Evidence of marketers recognizing the surfacing of boomer spirituality is everywhere. Bose sells its noise cancelling® headphones to an upscale boomer audience by proposing that prospective purchasers “use them as a concert hall—or a sanctuary.” Thierry Mugler names its new perfume “Angel”, selling it over the counter at Neiman Marcus. The Four Seasons Resort promises to help boomers (presumably) “Discover a reality beyond any dream.”

Boomers find meaning and purpose in everything from the purchase of an automobile to a vacuum cleaner.

This is not only a diverse spirituality, by the way. There is abundant evidence that the boomer generation, who basically invented the notion of eclectic spirituality, is returning not only to their own invented version of cafeteria-style spirituality, but traditional religion, as well.

The statistics say as much, as shared periodically over the past several years by AARP, Focalyst, Natural Marketing Institute and others. (For instance in 2007, AARP found that 94% of all respondents 50+ believe in God, and interestingly enough, the higher the income, the less afraid of death they are. In the same year, AARP also found that 9 out of 10 Hispanics pray to express their spirituality. A few years prior, they found that 85% of all boomers rate themselves from somewhat to very on the spirituality scale.)

In my own proprietary qualitative study (Drs. Orsborn/Smull), undertaken several years ago, we predicted as much. Spirituality has its hooks in boomer men and especially boomer women. As usual with this generation, the early indications of what is becoming a phenomenon, were first evident amongst the well-educated, leading-edge boomer women that we studied. (A whitepaper I prepared on the subject, applying our findings to marketers can be found by following this link.) This is the same group of women who spawned women’s liberation, fast food, life balance issues and eco-consciousness. They’ve been in the forefront of every revolution this generation has undertaken, including the latest trends now afoot, ranging from reinvention instead of retirement, defying the stereotypes of aging, and so on.

In brief, we found that the top motivator for these boomers—underlying survival issues such as concerns about jobs, saving enough for retirement, parenting adult children, health and even or especially caregiving and mortality—was the search for meaning.

Testing my assumption that this was an issue that had undoubtedly progressed from bubbling beneath the surface of the elite to a geyser-full of purpose and meaning for the masses, I went to the bible of all boomer indexes: the Conference Programs for the Annual Conference of the National Council on Aging and the American Society of Aging for the past two years. I wanted to see if the category of presentations under the heading “Religion and Spirituality” had increased dramatically, as I predicted.

But dismay (although short-lived.) While the 2007 program presented 21 speeches/workshops/keynotes on spiritual and religious themes (“Eco-Spirituality and the Practice of Hope”, “Rethink Aging Through the Healing Power of Prayer”) the 2008 program had a mere 13 listed. Ever the sleuth, I dug deeper. And aha! In 2008, a new category had been added to the index: “Purpose and Meaning of Aging” with an additional 91 entries. “Religion and Spirituality” had, indeed, overflowed its banks, and was now sending rivulets of meaning into everything from civic engagement to architecture. “Warm Homes: A Model for Socialization and Community Reengagement”, “Finding Fulfillment in Retirement Living” and “Rebranding Old Age.”

State Farm gets it. Rebranded boomers are lining up to buy rebranded insurance products, the synchronistic convergence of bliss and the bottom line.

In the next blog in this series: More on the leading-edge of boomer spirituality.

Carol Orsborn, Ph.D.