Are we in the middle of of a consciousness culture shift, or is it just more navel gazing by, e.g. Internet groups interested in the topic? Is it primarily a Western phenomenon that in the overall scheme of things doesn't make much difference?
An interesting discussion, Alex, and it and your question raised a number of thoughts for me:
1. Civilisations come and go, but they leave behind them influences that are long lasting and which historians love to analyse and try to pin down. Here in the West, some think we're engaged in acts of cultural suicide: in Europe, this refers to things like the influx of many people from foreign cultures, and that's often seen in a negative light. There surely are some negatives for us native people, but on the other hand, they're not so negative from the viewpoint of immigrants.
I often wonder if there isn't the outworking of some kind of master plan beyond our comprehension in all of this: some kind of transcendent value in creating societies with admixtures of religious and cultural communities. I mean, in my area of the UK, I can travel just a couple of miles and see people from many different countries who belong to many different religions/no religion (though there may be spirituality) at all. People who have accepted the fact of, say, homosexual relationships, are mixing with people who are wholly antithetical to them. The thing holding it all together at the moment is the legal system, which is a legacy of Western society. It will be interesting to see what kind of society eventually emerges from all this cultural diversity.
IMO, it will either prove disastrous and lead to civil war, or to some new equilibrium in which there is a better balance between man's spiritual and secular nature: maybe this latter is the essence of the plan, but still, our capacity to screw things up knows no bounds.
2. Stir into the melting pot the Internet--which may be merely making people more aware than ever of the fact that there are many others who feel as they do about spirituality, rather than evidencing an actual increase in interest--and we are, for sure, living in interesting times.
That something is happening, facilitated by technological advance, which is influencing people both East and West, is, I feel, undeniable. A recent TV programme in the UK filmed the lives of tribal goat traders in Africa, and yet even there, they are using mobile phones. Same thing with animist populations all over the world, whether it's Siberian nomads or Amazonians: they're all concerned about whether they have access to a clear signal. It's long been said that everyone affects everyone else, but never has technology been more in tune with that sentiment.
3. I feel that Ken Jordan has fallen into error of conflating spirituality with environmentalism, which latter may be one of the things co-opting him into views that often are inimical to spirituality. Green proponents are as frequently materialists wedded to a scientistic world view, as they are purportedly anti-materialist. They may actually be pushing ideas that cause great human suffering, all the while seeing themselves as the saviours of the world.
Greens live in a perpetual state of fear, greatly underestimating the resilience of life, which has been around for millions of years and survived far worse conditions than anything human beings have been able to throw at it. It seems that the fear of eternal damnation resulting from our actions has been replaced by that of species (including human) annihilation resulting from them. There must always be something to feel guilty about, and greens don't connect the dots and see that they are often behaving in the same way as fundamental religionists.
There is so much happening at the moment: so many conflicting cross-currents. This has probably always been the case, but never has it been so noticeable or rapid. Spirituality is a very personal thing: it always happens one case at a time. If there is to be a major paradigm shift, I don't feel it's going to be the result of a conscious movement: movements are always contaminated by cultural elements of one kind or another, and always subject to manipulation by the powers that be. There probably won't be any politics associated with it: just a critical mass of experiencers that can catalyse change by the fact of what their experience has done for them.