A little over a decade later, I remember very clearly the moment when I realized fantasy would now rule pop culture. The first Star Wars, which a majority of Americans paid to see, was an epochal success for many reasons. But one of those reasons was that it wasn’t just science fiction but had a spiritual fantasy at its core—the Force, the energy field that turned physics into metaphysics and vice versa, giving Jedis their telepathic and telekinetic powers. A mélange of affiliated New Age notions had just been mainstreamed, making 1977 the perfect moment to introduce an ecumenical new
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