God with a Million Faces

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There are as many answers to these questions as there are new religions. Most observers agree, however, that the trend is real, if not entirely new. Religions, like the peoples and languages that serve as their vehicles, have often clashed and intermingled, and gods have merged, blurred, switched genders, fallen silent, and died, often violently. Even within religions, the gap between official doctrine and actual belief can be immense, despite constant efforts by religious authorities to guard their holy texts from creative misinterpretation.

In American history, a 'privatized' attitude toward spiritual practice has always been evident, scholars say, but the impulse may now be stronger than ever. The reasons can be traced to powerful cultural forces that have been reshaping modern life since the 1960s.

The rise of feminist consciousness, for instance, has led many to turn a skeptical eye on rituals and texts that smack of male bias. As the feminist writer Carol Lee Flinders has pointed out, many women today 'are slow to take in, or take on, the great handed-down monolithic doctrines or credos. We know too much about the strengths of all religions, and too much about the weaknesses of these religions as well, particularly where women are concerned.' She agrees with feminist historian Gerda Lerner that 'disconnection from the sacred seems to be the most fundamentally important way in which women have been disempowered through time.' Today, many women are trying to re-establish that connection, either within their faiths or, like Anne-Marie, on their own.

Some say that LSD and the psychedelic subculture played a role in weakening traditional religious ties, giving many a sense of personal mystical union with the divine -- along with a heady rhetoric for putting that experience into words. Growing exposure to the world's wisdom traditions has expanded our spiritual vocabulary as well. This exchange has been driven partly by demographic changes that have brought many face-to-face with formerly 'exotic' religious beliefs, especially those of Asia. This era may have begun with the Immigration Act of 1965, which eliminated a long-standing bias against Asians and other peoples enforced through quotas based on national origin. The new immigrants included many spiritual teachers whose influence would eventually extend beyond their immediate followers into the popular culture.

The information explosion has been another factor in the rise of do-it-yourself spirituality. Esoteric texts once known to a privileged few now fill the bookstores, their myriad truths laid open to be read and recombined at will. And virtually every work of sacred art, from the caves of Altamira onward, circulates endlessly now, free for the appropriating. This robust spiritual marketplace perfectly suits the consumer mentality that has turned Americans into a nation of comparison shoppers. In an age when we trust ourselves to assemble our own investment portfolios and cancer therapies, why not our religious beliefs?

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