Sunday sermon

Byron York on the latest Pew poll on religion and faith:

"Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics," the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so.

Well, duh! Obviously more Democrats talk to the dead. How else can they get the dead to vote for them?

Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.

There's more. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in reincarnation, while 30 percent of Democrats do. Fourteen percent of Republicans say they believe in astrology, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in spiritual energy, while 30 percent of Democrats do.

There are some areas in which the two partisan groups are similar. When Pew asked respondents whether they have had a religious or mystical experience, 50 percent of Republicans said yes, as did 50 percent of Democrats.

Okay. I've talked to the dead (my mom and dad mostly) but none of them ever answered me back. I've also consulted fortunetellers and psychics. They were all worse than useless but maybe it's just me. Mostly they just seemed to predict new sofas and/or lovers, jobs, money etc. And anyway predicting the future is obviously just guesswork no matter how educated one's guesses are.

As for reincarnation. I've got a theory about that that I got from an insight I had on an acid trip once when it seemed to me that at the cellular level my body remembered all the other things and people it's atoms had once been part of. Later I read that there may well be something akin to cellular memory and DNA is basically the programming code for memorizing cellular structure and function. But, I honestly didn't believe that last clairvoyant I knew who told me that I had once been Cleopatra. I would never have married my own brother even if I'd had one.

Yoga? I've practiced jnana yoga for 37 years. It's basically the same as all meditation practices such as zazen (which means sit and be empty) and simply boils down to Psalm 46: "Be still and know that I am God" otherwise known as "Just sit still, shut up for a while and stop thinking about yourself all the time and you'll see Me (the Big Kahuna) right inside yourself." And really means "Be still!" Nothing else. It's not something that you can force. It happens by grace.

"Spiritual energy?" I've no idea what that means to others but for me it means sensing another person's vibes - either good or bad - but can it also mean feeling the Kingdom of Heaven within? Or is that a "mystical experience?" Again I'm not sure what others mean by that but for me that means being still and feeling the Kingdom of God within my own soul.

It seems to me that Americans (like South Africans) are very "spiritual" compared with Europeans. Maybe it's because people left Europe and moved to South Africa and America at about the same time in order to find religious freedom. My ancestors, the French Huguenots, left France for South Africa in order to avoid the Catholic persecution of Protestants in 1652.