Embarassed .... really
Ok folks well there is no fun here.
Recently there was an article floating about. I saw it here:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/diy-religions-cause-more-harm-th\an-good/2008/01/17/1200419951220.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Now a lot of the usual suspects jumped up and down because (of course) they believed it was aimed against them and damaged what they believe to be a good reputation that they and other religio fringers have in the wider world.
Lots o knee jerking and truly embarassing stuff got said.
Frankly I just got hideously embarassed to think that someone somewhere might note that I post there sproadically and imagine that I was like that.
Rare that this happens but it does.
None the less here is the greatly snipped fall out. I won't bother with the sort of tripe that was aired by some (and yes some that really I know for a FACT know better!) but just the article, what I was forced to say and then, what the Author said.
I have nothing further to add Your Honour! Hopefully it will stay that way.
Shannon Molloy, on January 17th, 2008, at:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/diy-religions-cause-more-harm-th\an-good/2008/01/17/1200419951220.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
said:
Meditation, crystal therapy, self-help books - think they're making you happier? Think again. A Brisbane academic has found a strong link between new-age spirituality and poor mental health in young people.
Rosemary Aird examined a possible correlation between new forms of spirituality and mental health as part of her University of Queensland PhD studies.
After surveying more than 3700 Brisbane-based 21-year-olds, she found spirituality and self-focused religions may undermine a person's mental health.
"I had a look at two different beliefs - one was a belief in God, associated with traditional religions, and the other was the newer belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God," Dr Aird said.
The research found non-traditional belief was linked with higher rates of anxiety, depression, disturbed and suspicious ways of thinking and anti-social behaviour.
New-age beliefs promote the idea of self-transformation, self-fulfilment and self-enlightenment, which could see many people excluded from a community environment, she said.
"Traditional religion tends to promote the idea of social responsibility and thinking of others' interests, whereas the new-age movement pushes the idea that we can transform the world by changing ourselves.
"The downside is that people are very much on their own and not part of a community, which may lead to a kind of isolation."
Young people with new-age beliefs were twice as likely to be more anxious and depressed than those with traditional beliefs, the research found.
About eight per cent of young adults attend church once a week and Dr Aird found this reduced the likelihood of antisocial behaviour in young males, but not females.
However young adults with traditional religious beliefs enjoyed no major benefits.
As people have moved away from traditional religious beliefs in recent times, most have been left with a desire to find meaning and purpose in life, she said.
"People who are into the new-age spirituality tend to shop around and will often borrow from all sorts of old beliefs, like Wicca, witchcraft or Native American religions.
"It's a whole mish-mash and changes all the time, where they'll do something for a while before doing something else."
This lack of routine and stability caused by constantly jumping from one fad to another could lead to a "real confusion", she said.
"If there's no sense of any kind of tradition, it means you're kind of cast adrift and means there's no fundamental basic thing to hang on to."
However it's not just young people embracing new-age spirituality and religious beliefs, with the trend appearing to have started with the baby boomer generation.
And while it's difficult to measure where people gather their information from, Dr Aird believes technology has played a big part in popularising spirituality.
"Religion and belief has kind of become mixed up with popular culture.
"Look at television and the kinds of shows that we've got, like Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Medium.
"They promote witchcraft, special powers and spirituality and the general population and young people especially are exposed to these things and could see them as very attractive.
"People want to find some way of embedding these things into some sort of belief system."
The popular self-help and how-to book phenomenon has also created a DIY-spirituality process and further removed the community aspect from development and religion, she said.
Dr Aird's research is the first of its kind in Australia to examine young adults' religious and spiritual thoughts, behaviour and feelings.
While the study suggests a need for further research into the extent that religious change is linked to population mental health, she admits such a task would be enormous.
"Research used to look only at traditional religion and used things like church attendance as a measurement.
"These people don't go to church - they're meditating, they're reading books, they might be part of a group or just attend courses.
"There's no way of measuring all of those different types of things."
To which I said on the 18th:
Greetings All
Well I shan't have the time to read it all till later (busy weekend) but ... prelim thoughts for the discerning sort .. as a before andafter perhaps ...I agree with the title .. across the board they do tend to I have seen over the years ....
> she has drawn a connection between 'new-age' spirituality andunstable
> mental health.
I wouldn't fid that too difficult ... hell it has been the jokesince before time hasn't it? You don't have to be crazy but ithelps ... and hell the parallells between madness and enlightenment well I seem to remember that being debated in one form oranothereven before the middle ages ... hmmm ..
> *"People who are into the new-age spirituality tend to shop aroundand will
> often borrow from all sorts of old beliefs, like Wicca, witchcraft or Native
> American religions. **"It's a whole mish-mash and changes all thetime,
> where they'll do something for a while before doing somethingelse." **This
> lack of routine and stability caused by constantly jumping fromone fad to
> another could lead to a "real confusion", she said.*
Well I am not sure that this is a good shoping list of oldbeliefs ... but I'd say that is fair comment so far taken at face value without reading extras into it ...
> And more snips:
>> *Dr Aird's research is the first of its kind in Australia toexamine young
> adults' religious and spiritual thoughts, behaviour and feelings.*
> Doug - I reckon you'd have something to say about that claim.
Hmmm ... that I'd have to say is a bit of over promo ... after all any parent will know that isn't necc the case. As for what else has been done in proper academic circles well ... I don't carry that sort of list in my library so I couldn't say.
> Thoughts?
I'll be interested to read the actual article when I get a moment -if only to see if my views at first glance of the excerpted changeby way of the whole ...
Fraternally Scott
Now all sorts of bollocks went on after that ... largely driven by the usual sort of "That is us she is talking about how dare she she is wrong ..." drone one would expect from what one sees on lists these days.
Eventually I had to say it so I did. On Jan 20 I posted the following:
Greetings All
Ok. I have had a look at the article now and all the in between that has gone on in here. I must say I am a bit embarassed and stunned ... so I have decided to say this piece/peace on it and then leave the damn issue alone. I have too much else on to allow something like this to eat at me. So to the subject at hand ....
Might I humbly suggest (or not so!) that before a stampede of well intentioned righteousness gets underway that a few basic steps are taken?
To begin with (and as much as I despise the necc for such!) I did my BA and then a further Grad Dip Ed which I never bothered to complete final practicum on years ago - so there now we all know where I am coming from.
Some basic points that I learnt while at the "wee mind gym" simply haven't been addressed in here anywhere that I can see and so I reckon they should be bought up.
First of all - the link leads to an article with a pretty obviously sensational(ist) title. Has anyone ascertained that the thesis is as the article presents it or is that a lesson that has been thoroughly lost on the Pagan/Occult/etc communities despite the long history of demonstrations? As a fabulous bit of graffiti I saw years ago said:
"MAYBE .. the Media Lies ..."
The article talks about Ms Aird's work in the most general and nebulous ways. It includes quotes that most certainly sound to me like conversational sound bites (bytes?) given out of context to give a spin to the work being discussed so it will appear very controversial.
It does not take a doctorate to spot that such language would not be to the standard required for a doctoral work of any kind or indeed the work one would expect from one with a doctorate! It is generalised, lacking in any form of specificity, context or definition and certainly not the sort of thing one would get good marks for as a first year much less anything else. These same are not delineated by the article as textual or conversational and frankly, I would be mortified should anyone take them as indicative of the work. I would be aboslutely worried for anyone who proceeded bodly in public against the work without such basic investigation being done.
Without the whole work to examine we cannot even know what definitions have been ascribed to the terms used, nor what context, (academic or otherwise!) nor the outcomes by way of anything other than a reporter's quotes. There IS such a thing as discipline specific jargon not to mention adjustment for implied audiences and so on.
One can have a retort in a conversation as well as in a laboratory but if you use a conversational retort in place of a lab retort ... you may well be in strife sooner rather than later.
Before wholesale objection in public to this text, let us be *at least* sure that the author has not specified, (directly or contextually) the definitions of the terms she is using to show them as different to those we are used to using. If we don't wish to do so for the sake of making a decent and well thought out objection - let us do it so as to avoid the embarassment we'd so richly deserve otherwise.
"Bad Science" is a phrase I think I heard in here? Well forming much more than the most nebulous of stances on this work by way of the article, (or indeed anything other than the actual text!) would most certainly be bad science and critique - not to mention embarassing!
ALL we CAN have from this article (and others like it) is ASSUMPTIONS based largely on our own biases and a second hand report reduced to the point where it would be of interest to the lowest common denominator of the periodical's intended audience. These would be THEORIES (at absolute best!!) that show more precisely our own predilictions than theirs.
Even *were* this a straightforwardly covert agenda piece the fact still stands (and perhaps we need reminding of it!) this person does NOT have to justify their work (academic or otherwise) to US. That would be something of a conceit I would argue and I can see a direct line from this kind of stance to one I saw elsewhere a while back where one alleged academic stated in a public forum: "If there were witches in the area I would have known because they would have been talking to me." *Shakes Head* Terrifying to say the least!
If WE object to this person's work then it is up to US to show in a well researched and objective manner, point for point, WHY THEY are WRONG. Whether we LIKE the piece (or what we think it is saying) is beside the point. THEY have provided a work with at least some supporting evidence(s) and so the onus is on US to at least be able to match the level before applying for contest surely? So far we haven't even read the work so I'd say we are a bit behind the 8 ball at this stage to be passing comment too boldly - and that most certainly includes comenting on the author's personal beliefs and academic methodologies.
After all, let us not forget that at the end of the day one has to be seen to be doing the job BETTER than those we call out in public in order to "do the job right"?
One of my first classes at Uni asked us if "a picture of a pipe" was the same *as a pipe*. The map is NOT the territory and so here we should not confuse articles about a work as being properly indicative of the text, it's conclusions, it's data and most certainly not properly of the text as a whole.
Jonathan asked a valid question (oo but you can be cranky though! lol) and I am yet to see it undertaken. I did a course called Textual Analysis and it has always stood me in good stead in these sort of circumstances.
One understanding one derives from this practice is that Analysis of any form of text, whether it be written, photographic, filmic, televisual, musical, spoken or even experiential is primarily based upon the notion that whatever we are presented with is a construct with agendas both overt and covert - implied and unintended.
What this means is that what we see, hear, taste, touch, smell and experience is presented in such a way to render it capable of conveying meanings both obvious and covert. So what does it mean? Well it means that we need to examine and unriddle any text of any description before we involve our personal emotional reactions.
Consider: QUESTIONS FOR DECONSTRUCTION
Different writers suggest various ways into the deconstruction process. For example, Masterman suggests:
1. WHO is responsible for these: constructions?
2. HOW precisely is the ideological effect noted above achieved? (i.e. what are the dominant techniques and codings currently employed within broadcasting?)
3. WHAT values are implicit in the world so constructed?
4. HOW are these constructions read?
Remember: OBSERVE INTERPRET CONCLUDE
Or if you prefer: WHAT HOW SO WHAT
My question at this stage, (having seen so much final conclusion/opinion expressed about this study *and* it's Author without *any direct experience* of the same (very unprofessional given the circumstance I might add!!) is simple....
Who has done this basic analysis with the text being discussed?
So far I have seen little that would suggest to me that people have done this with the *newspaper article* never mind the text in question. I think this form of enquiry is by far more basically required than many of the objections that have been raised here so far.
True there have been some excellent queries on the nature of those surveyed, how this was done, the size and dynamics of the subject sample, methodologies of collection, colation and reporting and so on .. BUT these are what one does *with the text to be studied* and presuming to proceed to begin doing so without even having sighted the text is, (to use the jargon of the sort of comunities such texts come from) "premature" at BEST.
A large part of the objection so far seems to hinge on the fact that certain quarters feel that they are being misrepresented to the wider community by this academic - despite being none too clear on what they actually think of their findings. I would have to argue that so far they have only been represented at all, (if indeed they have been!) second hand via reporters! It really is hard to see a lot of teh objections so far as much more than people who joke about being mad and marginal twice daily being rankled by someone taking their words literally at face value.
All that aside, if nothing else, if some intend to protect their desired image as "professional, adults to be taken seriously" ... then perhaps proceding in this matter in a serious, adult and professional way might be an excellent way to start.
Full points to those who have considered such and intend to do so. Indeed best of luck with the venture and I hope the findings don't terrify you too much either way.
Step One - Lets at least get a copy of the damn manuscript before we start assigning stars to it like some latter day Maltin ...
Fraternally
Scott
Today on the 23rd a response to some queries elsewhere was forwarded to the list from the Author. I submit it as follows. Thanks Gods is all I can say - a decent response to what I am sure was a prickly questioning. Thank the gods SOMEONE has finally said it!
Dear Shelley,
I am writing in response to the email you sent to Miguel Holland atUQ about my research and would like to clarify a few matters.
The claim made about my research was that it is a "first" in terms ofit examining religious and spiritual beliefs, church attendance and religious background across a number of mental health domainsincluding anxiety/depression, delusional ideation, and antisocial behaviour among a large population of young Australian adults. My understanding of the study you mentioned by Ezzy and Berger is that it focussed on "teen witches" - involving a different age group from that forming the basis of my research (MUSP study children aged 18-24 at the time of follow-up) and also that it looked at a particularised system of belief and practices among youth in several countries. Please let me know if I am incorrect on this.
I am also very aware that there have been numerous studies into "religion" and/or "spirituality" among young samples (these are problematic terms given there is little agreement among academics or the public about what these terms mean or how they should be defined). I was unable to find any other study that investigated thefactors I was examining among a large, "normal", young adult population in Australia during my candidature. My work is also quantitative, subject to all the limitations that are normally associated with quantitative analysis, and the findings need to beinterpreted and assessed with that in mind. If you do know of any studies that have examined all of the outcomes I've investigated according to the religious/spiritual beliefs, church involvement, andreligious background of a large population of young Australian adults, I would be very interested to know about it.
If you go to the MUSP website, you will find information about the extensive range of information gathered from the prenatal period to21-years post-delivery on both mother and child. The study children provided information about themselves during both the 14- and 21-year follow-ups. The study mothers provided information about themselves and their children at every phase of follow-up post baseline (3-5days, 6 months, 5 years, 14 years and 21 years post-delivery). The data used for my analyses for the main outcomes and explanatory variables came from the study children themselves. Religious background was assessed from maternal report during the young adult's early life (maternal church attendance at 5 years post-delivery) and at baseline (maternal religious affiliation and maternal belief inGod in the antenatal period) and is thus not subject to recall bias.
One strength of this study is that I could examine whether the young adult outcomes I was investigating could be attributed to religious background (longitudinal data) rather than the associations found cross-sectionally (based two religious/spiritual beliefs andfrequency of church attendance). Another strength is that I was ableto control for a range of potential confounders and pre-existing problems in the three domains of mental health I was investigating. One weakness is that causality cannot be inferred. Although I considered mental health problems in adolescence, it cannot be ruled out that problems developed post 14 years - somewhere between adolescence and young adulthood - and that young people who are anxious/depressed, have disturbed and suspicious thoughts, andanti social tendencies are more prone to embrace belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God, and that it is this that accounts for my findings. However, it is also possible that there is some causal link between this belief and one or more of the outcomes I examined. As you will be aware, causality is impossible to prove, especiallywhen examining social factors. One can never be sure whether the observed associations are due to some unknown influence/s that is/are strongly associated with the variables that have been found to be related to a particular outcome, rather than the variables themselves.
The findings from my research should not be taken to reflect an effect from any particular religious or spiritual group. Rather, I took a sociological approach using Durkheim's theory of religion as the theoretical framework, and conceived the two beliefs I examined as two different belief systems that are now embraced within societies throughout the West - one embedded in organised religion and the other that represents a departure from "traditional"religious thought - a population trend if you will. One could debate which belief is "traditional" and which is not, but for the purposes of my thesis, I needed to find a clear way of distinguishing one belief from the other, without having to continually refer to each belief individually over and over again. I was looking at overall effects at a community level from two different sets of beliefs in young adulthood. I did not investigate young adult current religious affiliation or its relationship with mental health and behaviour. Further research would need to be conducted in order to determine mental health outcomes according to the various groups and individuals who might be encompassed by belief in a spiritual orhigher power other than God. Indeed, a number of the studies I've looked at seemed to treat belief in God and belief in a spiritual or higher power (or a force or spirit) as if they are the same thing.
The main problem with the study of different religious orientations these days seems to be that there is such diversity now in religious affiliation that the numbers within many groups are too small for proper analyses, and also that people who describe themselves as having no religion often hold religious/spiritual beliefs of some kind - because they wish to distance themselves from the word "religion" altogether. Researchers are thus faced with huge difficulties in how they can investigate contemporary religion/spirituality.
Several studies have conflated religion and spirituality by using a unitary concept "religiousness/spirituality" - perhaps to avoid the problems associated with trying to distinguish "religious" from "non-religious, spiritual" beliefs and practices, or because they conceive them as being the same thing. I argue in my thesis that this approach fails to consider the social context in which these different conceptions of the divine have emerged and thus has little hope in furthering understanding of the religion/spirituality-mental health relationship. I cannot see the logic of grouping together people who are comfortable with religion and those who seek to distance themselves from it.
There is also a tendency these days for views about religion to be polarised, even within academia - with religion being conceived as "bad" and spirituality as "good" in some quarters, and vice versa in other quarters. Since few studies have actually differentiated these two entities, I wanted to investigate whether either of these assumptions could be supported. Clearly this dual-orientation method is far from perfect and is still an oversimplification of very complex phenomena - though I would argue that it is an improvement upon conflated measures of "religiousness/spirituality". The same criticism could be made about investigating socioeconomic inequalities too. Measures of income, education, occupation, and soon are rather crude concepts, but are nonetheless important inexposing health disparities and progressing ways to find the nature of mechanisms that might be involved. The argument continues about whether poor health precedes or follows low socioeconomic status. Yetit would be hard to argue that socioeconomic research is notworthwhile or that it is misguided.
I trust that you will appreciate that brief radio interviews and journalist articles do not allow for detailed methodological discussions, and do not allow me to fully explain either the findings or their possible meanings - especially to lay audiences and readerships. My research has been the subject of misrepresentation and sensational headlines. This has not been helpful or productive. It is also very difficult to answer certain questions "on the hop"and even though qualification might be warranted, one doesn't have the opportunity to do so because of lack of time and the speed with which the next question is asked.
I agree that the "New Age" is a problematic term and many authors have identified it as a term that is almost impossible to define. Yetit would be difficult to argue that New Age beliefs and practices have not risen in popularity in recent decades. One only has to compare the space on bookshop shelves devoted to such topics to that taken up by the same sorts of books three decades ago to see the risein interest in "spirituality".
My research work has been informed by the work of Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas and their writings on New Age thought, as well as their discussion/observations of the development of the New Age and HumanPotential movements - also by the writings of Carl Raschke who argues that New Age spirituality became mainstream years ago. His conclusionis consistent with my own, having watched with interest the incorporation of New Age and Human Potential ideas into seminars within educational institutions, government and business organisations and how New Age and Human Potential terminology havebecome common parlance across the social spectrum.
Currently, little is known about how massive religious change sincethe post WWII might be affecting people's health and wellbeing in thepresent. It may well be that the results from my study reflect aproportion of the population who embrace spiritual beliefs and have rejected belief in God because they are seriously concerned and worried by that state of the environment and the social order, who have had distressing experiences, who are committed to self-reflection as a means to improve themselves and the world around them, and who find no answers in mainstream religions and have thus sought alternative belief systems that better suit their needs andvalues.
It is also possible however, that new forms of religiosity/spirituality have the potential to undermine mental health - just as has been found by some studies into mainstreamChristian religions. You will no doubt be aware that the available evidence on the religion-health connection is inconsistent overall, with some studies finding beneficial effects, others finding harmful effects, and others finding no effects at all (ie studies based onmeasures of church attendance, religious affiliation, subjective measures of religious faith and commitment, and various instruments that are often biased towards church-related religiosity). This is not surprising given the disparate ways religion has been conceptualised and measured, the different populations on which these studies have been based, and the range of outcomes that have been examined.
I would be very happy to forward you my thesis if you and your colleagues are interested in seeing for yourselves what my research was actually about, as well as the measures and approach used. I haveidentified as many limitations as I could in regard to my research in my thesis and the implications these have for interpreting the findings. I'm afraid it is impossible to convey all of these detailsin a few minutes to either radio audiences or journalists, and had hoped that any academics who heard or read any of these interviews/articles would at least wait to judge the merit orotherwise of the study until after they had examined the whole study - not on the basis of media snippets.
Yours sincerely,
Rosemary Aird
Dr Rosemary Aird
LecturerSchool of Public Health
Queensland University of Technology
Victoria Park RoadKelvin Grove Qld 4059
Recently there was an article floating about. I saw it here:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/diy-religions-cause-more-harm-th\an-good/2008/01/17/1200419951220.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Now a lot of the usual suspects jumped up and down because (of course) they believed it was aimed against them and damaged what they believe to be a good reputation that they and other religio fringers have in the wider world.
Lots o knee jerking and truly embarassing stuff got said.
Frankly I just got hideously embarassed to think that someone somewhere might note that I post there sproadically and imagine that I was like that.
Rare that this happens but it does.
None the less here is the greatly snipped fall out. I won't bother with the sort of tripe that was aired by some (and yes some that really I know for a FACT know better!) but just the article, what I was forced to say and then, what the Author said.
I have nothing further to add Your Honour! Hopefully it will stay that way.
Shannon Molloy, on January 17th, 2008, at:
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/diy-religions-cause-more-harm-th\an-good/2008/01/17/1200419951220.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
said:
Meditation, crystal therapy, self-help books - think they're making you happier? Think again. A Brisbane academic has found a strong link between new-age spirituality and poor mental health in young people.
Rosemary Aird examined a possible correlation between new forms of spirituality and mental health as part of her University of Queensland PhD studies.
After surveying more than 3700 Brisbane-based 21-year-olds, she found spirituality and self-focused religions may undermine a person's mental health.
"I had a look at two different beliefs - one was a belief in God, associated with traditional religions, and the other was the newer belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God," Dr Aird said.
The research found non-traditional belief was linked with higher rates of anxiety, depression, disturbed and suspicious ways of thinking and anti-social behaviour.
New-age beliefs promote the idea of self-transformation, self-fulfilment and self-enlightenment, which could see many people excluded from a community environment, she said.
"Traditional religion tends to promote the idea of social responsibility and thinking of others' interests, whereas the new-age movement pushes the idea that we can transform the world by changing ourselves.
"The downside is that people are very much on their own and not part of a community, which may lead to a kind of isolation."
Young people with new-age beliefs were twice as likely to be more anxious and depressed than those with traditional beliefs, the research found.
About eight per cent of young adults attend church once a week and Dr Aird found this reduced the likelihood of antisocial behaviour in young males, but not females.
However young adults with traditional religious beliefs enjoyed no major benefits.
As people have moved away from traditional religious beliefs in recent times, most have been left with a desire to find meaning and purpose in life, she said.
"People who are into the new-age spirituality tend to shop around and will often borrow from all sorts of old beliefs, like Wicca, witchcraft or Native American religions.
"It's a whole mish-mash and changes all the time, where they'll do something for a while before doing something else."
This lack of routine and stability caused by constantly jumping from one fad to another could lead to a "real confusion", she said.
"If there's no sense of any kind of tradition, it means you're kind of cast adrift and means there's no fundamental basic thing to hang on to."
However it's not just young people embracing new-age spirituality and religious beliefs, with the trend appearing to have started with the baby boomer generation.
And while it's difficult to measure where people gather their information from, Dr Aird believes technology has played a big part in popularising spirituality.
"Religion and belief has kind of become mixed up with popular culture.
"Look at television and the kinds of shows that we've got, like Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Medium.
"They promote witchcraft, special powers and spirituality and the general population and young people especially are exposed to these things and could see them as very attractive.
"People want to find some way of embedding these things into some sort of belief system."
The popular self-help and how-to book phenomenon has also created a DIY-spirituality process and further removed the community aspect from development and religion, she said.
Dr Aird's research is the first of its kind in Australia to examine young adults' religious and spiritual thoughts, behaviour and feelings.
While the study suggests a need for further research into the extent that religious change is linked to population mental health, she admits such a task would be enormous.
"Research used to look only at traditional religion and used things like church attendance as a measurement.
"These people don't go to church - they're meditating, they're reading books, they might be part of a group or just attend courses.
"There's no way of measuring all of those different types of things."
To which I said on the 18th:
Greetings All
Well I shan't have the time to read it all till later (busy weekend) but ... prelim thoughts for the discerning sort .. as a before andafter perhaps ...I agree with the title .. across the board they do tend to I have seen over the years ....
> she has drawn a connection between 'new-age' spirituality andunstable
> mental health.
I wouldn't fid that too difficult ... hell it has been the jokesince before time hasn't it? You don't have to be crazy but ithelps ... and hell the parallells between madness and enlightenment well I seem to remember that being debated in one form oranothereven before the middle ages ... hmmm ..
> *"People who are into the new-age spirituality tend to shop aroundand will
> often borrow from all sorts of old beliefs, like Wicca, witchcraft or Native
> American religions. **"It's a whole mish-mash and changes all thetime,
> where they'll do something for a while before doing somethingelse." **This
> lack of routine and stability caused by constantly jumping fromone fad to
> another could lead to a "real confusion", she said.*
Well I am not sure that this is a good shoping list of oldbeliefs ... but I'd say that is fair comment so far taken at face value without reading extras into it ...
> And more snips:
>> *Dr Aird's research is the first of its kind in Australia toexamine young
> adults' religious and spiritual thoughts, behaviour and feelings.*
> Doug - I reckon you'd have something to say about that claim.
Hmmm ... that I'd have to say is a bit of over promo ... after all any parent will know that isn't necc the case. As for what else has been done in proper academic circles well ... I don't carry that sort of list in my library so I couldn't say.
> Thoughts?
I'll be interested to read the actual article when I get a moment -if only to see if my views at first glance of the excerpted changeby way of the whole ...
Fraternally Scott
Now all sorts of bollocks went on after that ... largely driven by the usual sort of "That is us she is talking about how dare she she is wrong ..." drone one would expect from what one sees on lists these days.
Eventually I had to say it so I did. On Jan 20 I posted the following:
Greetings All
Ok. I have had a look at the article now and all the in between that has gone on in here. I must say I am a bit embarassed and stunned ... so I have decided to say this piece/peace on it and then leave the damn issue alone. I have too much else on to allow something like this to eat at me. So to the subject at hand ....
Might I humbly suggest (or not so!) that before a stampede of well intentioned righteousness gets underway that a few basic steps are taken?
To begin with (and as much as I despise the necc for such!) I did my BA and then a further Grad Dip Ed which I never bothered to complete final practicum on years ago - so there now we all know where I am coming from.
Some basic points that I learnt while at the "wee mind gym" simply haven't been addressed in here anywhere that I can see and so I reckon they should be bought up.
First of all - the link leads to an article with a pretty obviously sensational(ist) title. Has anyone ascertained that the thesis is as the article presents it or is that a lesson that has been thoroughly lost on the Pagan/Occult/etc communities despite the long history of demonstrations? As a fabulous bit of graffiti I saw years ago said:
"MAYBE .. the Media Lies ..."
The article talks about Ms Aird's work in the most general and nebulous ways. It includes quotes that most certainly sound to me like conversational sound bites (bytes?) given out of context to give a spin to the work being discussed so it will appear very controversial.
It does not take a doctorate to spot that such language would not be to the standard required for a doctoral work of any kind or indeed the work one would expect from one with a doctorate! It is generalised, lacking in any form of specificity, context or definition and certainly not the sort of thing one would get good marks for as a first year much less anything else. These same are not delineated by the article as textual or conversational and frankly, I would be mortified should anyone take them as indicative of the work. I would be aboslutely worried for anyone who proceeded bodly in public against the work without such basic investigation being done.
Without the whole work to examine we cannot even know what definitions have been ascribed to the terms used, nor what context, (academic or otherwise!) nor the outcomes by way of anything other than a reporter's quotes. There IS such a thing as discipline specific jargon not to mention adjustment for implied audiences and so on.
One can have a retort in a conversation as well as in a laboratory but if you use a conversational retort in place of a lab retort ... you may well be in strife sooner rather than later.
Before wholesale objection in public to this text, let us be *at least* sure that the author has not specified, (directly or contextually) the definitions of the terms she is using to show them as different to those we are used to using. If we don't wish to do so for the sake of making a decent and well thought out objection - let us do it so as to avoid the embarassment we'd so richly deserve otherwise.
"Bad Science" is a phrase I think I heard in here? Well forming much more than the most nebulous of stances on this work by way of the article, (or indeed anything other than the actual text!) would most certainly be bad science and critique - not to mention embarassing!
ALL we CAN have from this article (and others like it) is ASSUMPTIONS based largely on our own biases and a second hand report reduced to the point where it would be of interest to the lowest common denominator of the periodical's intended audience. These would be THEORIES (at absolute best!!) that show more precisely our own predilictions than theirs.
Even *were* this a straightforwardly covert agenda piece the fact still stands (and perhaps we need reminding of it!) this person does NOT have to justify their work (academic or otherwise) to US. That would be something of a conceit I would argue and I can see a direct line from this kind of stance to one I saw elsewhere a while back where one alleged academic stated in a public forum: "If there were witches in the area I would have known because they would have been talking to me." *Shakes Head* Terrifying to say the least!
If WE object to this person's work then it is up to US to show in a well researched and objective manner, point for point, WHY THEY are WRONG. Whether we LIKE the piece (or what we think it is saying) is beside the point. THEY have provided a work with at least some supporting evidence(s) and so the onus is on US to at least be able to match the level before applying for contest surely? So far we haven't even read the work so I'd say we are a bit behind the 8 ball at this stage to be passing comment too boldly - and that most certainly includes comenting on the author's personal beliefs and academic methodologies.
After all, let us not forget that at the end of the day one has to be seen to be doing the job BETTER than those we call out in public in order to "do the job right"?
One of my first classes at Uni asked us if "a picture of a pipe" was the same *as a pipe*. The map is NOT the territory and so here we should not confuse articles about a work as being properly indicative of the text, it's conclusions, it's data and most certainly not properly of the text as a whole.
Jonathan asked a valid question (oo but you can be cranky though! lol) and I am yet to see it undertaken. I did a course called Textual Analysis and it has always stood me in good stead in these sort of circumstances.
One understanding one derives from this practice is that Analysis of any form of text, whether it be written, photographic, filmic, televisual, musical, spoken or even experiential is primarily based upon the notion that whatever we are presented with is a construct with agendas both overt and covert - implied and unintended.
What this means is that what we see, hear, taste, touch, smell and experience is presented in such a way to render it capable of conveying meanings both obvious and covert. So what does it mean? Well it means that we need to examine and unriddle any text of any description before we involve our personal emotional reactions.
Consider: QUESTIONS FOR DECONSTRUCTION
Different writers suggest various ways into the deconstruction process. For example, Masterman suggests:
1. WHO is responsible for these: constructions?
2. HOW precisely is the ideological effect noted above achieved? (i.e. what are the dominant techniques and codings currently employed within broadcasting?)
3. WHAT values are implicit in the world so constructed?
4. HOW are these constructions read?
Remember: OBSERVE INTERPRET CONCLUDE
Or if you prefer: WHAT HOW SO WHAT
My question at this stage, (having seen so much final conclusion/opinion expressed about this study *and* it's Author without *any direct experience* of the same (very unprofessional given the circumstance I might add!!) is simple....
Who has done this basic analysis with the text being discussed?
So far I have seen little that would suggest to me that people have done this with the *newspaper article* never mind the text in question. I think this form of enquiry is by far more basically required than many of the objections that have been raised here so far.
True there have been some excellent queries on the nature of those surveyed, how this was done, the size and dynamics of the subject sample, methodologies of collection, colation and reporting and so on .. BUT these are what one does *with the text to be studied* and presuming to proceed to begin doing so without even having sighted the text is, (to use the jargon of the sort of comunities such texts come from) "premature" at BEST.
A large part of the objection so far seems to hinge on the fact that certain quarters feel that they are being misrepresented to the wider community by this academic - despite being none too clear on what they actually think of their findings. I would have to argue that so far they have only been represented at all, (if indeed they have been!) second hand via reporters! It really is hard to see a lot of teh objections so far as much more than people who joke about being mad and marginal twice daily being rankled by someone taking their words literally at face value.
All that aside, if nothing else, if some intend to protect their desired image as "professional, adults to be taken seriously" ... then perhaps proceding in this matter in a serious, adult and professional way might be an excellent way to start.
Full points to those who have considered such and intend to do so. Indeed best of luck with the venture and I hope the findings don't terrify you too much either way.
Step One - Lets at least get a copy of the damn manuscript before we start assigning stars to it like some latter day Maltin ...
Fraternally
Scott
Today on the 23rd a response to some queries elsewhere was forwarded to the list from the Author. I submit it as follows. Thanks Gods is all I can say - a decent response to what I am sure was a prickly questioning. Thank the gods SOMEONE has finally said it!
Dear Shelley,
I am writing in response to the email you sent to Miguel Holland atUQ about my research and would like to clarify a few matters.
The claim made about my research was that it is a "first" in terms ofit examining religious and spiritual beliefs, church attendance and religious background across a number of mental health domainsincluding anxiety/depression, delusional ideation, and antisocial behaviour among a large population of young Australian adults. My understanding of the study you mentioned by Ezzy and Berger is that it focussed on "teen witches" - involving a different age group from that forming the basis of my research (MUSP study children aged 18-24 at the time of follow-up) and also that it looked at a particularised system of belief and practices among youth in several countries. Please let me know if I am incorrect on this.
I am also very aware that there have been numerous studies into "religion" and/or "spirituality" among young samples (these are problematic terms given there is little agreement among academics or the public about what these terms mean or how they should be defined). I was unable to find any other study that investigated thefactors I was examining among a large, "normal", young adult population in Australia during my candidature. My work is also quantitative, subject to all the limitations that are normally associated with quantitative analysis, and the findings need to beinterpreted and assessed with that in mind. If you do know of any studies that have examined all of the outcomes I've investigated according to the religious/spiritual beliefs, church involvement, andreligious background of a large population of young Australian adults, I would be very interested to know about it.
If you go to the MUSP website, you will find information about the extensive range of information gathered from the prenatal period to21-years post-delivery on both mother and child. The study children provided information about themselves during both the 14- and 21-year follow-ups. The study mothers provided information about themselves and their children at every phase of follow-up post baseline (3-5days, 6 months, 5 years, 14 years and 21 years post-delivery). The data used for my analyses for the main outcomes and explanatory variables came from the study children themselves. Religious background was assessed from maternal report during the young adult's early life (maternal church attendance at 5 years post-delivery) and at baseline (maternal religious affiliation and maternal belief inGod in the antenatal period) and is thus not subject to recall bias.
One strength of this study is that I could examine whether the young adult outcomes I was investigating could be attributed to religious background (longitudinal data) rather than the associations found cross-sectionally (based two religious/spiritual beliefs andfrequency of church attendance). Another strength is that I was ableto control for a range of potential confounders and pre-existing problems in the three domains of mental health I was investigating. One weakness is that causality cannot be inferred. Although I considered mental health problems in adolescence, it cannot be ruled out that problems developed post 14 years - somewhere between adolescence and young adulthood - and that young people who are anxious/depressed, have disturbed and suspicious thoughts, andanti social tendencies are more prone to embrace belief in a spiritual or higher power other than God, and that it is this that accounts for my findings. However, it is also possible that there is some causal link between this belief and one or more of the outcomes I examined. As you will be aware, causality is impossible to prove, especiallywhen examining social factors. One can never be sure whether the observed associations are due to some unknown influence/s that is/are strongly associated with the variables that have been found to be related to a particular outcome, rather than the variables themselves.
The findings from my research should not be taken to reflect an effect from any particular religious or spiritual group. Rather, I took a sociological approach using Durkheim's theory of religion as the theoretical framework, and conceived the two beliefs I examined as two different belief systems that are now embraced within societies throughout the West - one embedded in organised religion and the other that represents a departure from "traditional"religious thought - a population trend if you will. One could debate which belief is "traditional" and which is not, but for the purposes of my thesis, I needed to find a clear way of distinguishing one belief from the other, without having to continually refer to each belief individually over and over again. I was looking at overall effects at a community level from two different sets of beliefs in young adulthood. I did not investigate young adult current religious affiliation or its relationship with mental health and behaviour. Further research would need to be conducted in order to determine mental health outcomes according to the various groups and individuals who might be encompassed by belief in a spiritual orhigher power other than God. Indeed, a number of the studies I've looked at seemed to treat belief in God and belief in a spiritual or higher power (or a force or spirit) as if they are the same thing.
The main problem with the study of different religious orientations these days seems to be that there is such diversity now in religious affiliation that the numbers within many groups are too small for proper analyses, and also that people who describe themselves as having no religion often hold religious/spiritual beliefs of some kind - because they wish to distance themselves from the word "religion" altogether. Researchers are thus faced with huge difficulties in how they can investigate contemporary religion/spirituality.
Several studies have conflated religion and spirituality by using a unitary concept "religiousness/spirituality" - perhaps to avoid the problems associated with trying to distinguish "religious" from "non-religious, spiritual" beliefs and practices, or because they conceive them as being the same thing. I argue in my thesis that this approach fails to consider the social context in which these different conceptions of the divine have emerged and thus has little hope in furthering understanding of the religion/spirituality-mental health relationship. I cannot see the logic of grouping together people who are comfortable with religion and those who seek to distance themselves from it.
There is also a tendency these days for views about religion to be polarised, even within academia - with religion being conceived as "bad" and spirituality as "good" in some quarters, and vice versa in other quarters. Since few studies have actually differentiated these two entities, I wanted to investigate whether either of these assumptions could be supported. Clearly this dual-orientation method is far from perfect and is still an oversimplification of very complex phenomena - though I would argue that it is an improvement upon conflated measures of "religiousness/spirituality". The same criticism could be made about investigating socioeconomic inequalities too. Measures of income, education, occupation, and soon are rather crude concepts, but are nonetheless important inexposing health disparities and progressing ways to find the nature of mechanisms that might be involved. The argument continues about whether poor health precedes or follows low socioeconomic status. Yetit would be hard to argue that socioeconomic research is notworthwhile or that it is misguided.
I trust that you will appreciate that brief radio interviews and journalist articles do not allow for detailed methodological discussions, and do not allow me to fully explain either the findings or their possible meanings - especially to lay audiences and readerships. My research has been the subject of misrepresentation and sensational headlines. This has not been helpful or productive. It is also very difficult to answer certain questions "on the hop"and even though qualification might be warranted, one doesn't have the opportunity to do so because of lack of time and the speed with which the next question is asked.
I agree that the "New Age" is a problematic term and many authors have identified it as a term that is almost impossible to define. Yetit would be difficult to argue that New Age beliefs and practices have not risen in popularity in recent decades. One only has to compare the space on bookshop shelves devoted to such topics to that taken up by the same sorts of books three decades ago to see the risein interest in "spirituality".
My research work has been informed by the work of Linda Woodhead and Paul Heelas and their writings on New Age thought, as well as their discussion/observations of the development of the New Age and HumanPotential movements - also by the writings of Carl Raschke who argues that New Age spirituality became mainstream years ago. His conclusionis consistent with my own, having watched with interest the incorporation of New Age and Human Potential ideas into seminars within educational institutions, government and business organisations and how New Age and Human Potential terminology havebecome common parlance across the social spectrum.
Currently, little is known about how massive religious change sincethe post WWII might be affecting people's health and wellbeing in thepresent. It may well be that the results from my study reflect aproportion of the population who embrace spiritual beliefs and have rejected belief in God because they are seriously concerned and worried by that state of the environment and the social order, who have had distressing experiences, who are committed to self-reflection as a means to improve themselves and the world around them, and who find no answers in mainstream religions and have thus sought alternative belief systems that better suit their needs andvalues.
It is also possible however, that new forms of religiosity/spirituality have the potential to undermine mental health - just as has been found by some studies into mainstreamChristian religions. You will no doubt be aware that the available evidence on the religion-health connection is inconsistent overall, with some studies finding beneficial effects, others finding harmful effects, and others finding no effects at all (ie studies based onmeasures of church attendance, religious affiliation, subjective measures of religious faith and commitment, and various instruments that are often biased towards church-related religiosity). This is not surprising given the disparate ways religion has been conceptualised and measured, the different populations on which these studies have been based, and the range of outcomes that have been examined.
I would be very happy to forward you my thesis if you and your colleagues are interested in seeing for yourselves what my research was actually about, as well as the measures and approach used. I haveidentified as many limitations as I could in regard to my research in my thesis and the implications these have for interpreting the findings. I'm afraid it is impossible to convey all of these detailsin a few minutes to either radio audiences or journalists, and had hoped that any academics who heard or read any of these interviews/articles would at least wait to judge the merit orotherwise of the study until after they had examined the whole study - not on the basis of media snippets.
Yours sincerely,
Rosemary Aird
Dr Rosemary Aird
LecturerSchool of Public Health
Queensland University of Technology
Victoria Park RoadKelvin Grove Qld 4059
posted by BissekArt at 8:58 am
0 comments
