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Spirituality on the Internet is Booming in America This is probably not startling news for readers of this column, but a recently released study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org) proves that nearly two-thirds or 64 percent of online Americans use the Internet to perform spiritual and religious activities. That means that 82 million of the nation’s 132 million Internet users are actively pursuing spirituality on the World Wide Web. Here are some highlights of the Pew report: 38% of the nation’s 128 million Internet users have sent and received email with spiritual content. There is clear evidence that the majority of the online faithful are there for personal spiritual reasons, including seeking outside their own traditions, Higher percentages of the online faithful report online activities related to personal spirituality and religiosity than activities more related to involvement in traditional religious functions or organizations. Most users, however, retain their ties to traditional institutions. People are not leaving churches in favor of more flexible online options. Instead, faith-related activity online is a supplement to, rather than a substitute for offline religious life. I first found out about the report from the email newsletter I receive each week from Ecumenical News International (subscribe at www.eni.ch). The newsletter is a global news service based in Switzerland that reports on ecumenical developments and other news, mainly involving Christian churches and denominations. There is a strong human rights and religious freedom focus to the copy. It’s a great place to find out about things like the Pew report and other news of interest to Christians and non-Christians alike. For example, one June newsletter included an item about Amnesty International’s latest report rebuking governments and armed groups alike, stating that the past year has produced “the most sustained attack on human rights and international humanitarian law in fifty years.” Another June item praises the body, mind and spirit rejuvenation that awaits vacationers of all faiths who experience the retreats available at a Buddhist monastery in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Landmark: Another tool and a good one Some have called Landmark Education (www.landmarkeducation.com) a cult, but it’s not. A cult usually is something that drives a wedge between you and your family and friends. Landmark does the exact opposite. It gives you the tools to build stronger relationships with everyone in your life. That’s my assessment of Landmark after taking the Landmark Forum in March and participating in a follow-up seminar called “Breakthroughs.” For the past five or six years, lots of people in my life have been suggesting that I take the Forum. Some of them have been fellow members of my Spiritualist Church. Others have been people like my former business partner who called me during her Landmark Forum session in order to seek forgiveness and start the healing process of our broken relationship and another friend who went from someone who seemed to attract every hard knock to a dynamo of positive energy and intention. I resisted the invitation. After all, I had plenty of spiritual tools that were already working. Then, in January of this year, my marriage fell apart and I discovered that I had been telling myself a whopper of a story about that relationship. I thought I’d give Landmark a try I checked out the information on their web site, of course. It was pretty complete. I was impressed by some of the statistics including one from IMC, Inc, an independent marketing consulting firm, that states, “More than 9 out of 10 people surveyed said that The Landmark Forum made a profound, lasting difference in the way they live their lives.” The articles by fellow hardboiled journalists also made an impression. Click on the “Articles About” link and you’ll find that some of the articles are by journalists who had set out to criticize the Forum, but ended up being transformed themselves. One of those articles, for example, was written by Amelia Hill in a December, 2003, edition of London’s Observer. Hill starts by stating, “I don’t do epiphanies” and ends up by saying, “Landmark takes you away from life. The three days create a bubble of possibility in which we were able to try on new opinions and experiment with fresh behaviors.” My impression of my experiences at Landmark are so far mainly positive. The technology builds upon rather than replaces the spiritual and personal development beliefs and modalities that I already have in place. During the Forum and seminar I often found myself thinking, “Hmm ... I believe that ... but this is a good strategy to put that belief into action.” Hill wrote about creating that bubble of possibility. And really, that’s what it’s all about: creating a possibility for yourself and acting from that possibility instead of from some old broken script that you created way back someplace in your past. Did Landmark solve all my problems? No. I had a wonderful breakthrough with my brother, but I’m still struggling with that divorce situation. But Landmark is not about solving all your problems all at once. Problems exist. That’s a given. What’s not a given, is how we deal with those problems. Landmark is all about facing problems and going beyond them through the creation of possibilities. The technology is available whenever a problem arises. In Internet terminology it’s like being given the tools to build your very own personal and very spectacular interactive web site. Imagine the possibility of doing that—not just with a web site, however, but with your entire life. Mary Montgomery-Clifford is a certified web author and developer. Her company, Montgomery Media Enterprises ("Freelancing with Finesse!"), specializes in public relations, events, promotions, writing project and web authoring, development and publicity. Ms. Montgomery-Clifford has a Master's Degree in religious studies from Chicago Theological Seminary (CTS) in June 2002 and is working on a Ph.D. with a focus on the new scholarship of Unlimited Love and the Other Regarding Virtues in the Fall of 2002. She is also in the process of completing the Morris Pratt Institute Course on Modern Spiritualism. Contact her via e-mail at Monty764@aol.com, by phone at 773-235-8821 or at her web site at www.montymedia.com. Next Article |
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