Charles M. Blow in today’s Times: ‘The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report on Wednesday that is bound to stir conversation about the increasingly complicated cacophony of spirituality in America — a mash-up of traditional faiths, fantasy and mythology.
Entitled “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” the report points out that many Americans are now choosing to “blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs” and that “sizable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups” said that they have had supernatural experiences, like encountering ghosts.
For the first time in 47 years of polling, the number of Americans who said that they have had a religious or mystical experience, which the question defined as a “moment of sudden religious insight or awakening,” was greater than those who said that they had not.
(Question: Does the first time I saw Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video count?)’ (…)
'Since 1996, the percentage of Americans who said that they have been in the presence of a ghost has doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent, and the percentage who said that they were in touch with someone who was dead has increased by nearly two thirds, rising from 18 percent to 29 percent.’

If this trend continues we are going to look at death as a holiday.
“Enjoy purgatory, I call you as soon as possible.” And think of the commercial opportunities: strip clubs where dead people are slowly undressing in exchange for a glass of champagne and a nice tip.

A bit as in the first lines of this poem by David Wagoner:

“The Night of the Sad Women

They are undressing slowly by closed doors

Unable to find themselves, fading in mirrors.”