UC Berkeley Social Survey: Americans and religion increasingly parting ways
Americans and religion increasingly parting ways, new survey shows
By Yasmin Anwar, Media Relations | March 12, 2013
BERKELEY —
Religious affiliation in the United States is at its lowest point since it began to be tracked in the 1930s, according to analysis of newly released survey data by researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, and Duke University. Last year, one in five Americans claimed they had no religious preference, more than double the number reported in 1990.
Fewer Americans affiliated with an organized religion, survey shows
UC Berkeley sociologists Mike Hout and Claude Fischer , along with Mark Chaves of Duke University, analyzed data on religious attitudes as part of the General Social Survey, a highly cited biannual poll conducted by NORC, an independent research institute at the University of Chicago.
Results of the survey – which looked at numerous issues, including attitudes about gun ownership and how tax dollars should be spent, and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation – are being released now and in coming weeks.
On American attitudes toward religion, UC Berkeley researchers found that 20 percent of a nationally representative group reported no religious preference. That’s a jump from 1990 when all but 8 percent of Americans polled identified with an organized faith.
http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/03/12/non-believers/
= new reply since forum marked as read
I guess that's not "organized." But it's not atheism. 
What ever gets you through the night. I personally endorse the woo.
I started long ago, say '73, with Carlos Castanada and Don Juan. Loved every darn book he wrote. Read some of them twice.
Yes, it is probably what's wrong with me. 
We wouldn't want to have it any other way, I'd think. 
but some would say then it is not a religion (belief). Maybe a philosophy or a practice like yoga. I'm not meaning to classify it, but just hmmmm....doesn't quite fit
It is a problem that we all have different understandings of what the words mean. My experience of shamanic practice is that it's not a religion, organized or non-organized. (And working with a group of practitioners to organize a ritual or ceremony pretty much proves its dis-organization, imho. 
) In my experience, shamanic practice captures the true essence of what is at the core of the world's religions. But because it is a faith of direct revelation, it can only have so little in common with the larger domains of religion--the physical structures, organizations, codifications, etc. So I often tell people that shamanism can be, and IS, a part of all religions--or none.
And I understand the dilemma you raise; I struggle with it too.
thank you. I see that--at the core of all religions but not codified. And not pantheistic in the sense of blending all religious
philosophies. Emphasis on direct experience. Focused meditation or trance invocation (for good, only for good 
...working with what is. Requires unswerving faith in the existence of a world beyond but not adherence to a dogma.
Thank you for putting some words to it re. the relationship to other spirituality 
