310 ext. 513, Lrienecker@careerpress.com.
• Rick Hayes is a paranormal communications expert. He was raised as a Christian and established LifesGift. He says that he sees no conflict between his Christian beliefs and his ability to relay messages from the dead, and that this gift makes him feel more blessed. He is based in Evansville, Ind. Contact via mediarelations@lifesgift.com.

SKEPTICS
• James Randi is one of the foremost skeptics of all things paranormal. He is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about fraudulent paranormal claims. It is based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He says one reason people believe in the supernatural is because it is comforting - there is life after death, their loved ones are still with them, etc. Contact via Linda Shallenberger, 954-467-1112, linda@randi.org.
Paul Kurtz is chairman of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Contact 716-636-7571 ext. 202, paulkurtz@aol.com.
• Robert Todd Carroll is the author of The Skeptics Dictionary: A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) and maintains a web site of the same name. He is a philosophy professor at Sacramento City College in California. Contact via email only, media@skepdic.com.

Background

POLLS
• The 2006 Baylor Survey of Religion found what it termed a “surprising level” of paranormal belief and experience, although “those beliefs and experiences tended to be confined to people outside traditional religion,” the report states. The survey was funded by the John Templeton Foundation and conducted by the Gallup Organization from October to December 2005. It found that more than half of those surveyed believe that dreams can foretell the future or reveal hidden truths, 37 percent believe that places can be haunted, about a quarter believe some UFOs are probably spaceships from other worlds and nearly one in five believe it is possible to communicate with the dead.
• Evangelical Christians were the least likely of all religious groups to believe in the paranormal, and belief in the paranormal tended to decline the more one attended church. Those most likely to believe in the paranormal came from the “other” religious category – meaning not Christian and not Jewish. Read a Sept. 12, 2006, USA Today story summarizing the research findings.
• A Harris Poll from December 2005 found that four of 10 Americans believe in ghosts. About a third believe in UFOs, 28 percent in witches and 25 percent in astrology. About one in five (21 percent) believe they were reincarnated from another person.
• A CBS News Poll from Oct. 30, 2005 found that 48 percent of Americans believe in ghosts (45 percent don’t), and that more than one in five (22 percent) said they’d personally seen or felt the presence of a ghost.
• A June 2005 Gallup Poll found that three in four Americans express belief in at least one paranormal belief. The most popular were extrasensory perception and haunted houses. Read the news release.

DEFINITIONS
Supernatural - attributable to a power that goes beyond or violates natural forces.
Paranormal - an event or perception that involves forces outside the realm of scientific explanation.
Ghost - the disembodied spirit of a dead person.
Extrasensory perception - perception that occurs beyond the usual senses.
Spiritualism - the belief that the human personality survives death and can communicate with the living, usually through the use of a medium; sometimes called spiritism.
Clairvoyance - the ability to see things out of the range of normal vision.
Astrology - a type of divination based on the movement of the planets and stars.
Channeling - the occupation of one person's body by another's spirit.

ON THE INTERNET
• Haunted Times is a members' clearinghouse for all things paranormal, especially ghosts.
• MAJDA Paranormal Research Society is an international organization of people seeking explanations for paranormal phenomena. It is based in Alliance, Ohio.
• Ghostvillage.com is an online community of people interested in the supernatural

ARTICLES
• A Jan. 1, 2007, Chicago Tribune story reported that airline workers at O'Hare spotted an unidentified craft hovering in the air.
• An Oct. 3, 2006, story from The New York Times examines the science behind what people may perceive as out-of-body or paranormal experiences, but which in some cases can be explained by jolts of electric current in the brain.
• Read a Sept. 9, 2006, story from the Macon Telegraph in Georgia about a church holding weekly discussions on the spiritual lessons found in the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
• Read an Aug. 7, 2006, story from The Dallas Morning News exploring whether human brains are biologically inclined by evolution to believe in the supernatural.
• Check out the summer 2006 “Magic Issue” of Guilt & Pleasure, a new magazine that explores what it means to be Jewish today. The issue includes a story on the transcendental approach of one ultra-Orthodox group, a profile of Adolf Hitler’s Jewish psychic and a discussion of whether there are Jewish witches in the Torah.
• The Catholic Encyclopedia, in defining "religion," says that, "In every form of religion is implied the conviction that the mysterious, supernatural Being (or beings) has control over the lives and destinies of men."
• Read an excerpt of a chapter written by Bret E. Carroll about the history of Spiritualism in America in Cassadaga: The South's Oldest Spiritualist Community (University Press of Florida, 2000) as posted on Beliefnet.com.