Boo!
Watch out for ghosts. A new Gallup Poll shows that Americans' belief in the spirits of the dead and haunted houses is rising like a cloud of swamp gas at midnight.
"I thought half this stuff was wacky, but there are just too many people who believe in it for me to discount it," said Nick Sorise, who continually hears reports of ghost sightings from diners and staff at his Fenton restaurant, called the Fenton Hotel.
This growing interest in the spiritual world isn't all superstition, said Frank Newport, the editor of the Gallup Poll in Princeton, N.J. It reflects a broader interest in many forms of spirituality, including mind-body-spirit connections with healing.
"The belief in psychic or spiritual healing is up since 1990, and that doesn't surprise me," said Newport. "There have been so many news reports about the power of the mind over illness in the last 10 years."
The Gallup report compares a new national survey of adults with a similar survey conducted in 1990. Both surveys had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
During that period, belief in spiritual healing rose from 46 percent to 54 percent among all Americans. The belief is strongest now among well-educated men and women, and grows from 48 percent of people who are high school graduates to 65 percent of people who have pursued postgraduate degrees.
Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who believe in haunted houses rose from 29 to 42; those who believe that the spirits of the dead can return to this world rose from 25 percent to 38 percent, and those who believe in witches grew from 14 percent to 26 percent.
"Some of our indicators on religion only move glacially," said Newport. So, the new data represent significant shifts in Americans' attitudes, he said.
Dr. David Larson, president of the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, Md., said the Gallup data underline the importance of new research into religion and healing.
"This is not just a cultural phenomenon," said Larson. "There's a lot of research out there now that religion can have a good influence on healing."
However, Larson objected to Gallup's pairing of the issue with Halloween-themed topics in its survey.
"This is an odd couple to ask about: health and ghosts in the same survey," said Larson. "And I'm amazed that Gallup still calls it 'psychic or spiritual healing' in their question. The term psychic makes it sound like people are talking about tarot card readers."
To analyze changes in attitude during the past 11 years, Gallup repeated the exact questions used in 1990, so some phrases may seem a bit dated, Newport admitted.
If a poll focused exclusively on spiritual contributions to healing, Larson predicted it would show even higher belief.
"In one University of Michigan study in 1997 of women with cancer, ...91 percent of the women said faith gave them hope," Larson said.
The growing interest in this field has meant booming business for merchants who sell related books and products.
In Ann Arbor, the Crazy Wisdom bookstore, which operates like a supermarket of paranormal and spiritual products, has seen a steady increase in business since it opened in 1982. Two years ago, the store moved into a space on Main Street three times the size of the old one.
Comanager Carol Karr said some sales are sparked by momentary attention from media stars, such as Oprah Winfrey. However, most of Karr's customers are serious about adopting new beliefs, especially concerning spirituality's link with physical well-being, she said.
"People are actually incorporating it into their lifestyles and passing it onto their children," Karr said.
While the Gallup data confirm that older, better-educated Americans are drawn toward spiritual healing, the fascination with ghosts and witches appears to be more of a youthful fancy.
Beliefs in haunted houses and witches are strongest among young adults with less than a college degree. That age group is the target audience for movies such as "Blair Witch Project" and TV shows like "The X-Files" and "Charmed," about a trio of witch sisters.
Last October, the Rev. Gerry Hunter, a self-described spectral investigator and United Methodist minister from Hillsdale County, published "Haunted Michigan: Recent Encounters with Active Spirits" (Lake Claremont Press, $12.95). It became a surprise hit for its Chicago publisher, and Hunter plans a sequel.
He got interested in hauntings during the course of his duties as a pastor, as people turned to him for explanations of odd occurrences. His book includes chapters on 29 Michigan locales believed to have been haunted, including the Fenton Hotel.
Sorise, the restaurant's owner, said diners regularly ask to sit at Table 32, where some have reported spotting a ghostly man ordering a Jack Daniel's on the rocks and then disappearing, or for a tour of the shadowy third floor, where people claim to hear eerie noises.
"I've had doctors and attorneys, prominent people, tell their stories. I believe that they believe they saw them, but I'm still on the fence," Sorise said.
The Gallup report isn't surprising, he said, even though he counts himself among the 57 percent of Americans who still aren't convinced that ghosts exist.
"I'm still a person who has to see it to believe it," he said.