Following Our Bliss: How the Spiritual Ideals of the Sixties Shape Our Lives Today

The sixties transformed America's spiritual life. With his characteristic insight, wit, and dramatic reporting, renowned San Francisco Chronicle journalist Don Lattin takes the first comprehensive look at the spiritual legacy of that extraordinary time, viewed through the eyes of those who grew up at the center of some of the era's wildest experimentation.

The sixties brought an explosion of religious and spiritual exploration, unprecedented in its scope, fervor, and sheer creativity. Lattin reveals how and why New Age beliefs, feminist spirituality, Eastern religions, Tai Chi and yoga, spiritual healing, and other alternative practices have taken such firm root in American culture.

Lattin not only explores dramatic changes in the core American communities of faith – Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish – he also tells the stories of what has happened to the likes of the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas, communes and ashrams, and to the children born into various spiritual communities. He shows how religious trends today, including the booming Christian rock movement, Buddhist punks, and contemporary Catholics wrestling with sexual ethics and church authority, have their roots in debates begun in the sixties.

In this stimulating odyssey through American spirituality – then and now – Don Lattin makes it clear why we need to understand sixties spirituality if we want to discover who we are today.