Phyllis Tickle is a well-known writer on religious subjects and an astute trend-watcher. Formerly the religion editor for Publishers Weekly, the international journal of the book-publishing industry in the English language, she is currently its contributing editor in religion, monitoring trends in spirituality and publishing. Besides reviewing a host of books on prayer, self-help, and spirituality, she has also written a number of books herself, including God-Talk in America (Crossroad, 1997).

She comments for the Sentinel on the current state of affairs in religious publishing and on the steadily accelerating public demand for books on spirituality.

After self-help books, I think "angel" books were the first big sign of the religion boom. From 1990 to 1993, authors were selling anything and everything on angels. Their texts were clearly for the underchurched or the unchurched. These books first exposed us to the huge number of Americans yearning for something they could experience—they could feel—that was a thing of the heart. In a sense, angel books gave people permission to talk in nonrational terms. Their popularity reflects people's attempts to reach out from their religious memory for something that had been, but was no longer, there.

In 1992 it was obvious that we were going to be deluged by religion. People in the book industry had anticipated it as early as the 1980s, but not until 1992 did the figures confirm this. I'm talking about religion, spirituality, sacred texts, the whole thing. In that year, Baker & Taylor, the world's largest distributor of books to public libraries, had an increase of 91 percent in movement of religion products to American libraries. It was our first bit of quantitative data confirming what all of us had been saying was coming.

Then the figures continued to grow. Ingram, which is the world's largest distributor of books to commercial outlets, saw a 246 percent increase in the movement of religious products during 1994–95. While the increases have leveled off since then, the demand for religious books is still growing.

Nor is the trend limited to books. Newsmagazines are covering religion more often because they have found that these issues sell very well. Movies follow the trend, too. There's Matrix, for instance, the best religion movie of last year, in my opinion. Then there are well-known television series, like Touched By An Angel, and there's Christian rock music. The trend is pervasive and covers more than just book sales.

But books do still have pride of place because it takes so long and so many hands to produce them. They also stay around a long time an are referenced by so much of the community that they really are the best continued index of where a culture is. Books are funny things; they are both proactive and reactive. They can cause a certain amount of change, but they also react to what's in the culture. If they don't keep that balance, then they're not doing their job, and they won't get read.

The other thing about a book is that it's not cheap. It's not like flipping a dial on a television set. A book is there, it's permanent, and it costs you money.

People responding to polls may make themselves sound more religious than their actual practice would suggest, but when someone goes into a bookstore and spends 20 dollars on a book, that person has made a statement about what really matters to him or her.

One of the first things we learned in 1992 and 1993 was that people would go to a corner at the back of a bookstore, sit for two hours, and come out with maybe two books, but they had gone through 20. If you've ever gone into a large Barnes & Noble and sat in the religion section, you know the same phenomenon is happening today.

To me, religion and spirituality books are portable pastors. What used to go on in the pastor's study—I call it self-help or spiritual quest—isn't going on there as much anymore. It now involves going to bookstores and obtaining self-help, if you will. There is no need to go to a professional. You can find help right there at the bookstore.

A large number of those seeking spiritual self-help are baby boomers. Still in their late forties, for the most part, they are looking for rootedness and for a practical, spiritual context for their lives. They don't want to affiliate with a church; they don't want denominations. Rather, they want religious beliefs that work for them. Theirs is a very personal, individualized seeking, almost too individualized, perhaps. But central to all of them is a hunger for the spiritual.

If anything is hot right now, it's spirituality and physical health, but I think we haven't seen anything yet in terms of the demand for materials on this subject. Looking at prayer books alone, you find more and more prayers for direct healing, and more and more comfort with intercessory prayer for other's health. As medicine progresses and incorporates more and more of Mary Baker Eddy's principles—more and more spirituality—into its processes, the connection between spirituality and health is becoming mainstream. In fact, we are developing a generation of Americans who are perfectly comfortable in this mental environment.

Another of the interesting trends right now is a kind of maturing of our religious interests. What used to be treated as a generic topic ten years ago—such as angels—is becoming more and more rooted in tradition. People are asking, "Now that I have begun to understand my needs, and now that I have found books that help me, where are the answers in relation to a tradition?" If organizations can convey healing concepts from the standpoint of their tradition, people are going to respond to that. And I would expect increased interest in books connected to a tradition of some sort.

If there is one overriding emotion driving the current religious foment. I think it's this: Can you put me into context? Can you tell me where I fit? Do I matter? If people know they matter, I think they can deal with their problems.