In his study of 1,599 members of the baby-boomer generation conducted in the US in the early 1990s, the American researcher Roof (1993) demonstrated that there had been major defections from organized religion in the 1960s and 1970s, coupled with an increase in New Age type movements which emphasized the superiority of direct spiritual experience over institutional religion. Roof found that one well-educated segment (“highly active seekers”) of this group, was specifically focused on developing a highly individualized spirituality that rejected religious orthodoxy and instead favoured mystical experience and New Age ideas. They characterized themselves as “spiritual” but not “religious”*.
It is this generation that appears to have driven the rising legitimacy of meditation in the West. The perspective of these highly active seekers is now reflected in wider social attitudes and perceptions of religion.
*Roof W. A generation of seekers: the spiritual journeys of the baby boom generation. San Francisco: Harper, 2003.