Toy manufacturers record that the closest thing to a fashion in playthings being readied for sale next Christmas contain astrology, witchcraft, and different elements of the supernatural. Rosemary’s Baby, a satisfactory-promoting novel through Ira Levin about witchcraft, was made right into a movie that had grossed $15 million through the cease of 1969 and placed 38th on Variety’s list of all-time “boxoffice champs.” Jeane Dixon, who claims a present of prophecy, has bought greater than three million copies of her books.
“The Age of Aquarius isn’t only a track in a rock musical (Hair), however a motive of financial celebration in our department stores and spiritual success on our campuses.”1 The revival of occultism has also had a darker aspect. Famous Occultists Charles Manson, who has been charged in connection with the murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles in August 1969. “seemed to do not forget himself something of a prophet or even a savior.”2 His worshipful “circle of relatives” of hippies, maximum of them younger girls, believed he had mysterious powers and obeyed him without question. Sirhan B, Sirhan was mentioned to were deeply worried in Rosicrucianism3 earlier than he assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968.
In a latest interview with theologian Harvey Cox, editor T George Harris of Psychology Today mag started out by means of commenting on “the overall resurgence of superstition and magic.” Explanations for the resurgence are many and sundry. Cox, an author and professor at Harvard Divinity School, gives a view that joyful celebration and mystical celebration have disappeared from religion and that people are looking some place else for the ones stories.Four
Ludwig B. Lefebre, a psychotherapist, wrote in the equal mag in November 1968 that church buildings fail to reply to people in search of “to get past themselves.” “Some churches,” he said, “are aware about the modern challenge however aren’t responding appropriately.” Persons interested in LSD and other thoughts-increasing drugs seek what churches do not offer. The fundamental aim of those folks is non secular, though erroneous, “and their closing aim is direct touch of a revelatory nature with a suprahuman employer.” The Rev. David H. C. Read, pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York, gives a similar evaluation. “The rebellion in opposition to the secular and materialistic society is in complete swing amongst the young,” he said, “and the traditional symptoms of longing for the transcendent—apocalyptic imagery, ecstasy, symbolism, communes of withdrawal—are all around us.”five