The number of Americans who identify as spiritual is on the rise, while many are distancing themselves from organized religion. According to a 2023 Pew Research study, seven out of 10 Americans describe themselves as spiritual in some way, a concept that can be tied to organized religion or exist outside of it.
Lisa Miller, a clinical psychologist at Teacher College, Columbia University and author of “The Awakened Brain” and “The Spiritual Child,” says humanity is at a crisis point without spirituality. In an interview at her Connecticut home, she led Lisa Ling through a meditation that evoked a spiritual experience.
“Religion, our beautiful world faith traditions, it is a gift of our parents and grandparents,” Miller explained after the meditation. “Spirituality is innate. Spirituality is an inborn human capacity.”
Miller pointed to scientific research, including MRI studies, that shows spirituality is embedded in the human brain.
“We now have an excellent peer review science of 20 years that says we are innately spiritual beings,” Miller said. “When we strengthen our spiritual core, we are healthier. We are more resilient.”
A 2023 Gallup Poll found that 82% of Americans have some type of spiritual belief system. At the same time, fewer people are identifying with organized religion. Varun Soni, interfaith chaplain at the University of Southern California, has witnessed this shift. He says people often associate religion with violence, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. But he believes they are missing part of the picture.
“Religion is also a place of social services, liberation theology, hospitals, and schools,” Soni said.
Despite discussing faith and spirituality, Soni said God is rarely mentioned in his conversations with students.
“You don’t need religion and you don’t need God, but you need something sacred. You need something that gets you up in the morning,” he said.
Soni oversees more student religious groups than any other chaplain in the country and has observed a trend: About 50% of students entering college have no religious background. While at the same time, depression is on the rise. He sees a direct link between the absence of faith and the increase in depression, with many young people turning to social media as a replacement for their spiritual identity.
Miller agrees that nurturing spirituality is essential for adolescents and young adults. Without it, she warns, “spiritual emergence can devolve into emptiness…despair, and depression.”
For those seeking to awaken their spiritual core, Miller encourages people to pay attention to moments of synchronicity—events that seem coincidental but she believes hold deeper meaning.
During a guided meditation with Ling, a white bird flew past the window. Ling took that as a sign, as she was thinking about synchronicity in her own life at the time it happened. Miller called it a “sacred synchronicity.”