Chapter 11

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of

Spiritual Messages

Jarkko Kari

Abstract

The basic idea of this chapter is to utilize spiritual information inempirically exploring how its purported source beings view the impactsof such information upon various phenomena. This chapter aims atdiscovering and describing the most central effect dimensions in thiscontext and, by so doing, at building theoretical constructs. Theempirical work was done during 2005–2009 in Finland. Because of therelative novelty of the research topic, an inductive approach wasapplied. The research data were composed of a representative sampleof 62 spiritual texts (printed books and articles, as well as Web ande-mail articles). The chapter examines the discovered categories andtheir subcategories, shows the most salient connections between themand discusses the findings in the context of previous research. Theinvestigation explored two dimensions: the targets and actuality of theimpacts of spiritual information. The impact targets were classified asorganisms (human individuals, human communities, extraterrestrials,spirits), things (parts of beings, objects, information, situations),processes (events, practices, life) and spaces (areas, Earth, universe).The actuality of the impacts of spiritual information fell under thesecategories: desired (implicitly desired, intended, explicitly desired,requisitioned) impacts, real (possible, believed, factual, alternative)impacts, nonexistent (hypothetical, no) impacts, as well as conditional(on supernatural sender, information, humans, situation) and uncon-ditional impacts. This inquiry revealed several new varieties of

New Directions in Information Behaviour

Library and Information Science, 257–287

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ISSN: 1876-0562/doi:10.1108/S1876-0562(2011)002011a014

258 Jarkko Kari

information impact and even built whole new typologies, because quitelittle was known about both the targets and actuality of the impacts ofinformation before the present study.

In these matters of spiritual growth, it is not important whosaid something but what was said, how it is to be understoodand what changes it sets off in readers. (Luoto, 2003, p. 8)

11.1. Introduction

11.1.1. Information Behaviour

Both spirituality and effects of information are in many ways interesting andimportant phenomena in today’s society, but scientific research on them hasbeen small in volume. On the one hand, the majority of research on‘information behaviour’ has implicitly (or explicitly) concentrated on thetransfer of information, as if finding and internalizing information wereadequate outcomes of searching (Dervin, 1999). Scholars have beenpreoccupied with reasons for and factors of information seeking, whereaswhat follows from information seeking has been overlooked. In the finalanalysis, however, it is more salient to know what kinds of outcomes theobtained information creates, or whether it is of any consequence at all. Onthe other hand, the spiritual has always been a fundamental element ofhuman cultures, relating to such profound questions as ‘what is real?’ and‘what is the purpose of life?’. There is nowadays plenty of spiritualinformation (SI) available, which seeks to expand the materialistic world-view — often in epoch-making ways. The problem is that we do not reallyknow how such information impacts, or is supposed to impact on peopleand society. Hence, this chapter takes up the combined challenge byexploring the impacts of SI.

Theoretically, the study is based on research dealing with the impacts ofinformation. Information is in essence seen as a social phenomenon, becauseit is an instrument by which the source/sender tries to influence the user/recipient — albeit this person may be affected in a way not intended. Theimpact or effect of information is defined as anything that an obtainedmessage does to the person (see, e.g. Rich, 1997) or other entity. As such, theeffect is construed as a passive outcome of information because theindividual just receives it (e.g. some activity becomes easier as a result ofabsorbing information). The most prominent paragon here has been thesense-making methodology, where ‘uses’ (e.g. Dervin, 1989) and now

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‘effects’ (e.g. Dervin & Frenette, 2003) have been pointed out as belongingto the central phenomena related to human communication. BrendaDervin’s use/effect does not refer to how meanings are actually employed,but rather to what (positive or negative) consequences sense making has forthe individual. For the sake of holism, for instance, it is imperative to studythe effects of all kinds of information, not just information that is incommon, everyday usage.

How can the impact of information be viewed as information behaviour,then? According to the editors of this book (in the call for chapters),‘Information behaviour is conceptualized as complex information processesthat are embedded within an individual’s everyday social and life context’.The effect of information is closely related to the concept of information use,which is one of the major forms of information behaviour (e.g. Spink, 2010).It has been determined that both effects and uses can be seen as outcomes ofinformation — that is as processes which ensue from receiving a message.Use places a person in an active role (doing something with theinformation), whereas effect places the person in a passive role (informationdoes something to him/her) (Kari, 2011). When information has aninfluence, this can be seen as information behaviour in two senses. One isthat information behaves in a certain way. Typically, it converts into adifferent form, such as knowledge (interpreted information; Kari, 1996).This knowledge may then lead to the other sense of the impact ofinformation as information behaviour — that human behaviour is affectedby information. Thus, information (as knowledge; Buckland, 1991) canchange our thoughts, feelings or deeds. I do view behaviour very broadly,including both external and internal actions in the concept.

11.1.2. Spiritual Information

The effects of information always take place in a certain context, just like allother information phenomena do. Spirituality is one such context. Thefulcrum of the spiritual can be defined as involving ‘transcendence (theexperience of existence beyond the physical/psychological) and immanence(the discovery of the transcendent in the physical/psychological)’ (Decker,1993, p. 34). ‘Spiritual’ refers to things like ‘sacred matters’ (Peterson, 2009),‘higher powers’ (Zinnbauer et al., 1997, pp. 557, 561) or ‘transcendentreality’ (ibid., p. 556). Thus, spiritual is supposedly above mental orintellectual, and opposite to corporeal. Here, the spiritual is conceived as ahuman construct, so at no point will this research take a stand on theexistence of, say, spirits or spiritual abilities. My first inquiry in the spiritualdomain was a literature review (Kari, 2007b) from the perspective of

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information science. That article shows how little and limited attentionspirituality has received in the discipline thus far. In recent years, however,the connections between information and the spiritual have attractedincreasing attention from scholars the world over. This is evidenced by thefounding of Center for the Study of Information and Religion (http://csir.slis.kent.edu/) at Kent State University in 2009, the publishing of aspecial issue entitled ‘Information and Spirituality’ (2011) in The OpenInformation Science Journal, and so on.

SI may be about the spiritual or something else, but its defining feature isthat it is perceived as a message provided or received by extraphysical means(cf. Kari, 2007b). Reportedly, SI may be almost anything from omens andinstrumental transcommunications (transmissions from other dimensionalentities through electric media; see Baruss, 1996) to inner voicings andtelepathic messages from ‘higher beings’. Divine revelation in the scripturesof world religions is the best-known example of SI. Many SI processesinvolve an individual called intermediary (e.g. channeller or spirit medium)whose task is, supposedly, to relay the messages to those who are unable toreceive them on their own (see, e.g. Kari, 2001).

Some of the past SI is informal (live), whereas some of it is formal(recorded). Either way, intermediaries normally claim that the informationis ‘dictated’ to them by source entities, and they just say or write down whatthese sources tell them. Sociologist Robin Wooffitt (2006, p. 122) calls thissort of information ‘direct reported speech’. In SI’s case, the source of theinformation is usually conceived (by the intermediary and/or recipient) as abeing (extraterrestrial creature, spirit, etc.) with whom conventionalintercourse is not possible or efficient, and that is why spiritual methodsare judged necessary. It might be regarded as ‘extreme information’, andaccordingly, I hypothesize that its perceived effects are also extreme, notlikely to be reached by mundane information.

SI requires neither skepticism nor belief in the verisimilitude of thespiritual; it is simply treated here as a concept referring to a special class ofinformation. What matters is the hard fact that SI is tangible information(expressed by individuals) which manifests itself in demonstrably realcontexts (of everyday life). The subject is thus highly researchable byscientific methods (Crocker-Lakness, 2000). Unless a neutral attitude ismaintained, however, the results will be contaminated by bias. This chapterapproaches the effects of information not from the user’s or even theintermediary’s perspective but from the source’s (i.e. originator’s) perspec-tive, which is a rather unique solution. The basic idea of the chapter, then, isto utilize SI itself in empirically exploring how its purported source beingsview the impacts of such information upon various phenomena. The chapteraims at discovering and describing the most central effect dimensions in thiscontext and, by so doing, at building theoretical constructs. In line with the

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 261

purpose of this book, the contribution at hand seeks to understand SI andimpacts of information as new directions in research on informationbehaviour.

11.2. Literature Review

11.2.1. Impacts of Information

Many studies were scrutinized as potentially relevant. Particularly, theseappeared promising:

� Michel Menou’s (1995) article reviewing the definitions and measurementof the effect of information;� Daniel Gigone and Reid Hastie’s (1997) experimental study scrutinizinghow information impacts on choice in small groups;� Heidi Julien’s (1997) empirical paper exploring the benefits of careerinformation for adolescents’ decision making;� Meadow and Yuan’s (1997) article defining information and its impact;� a conceptual overview of the uses and effects of information by JarkkoKari (2007a);� Sabah Al-Fedaghi’s (2008) conceptual paper discussing the uses andeffects of information;� Murray Jennex’s (2008, p. 51) case study longitudinally examining agroup of engineers at a power plant for ‘the impact of knowledge use onproductivity’.

On closer examination, some of those sources turned out to be not veryrelevant, and so it was necessary to search for scattered bits and pieces inrelated literature as well. Menou speaks about to whom the outcomes ofinformation are relevant. His scale ranges from the individual to the global,but it does not specify the levels in between (Menou, 1995). Otherpublications look at the impacts of information as quite a person-centredaffair. Al-Fedaghi’s (2008, p. 52) model identifies three kinds of changeswhen information is received: ‘(1) changes in the informational sphere of theperson who receives information, (2) changes in the noninformationalspheres of the person and (3) changes outside the person’.

Joyce Kirk interviewed 15 managers for how they understand informa-tion use, but the study also discovered some things about the effects ofinformation. Information was found capable of bringing about changes inpeople as well as its own significance and meaning. In particular, Kirkelaborates on how individuals may be influenced. Information possesses theability to transform both people who affect others and people who are

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affected. Specifically, their understandings and behaviours can be trans-formed (Kirk, 2002). In a similar vein, Lee, Hwang, Hawkins, and Pingree(2008) mention that information may impact on patients’ behaviour andattitude.

Some scholars have approached the effects of information from otherangles. One simple division is that of potential versus real effects (Spink &Cole, 2006). Another one is helps versus hurts (Dervin, 1999). Also, thereare immediate versus delayed outcomes of information, as well as mentalversus physical effects (Kari, 2007a). A major perspective is provided byMenou (1995) who remarks that the occurrence of some benefits frominformation depends on other factors. For example, a definition of impactby Meadow and Yuan (1997, p. 710) states: ‘A change at the organizationalor societal level caused in whole or in part by the availability and use ofinformation’. This receives support from an investigation by Kari whointerviewed 16 paranormalists about their information needs, seeking andoutcomes related to the paranormal. Namely, the effects of informationwere not always direct consequences of absorbing information, but theycould be its indirect impacts instead, as mediated by information uses (Kari,2001).

11.2.2. Information Behaviour and Spirituality

One thing to think about is relating spirituality to information behaviourmodels and theories. In general, these frameworks remain silent about thespiritual aspect altogether. Let us consider Amanda Spink’s new bookInformation Behaviour: An Evolutionary Instinct as a case in point. Thisliterature-based monograph is a very broad, interdisciplinary treatise oninformation behaviour and its place in human evolution. Spink enumeratesvarious levels of information behaviour: sub process, information grounds,lifetime development, human cognitive and social behaviour, as well asevolutionary foundation (Spink, 2010). To me, it seems there could alsohave been a ‘soft’ level comprising things like emotion, values andspirituality. Another model in the book depicts an evolutionary timelineand suggests that as the human brain volume and working memory haveexpanded, information behaviour has grown accordingly and is nowincreasing exponentially (ibid.). Again, nothing is said about our religiousand spiritual strivings. It would be fascinating to find out whether theescalation in information behaviour means a diminution in spiritualactivities, whether they do not affect each other or whether they actuallystrengthen each other.

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Some information behaviour frameworks do acknowledge spirituality,however. One of these is Brenda Dervin’s sense-making methodology, oneof the most fundamental metatheoretical assumptions of which holds thatthe human being is a ‘body–mind–heart–spirit’ (p. 730). This theory positsthat humans have the potential to translate knowings residing in theunarticulated parts of their being (embodied, emotional and spiritualunconscious) into the articulated. Dervin also contends that information ismade by body, heart, mind and spirit. Sense making mandates that making,seeking and using information should not be restricted to only the cognitivesphere but instead any sphere of experiencing which actors determinethemselves as utilizing for their sense making should be accommodated:‘The patient who says ‘‘my body told me’’ is making sense, so is theproblem-solver who said ‘‘God told me’’ or ‘‘I listened to my feelings’’ aswell as the one who said ‘‘I looked it up on the web’’ or ‘‘I asked an expert’’’(Dervin, 1999, p. 739). This kind of theoretical open-endedness makes itrelatively easy to incorporate spirituality into our conceptual apparatuses.There are other models of information behaviour (e.g. Bates, 2002) whichcontain spirituality, too, but most of them are probably included in Kari’s(2007b) literature review on the spiritual in information studies.

11.3. Summary

Kari summarized the major findings as follows:

� information can be about the spiritual (e.g. about mysticism);� information itself can be reckoned holy (e.g. Bible);� information can be supposedly acquired by spiritual means (e.g. trancechannelling);� information can originate from a source considered as a spiritual entity(e.g. God);� an information actor can be an expert in spiritual matters, or a spiritualcommunity (e.g. spiritual advisor);� an information actor may claim to possess spiritual abilities (e.g.medium);� an information actor can feel him/herself develop spiritually (e.g. spiritualhorizons expanding);� an information process can be simultaneously experienced as a spiritualprocess (e.g. library work as ministry);� information systems can be believed to parallel or even replace assertedspiritual methods (e.g. Internet as omnipotent tool);

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� information phenomena can be influenced by a spiritually orientedenvironment (e.g. spiritual happening);� information processes can be allegedly affected by a spiritual agent (e.g.providence). (Kari, 2007b, p. 957)

The information phenomena that had been examined in earlier studieswere information sources, generic information processes as well as specificinformation processes: conceptualizing, seeking, processing, using, storing,describing and providing information. By a narrow margin, and only with ashare of one-fifth, information seeking related to spirituality had been themost frequent theme. The dispersion of the research was sufficient to inferthat the spiritual may occur in practically any type of information process.There were still many areas that had not been researched from the angle ofspirituality: information retrieval, information processing within individualsand organizations, storing information in personal collections, informationservices, using information noninformationally as well as creating, destroy-ing, exchanging and organizing information (Kari, 2007b). All in all, thatreview implies that the spiritual can manifest itself in any kind ofinformation behaviour, but that scholars have been slow to pay attentionto this.

11.4. Impacts of Spiritual Information

Research on the impacts of information has been scarce enough, and so onecan imagine that research on the impacts of SI was even more difficult tolocate. Maarten Berg (2008) analysed literature in order to find out howNew Age advice may affect people’s happiness. This investigation was notreviewed, however, for two reasons. Firstly, happiness was too narrow afocus, since I wanted to analyse a variety of effects. Secondly, rather thanexamining SI, information about the spiritual was examined. The latterpoint is why Kari’s (2001) (see previous section) dissertation was notresearched further, either. To be more precise, his work does include SI, butthere is also mundane information: the impacts of any informationsomehow related to the paranormal were studied.

Nevertheless, a few pertinent sources were found in the end. For anaverage reader, it is probably more comfortable to start this half of theliterature review with the effects of the most familiar type of SI — namelyscriptures. Fatima Al-Hayani (2008) maintains that some Qur’an verseshave spurred many scholars across history into finding solutions to novelchallenges. The other studies are associated with the field of modernrevelation. Based on their observations, Paul Sturges and Peter Gooch

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 265

(2006) conclude that spirit mediums’ predictions reassure people indeveloping countries. Suzanne Riordan discusses channelling by analysingthe information content of purportedly channelled books from 10 super-normal sources.

From the angle of information effects, this literature offers ‘a set ofprescriptions designed to assist humanity in discovering its true destiny’(p. 110). In essence, the authors ‘seek to convince us that we are not who wethink we are and that much of our suffering can be traced to our mistakenidentity’ (p. 111). The voices seek to eliminate or alleviate humanity’ssuffering. ‘This they presumably hope to accomplish by convincing us of theillusory nature of this reality and by suggesting practices designed to lift thespell, to awaken us from the dream, to remind us of our ‘‘vastness’’ and ourdivinity’, or at least ‘to broaden our frame of reference’ (p. 112). The oracles’mission is ‘to awaken us from the illusion that we are alone and trapped in acruel world and to remind us of the ‘‘Vastness’’ and our proper place withinit’ (p. 121). Most channelled sources agree that by cultivating a habit of‘listening to one’s heart’, we may become ‘receptive to the hints andsuggestions, to the shouts of encouragement’ which come from anotherplane of being (Riordan, 1992, p. 123).

11.5. Spiritual Information Study

11.5.1. Research Design

The empirical work was conducted in Finland during 2005–2009. This is oneof the five Nordic countries, which are often characterized as high-technology welfare states. Because of the relative novelty of the researchtopic, an inductive approach was applied. This means that the findings (e.g.categories) are grounded on the empirical material, and that the primaryrole of earlier studies is to provide points of comparison.

11.5.2. Data Collection

In this study, the research data were composed of a representative sample ofSI. Using SI itself is at present probably the best method of investigating theviews of SI’s sources, because we do not know its real sources. In practice, SImeant public texts (printed books and articles, as well as articles from theWeb and e-mail lists), which had been directly written down by the supposedintermediaries (i.e. writers) or transcribed from their speech. An example ofsuch a text is the book ‘Life Is a Gift’ written by Vesa Vuorinen (1998): its

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main content is allegedly ‘direct reported speech’ (cf. Wooffitt, 2006, p. 122)from spirits Henrik, Klein, Gregorius and Elin. The most efficient way tolocate the writings was by executing searches in some Internet databases(e.g. Linnea Union Catalogues at http://www.lib.helsinki.fi/kirjastoala/linnea/tietokannat.htm) and by monitoring certain e-mail lists (e.g. SilverPlume at matti[at]hopeasulka.com).

An effort was made to obtain private texts, too, via several Internetdiscussion groups related to spirituality, but nothing pertinent emerged. Itwould have been possible for me to consult a host of mediums to obtainprivate data, but such a contrived approach would have biased the corpus,and its cost-effectiveness would also have been too low (in comparison withusing published texts). Private SI should really be collected and analysed in aseparate study.

11.5.3. Documents

The documents in the corpus had been written in the Finnish language; thatis translations did not do. All messages which did not say anything about theeffects of SI were also discarded. Selecting the texts was done in such a waythat the data set became as heterogeneous as possible, while at the same timeavoiding redundancy. Here, the principle of one record per source/intermediary combination was applied. On the basis of authorship, in otherwords, texts were only rejected when I already had one text from the samesource and intermediary. Pentti Ranta, for example, reportedly conveyed 49messages from Audius, a spokesperson of the Galactic Federation (seehttp://www.tiedontalo.net/viestit.htm). Only one of these records wasincluded in the corpus. There were other intermediaries (e.g. SalliLaaksonen) who maintained to have gotten different texts from differentsources (e.g. spiritual masters, as well as Esa and Erkki — two departedsouls). On the other hand, there were also some sources (e.g. ‘the Whole’,referring to all that is) which appeared to inform different intermediaries(e.g. Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde and Sirkka Makinen). All of thesedocuments were sufficiently diverse to enrich the body of data.

In the end, a total of 62 texts were included in the material to bescrutinized. They had been published or produced between 1945 and 2007.Only one of the writings (Lehtonen, 1963) came from Christian circles; allothers exhibited noncommitment to any particular religion. The dataamount to approximately one-fourth of all public SI documents generated inFinland. The estimation is founded on searching and monitoring this fieldquite thoroughly. Hence, there are good grounds for asserting that the dataset represents Finnish public SI very well.

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11.5.4. Data Processing

Processing the data involved scanning print publications into text files andconverting all texts into the format required by a computer program forqualitative analysis (NUD*IST 4). However, finding the effects ofinformation in the mass of text was so arduous that books were onlyscanned in part — those sections where the effects of information are mostlikely to appear. These were the first and last chapters, as well as the sectionsdealing with information phenomena. This was an easy means of pruningthe material without losing much essential data. Shorter writings werescanned in full, and electronic texts needed no scanning, of course. Theconversion procedure entailed removing empty lines, changing certaincharacters into a simpler form (e.g. from ‘—’ into ‘-’), as well as addingsection markers (usually in front of headings).

11.5.5. Data Analysis

The gross number of paragraphs to be analysed was 329 — an average of 5,3 paragraphs per document. These were the text units where the effects of SIwere talked about. Analysing the body of material basically proceeded alongthe lines of interpretivist qualitative analysis, which entails the interpretationof meanings, and particularly from the phenomenological point of view,aspires to do this by ‘‘‘deep understanding’’, an empathy or indwelling withthe subject of one’s inquiries’ (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 8). Its goal wasto develop theoretical constructs for understanding the impacts ofinformation. All relevant passages were coded with categories which tookshape grounded on the data.

No attempt was made to describe every aspect of information impacts.Granted, there are many different dimensions along which the effects of SIcould have been analysed. The conceptual mapping had to occur on theterms of the database: those abstractions were chosen which appeared tocohere with SI and the source angle best. The analysis aimed at depth ratherthan breadth, and so only three dimensions of information effect could beexplored. The most pertinent and fruitful ones seemed to be the target,domain and actuality of impacts. Of these, one (domains of impacts) had tobe left out due to the restricted writing space. The loss was not big,fortunately, for there was considerable overlap between the domains andtargets. Each main category was examined rather thoroughly to make themfully understandable.

The analysis started with forming specific classes under each dimension.Because they were too numerous to be examined separately, they were then

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abstracted into generic classes. The main category ‘actuality of impacts’ (inthe section by the same name), for instance, initially had 15 specific classeswhich were distilled into just four generic classes. This process resulted inlittle loss of information only, since the specific classes were still analysedwithin their respective generic classes. In the case of the previous example,the generic scrutiny of desired effects of information included the specificscrutiny of implicitly desired effects, among other things. A few of theimpacts of SI presented in the data were so indefinite that they could notbe properly categorized. This mainly applies to the first dimensionanalysed in the current chapter — the target of impacts. For instance,one source said: ‘we may strive to influence and this we do with thesebooks relayed by us’ (Fagerstrom, 1993, p. 6). The sample does not revealwhat is supposed to be impacted and how. The texts’ level of detail directlydetermined the detail of analysis that was possible to reach, but this wasnot usually a problem.

This chapter examines the discovered categories and their subcategoriesin considerable detail, shows the most salient connections between them anddiscusses the findings in the context of previous research (see section‘Literature Review’). In the next section, the analyses are supported by anumber of direct quotations from the empirical material. They are accuratetranslations from the Finnish language. The results of this study should bequite generalizable at least to Western contexts, because it is unlikely thatbasic theoretical constructs would differ much between countries with asimilar cultural heritage.

11.6. Findings

11.6.1. Target of Impacts

The target of information effect is defined as the phenomenon which isinfluenced by the message. Four different target types could be discerned:organisms, things, processes and spaces. These are analysed below anddefined via their subcategories.

11.6.1.1. Organisms By far the most frequent target type of the impactsof SI was individual humans. These targets are classified and illustrated inTable 11.1. Here, nine target types presented themselves. They seem todemonstrate that SI may impact on any number of people — from a singleperson (e.g. an intermediary) to everybody. They also suggest that the effectsof SI are not only — or even primarily — confined to spiritualists but mayextend to anybody. The types of individuals are self-explanatory, but one of

Table 11.1: Organisms as impact targets.

Category Types Example

Human individuals Everyone, God’schildren, some people,seekers, mourners,intimates, sources ofinformation,intermediaries of SI,recipients of SI

The purpose of the Bible’sTen Commandments hasbeen to protect small andweak people (Vuorinen,1998)

Human communities Groups, societies,humankind

If people learned to obtainand utilize spiritualinformation, manysocietal problems couldbe solved (ibid.)

Extraterrestrials Many extraterrestrials,all aliens, humans’friends

‘We receive from FatherGod an ‘‘order’’ whichobligates us all yourfriends’ (Denah & Zudu,1989, p. 10)

Spirits Spirits incarnate, thedeparted, angelicbeings, God

‘Now I want to tell aboutmy own experiences, for Ihope that they can be ofbenefit to some lost souland help him/her turnfrom the path of evil aslong as there’s time’(Syntisen y 1945, p. 7)

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them requires explanation. Namely, the target type God’s children refers toevery human, because the supreme being was often presented as our ultimateparent. In one case, for example, the following was said concerning theeffects of a series of messages from on high:

I hope that your, my children’s, understanding increases andthat you live with it all at the same time. This way I guide allof you, my children, with love into this coming age which is onyour door-step. [y] Do not be afraid, but believe in Me yourFather and your God. (Rakkaat, 2002, p. 100)

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Not only human individuals but also human communities werementioned as being affected by SI. They are also presented in Table 11.1,which shows that the scale of the communities ranged from a single group toone society to the human race.

Just like with human individuals, SI appeared to impact more oncommunities at large, rather than spiritual communities. Extraterrestrials —or beings from outer space — were an altogether different type of impacttarget, but there were just three such cases in the text material. In the firstinstance, it was articulated that due to the original blueprint ‘written’ in theplanet Earth, many extraterrestrials expected humanity to ascend to the so-called Cosmic Family (also known as ‘Galactic Federation’ or ‘Star Nations’in other publications) as early as in circa 1872 (Korhonen, 1997). Anothertext discussed all aliens (or at least all aliens like its sources) as beinginfluenced by specific SI. According to the communication, they cannotintervene in human life, because they respect the sacred law (which can beconsidered as information) of individual freedom. The extraterrestrials alsoreferred to themselves as humans’ friends.

It was told that spirits were impact targets of SI, too. To begin with, thesetargets included spirits incarnate as humans. Statements such as the examplein Table 11.1 were explicit indications of an outlook which permeated all ofthe data — that in essence, the human being is a manifestation of spirit.Thus, we may say that this target type (spirits incarnate) emphasizes thespiritual side of humans, whereas the human categories emphasize thehuman side of spirits. Then there were the departed or the spirits of deadpersons. SI had an impact on various angelic beings too. For example,archangel Aurora was stated to be influenced in the following manner: ‘Thismessage brings me by your side’ (Liimatta, 2007). God was the supremespirit, albeit mentioned only once as a target of SI. In a book written byLaaksonen (1971), spiritual masters asked God to aid them and bless theirwork. In impact terms, they seemingly wanted to affect Him1 with theirrequest to take certain action.

11.6.1.2. Things According to the empirical material, some ‘things’ —either material or immaterial — were prone to influence by SI. Table 11.2shows that these things were parts of beings, objects, information andsituations.

The parts of beings were classified as things rather than organisms,because they were not independent entities. Two such parts — human side

1. The male, capitalized personal pronouns merely follow the general convention, and do not

imply sexism.

Table 11.2: Things as impact targets.

Category Types Example

Parts ofbeings

Human side, spiritual side,mind, thoughts, emotions,personalities, skill, sprig

After we die, the depression ofthe mind will be great andour mind will be miserable,as we see in our life reviewthe selfishness of our deedsand thoughts, thecalculativeness, the coldnesswith which everything wasdone and the mendacity fromwhich everything arose, aswell as how we dideverything (Laaksonen,1971)

Objects Creation, gift ‘One must always rememberthat a human creation isevanescent. It does not havea lasting basis, for the truth ismissing’ (Olen, 2002, p. 92)

Information Information, body text,feedback, prediction,program

A spiritual text will evokefeedback (Luoto, 2003)

Situations Mission, developmentalpotentiality

Spiritual codes trigger thebeginning of one’s mission(Turunen, 2005)

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 271

and spiritual side — provide another angle on what was discussed insection ‘Spirits’: we were regarded as dual beings, consisting of twointerwoven elements. This can be illustrated with an insinuating quote‘These [sentences] are not meant as such reproaches, nor things that youon the human part would be bruised by these’ (Lune, 1994, p. 12). Underthe category of ‘objects’, the example of ‘creation’ (in Table 11.2) requiressome elucidation. The truth in that channelling is defined as Father’sWord. Therefore, the implication is that divine information could makeartifacts permanent. The program variant of ‘information’, on the otherhand, referred to some kinds of spiritual instructions for body growth: ‘theenergy effector’s guiding program opens in the order needed bydevelopment from the individual’s soul layers, on the conditions of his/her soul plan’ (Riikonen, 1993, p. 158).

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11.6.1.3. Processes It appears that processes are not immune to SI,either. SI was purported to affect various events: contacts with oneself,encountering situations and a furor. The sentence ‘It is so that theinformation of the universe guides events as it has been ordained’(Jumalattaren, 2007, section ‘‘‘Jumalattaren Syntyma’’ maalaus’)illustrates this category. Several practices were reported to be impacted bySI, as well: thinking, suspecting, intercourse, education and helping. As oneof the sources put it, ‘the purpose of this text too is to bring forth changes inthe way of thinking’ (Luoto, 2003, p. 8). Representing a wider perspective,life was influenced. All three instances specifically talked about people’sworldly life. Here is an exemplar: ‘Founded on understood experience,[thought advice] can be of incredibly great help in our own coherent life’(Riikonen, 1993, p. 228).

11.6.1.4. Spaces Last but not least, the data expressed that some physicalspaces are affected by SI, as well. Areas — environment and regions — wereone sort. An example of these would be: ‘the intended opening influence [ofspiritual codes] in the environment is activated right there and immediately’(ibid., p. 322). Another sort was Earth as a whole, although it was also called‘the world’. Here, the world was treated as a place, whereas in connectionwithhumankind (above), it was treated as a community. The grimmest visionoutlined the fate of this planet thus: ‘Earth will vanish from space in the nearfuture if this message is not believed either for these messages are coming fromall over the globe already and as a warning to humanity’ (Salomaa, 1999,p. 10). In other words, the sample asserts that channelled information has thepower to save the world. But this is not all, for in one of the texts (Riikonen,1993, p. 349), the universe itself is steered by the so-called Book of Life, whichcontains the information on the laws of the cosmos.

11.6.2. Actuality of Impacts

The actuality of information effects refers to how existent they are presentedas (see, e.g. Sinclair, 1987, p. 15). In this respect, the data exposed desired,real, nonexistent and conditional impacts of SI.

11.6.3. Desired Impacts

A few effects of SI seemed to be implicitly desired. That is, their desirabilitywas not directly stated but could be inferred from the way an idea wasexpressed. An extract featuring such an impact would be: ‘With His

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 273

commandments, God teaches humans to respect and love God andthemselves, as well as one another’ (Vuorinen, 1998, p. 40). In this case, itappears that our feelings (love and respect) are not so much factualconsequences of SI (God’s commandments) as intended ones (which isinsinuated by teaching). Another source (Raunio, 2006) presented theimportance of understanding the purpose of everything as the rationaliza-tion for telling the readers certain things about secrecy and openness. Athird source uttered that the meaning of (some kind of spiritual) coding is toactivate souls for a period of action (Riikonen, 1993). Lastly, there were twoinstances in which the informant ‘spoke’ like wishing for something: if onlywe understood and were aware of certain issues, and did our work in acertain way (Salo, 2006); if only we undertook collaboration for a certainmatter (Korhonen, 1997).

The intended effects of SI were a large and varied group. Theintentionality could be enunciated in several ways. One of these was areference to a mission: ‘I’ve got the task of leading you into a constantconnection with your over self with the help of these coming [spiritual] texts’(Hesekielin tyoryhma, 1993, p. 1). Clearly, this source intended to affect thereaders in a profound manner. Alternatively, the effect could be somethingwhich the originator of the information strived for: ‘with those knowledgeand skills, I strive to help the human find him/herself to the extent which myexperiences are of help’ (Kokkonen, 1992, p. 11). Another form of talkingabout intended effects was by reference to the meant role of the information:‘forward the information to humankind as light, to Creator’s children asjoy’ (Tolvanen & Hartonen, 1998, p. 27).

In other words, the information referred to in this excerpt was supposedto engender experiences of ‘light’ and joy in people. There were also manyinstances of disseminating (or seeking) information in order for somethingspecific to happen: ‘If he arrived now and could bring the message, so that Iwould become convinced that he is in existence, feels good, and is free’(Vallenius, 1998, p. 8). This case was the only one in which the effect of SIwas represented as being desired by the recipient rather than the source.Finally, some effects — such as the following — were explicitly purposed:‘the purpose of this greeting is to encourage you to make decisions, to helpcomprehend the important significance of the human’s own decisions andhow the human is wanted to guide to acquiesce in divine dispensation’(Vuorinen, 1998, p. 129).

Apparently, the more sought-after effects of SI were explicitly desired.Many effects were hoped for, to begin with. In the next sample, the sourcehas this to say after giving his message proper:

I hope that you have got a little closer to your goal. I hopethat you are ready to encounter yourself honestly, without

274 Jarkko Kari

embellishing and underrating. I also hope that you have foundGod’s light within yourself, hear His voice, and follow Hisinstructions. (Hesekielin tyoryhma, 1993, p. 24)

Other effects were expressed in slightly stronger terms, as they werewanted: ‘We want that these pieces of information would be collected up,and that based on them a community would be born which would inpractice go on the principles presumed by these pieces of information’(Korhonen, 1997, p. 1). The requisitioned effects of SI were the mostforceful among the desired ones, as the recipients of the information weredirectly appealed to. The milder form of requisitioning was exhortation. Anexhorted effect could be put like this:

May each one dissociate oneself from the wickedness to which(s)he has fallen. May his/her eyes open to the messages thathave already been received, and may they direct him/her to theright path. (Ibid., p. 2)

The hallmark of the information effects of that description was clausesbeginningwith ‘may’which indicated that the process in questionwas preferablyset in motion with the utterance of the source’s words. The stronger form ofrequisitioning was commanding: many sources evidently tried to affect some orall people by giving them orders. In two cases, the word ‘commandment’ wasused, so there is no doubt about the obligatoriness of the information effects.One of the texts (Olemme, 2003), for example,mentioned that a certain group ofspirits has got a commandment from God to help earthlings. Such a dictatewould obviously oblige the group to act accordingly. In mymind, commandingevokes even a Biblical tone, related toGod’s commandments (especially the TenCommandments) to the human race. There was one instance, however, wherewhat looks like an order (‘Reform[!]’) is explicitly defined as an exhortation(Olemme, 2003, p. 62). Thus, it is probable that not all commands are issuedwiththe view that the told thing absolutely has to occur.

11.6.4. Real Impacts

Despite its name, this category does not cover merely the influences of SIwhich are perceived as real. It actually covers influences of varying realitylevels. Some effects of SI were deemed possible. There were various degreesof possibility. Several effects were posited as maybe occurring, like in thefollowing case: ‘The most important significance of mediums who usedifferent instruments is in that the clients perhaps begin, owing to the

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 275

answers they got, to think about their own life and adopt a new kind ofattitude toward it’ (Vuorinen, 1998, p. 76). Common to all ‘maybe’ effectsof SI was that they were expressed in very uncertain terms. The possibility ofsome other effects of SI was apparently estimated as higher.

Typically, it was stated that something can occur: ‘Based on this[information], the whole of the creation, which is manifested in differentforms and consciousnesses at the numerous levels of being and experiencing,can be understood’ (Moilanen, 2000, p. 18). The exact likelihood of the effectswas given in none of the cases, but they were clearly judged more certain thanin the previous subcategory. One type of possible effects of SI remains,namely that which enabled the recipients of the information to do orexperience something. This dealt with comprehension, for instance: ‘when wetell you that you’ve been the content of our life for all these moments at whichwe’ve written our book to you, then you’re able to understand how muchwe’ve thought about you and how much we’ve loved you’ (Raunio, 2006,p. 464). Unlike with the previous subclass, such effects were not portrayed inthe mentality of ‘they either take place, or they don’t’, but usually assomething the occurrence of which is up to the recipients’ own choice.

Another type of reality was believed effect: SI was believed — but notknown — to have a particular impact. There were only two instances of thisclass; both dealt with the future. In the following example, the source(a spirit dubbed Foggy) thinks that the information (s)he has given will swaypeople in the future (once his/her book has been published, maybe): ‘Ibelieve that this book’s words, too, will open many human eyes to see theirfellow people as their brothers, as well as touch many human souls whowant to find the truth’ (Fagerstrom, 1993, p. 6).

Then therewere a host of effects of SI whichwere presented as factual, that isreally existing. They were marked by a seeming lack of doubts and conditions.A few effects were true by definition. For example, one source stated that ‘Youneed guidance which helps You yourselves open Your eyes to reality’(Korhonen, 1997, p. 2). In other words, the texts spoke of particular varietiesof information having effects peculiar to them. In a couple of instances— suchas the following— the impact was an axiom: it is crystal clear that in the oldendays, incantations and words of power amplified energy work (whatever thismeans; Tolvanen & Hartonen, 1998). The source appears to be absolutelycertain, but the reader is left wondering why the state of affairs is (supposedly)so obvious. Some reported effects leant on the source’s observation ofwhat hadhappened. (S)he could tell the reader about influences (s)he had detected incertain humans. For example, the following excerpt mentions how the sourceswere aware of and noticed both positive and negative effects:

We’re conscious of the thoughts which were aroused in humanminds by our first book. [y] For some the book was a

276 Jarkko Kari

confirmation of their own thoughts, somebody quietlydecided: ‘‘Here is the truth, and I intend to begin to liveaccording to this truth.’’ But for many, the book also causedfears, even though our purpose was precisely the removal offear from human minds. Particularly to the minds of thosewho had got a strongly religious upbringing, fearful questionsabout the justification of the message of our book sprang.Remember that our channeler also suffered from similarthoughts at the beginning? [y] Fears in some persons werealso engendered by the information in our book about thechange in the energy balance befalling the Earth in due course.‘‘What will then happen to me, to my family, to my children?’’This is how many thought in agony. [y] we noticed that manygot from the book the answers to the questions which hadoccupied their mind[.] (Fagerstrom, 1993, pp. 56–58)

That sample contains an interesting contradiction: the originators tried toremove human fears with their SI, but just about the opposite happenedwith some people. On the other hand, a source could relate how (s)he hadbeen affected by SI, which means that (s)he had experienced the effect first-hand. This can be illustrated with an instance in which a dying man had gotthoughts in such a way that he could feel and believe in the afterlife, and thesubject started becoming clear to him (Raunio, 2004). In most cases,however, it remains unknown how the source came to learn about an effect.Take, for example, the announcement: ‘We know the sensation caused by[the book], and the suspicions leveled at its channeler’ (Fagerstrom, 1991,p. 179). The reader is supposed to accept the sensation and suspicions asactual effects of the information, just by trusting the source’s knowledge.

When the texts listed more than one effect ensuing from a piece of SI,they were all usually stated as taking place. In rare instances, however, twoor more influences were presented as alternatives, so that one of them wouldoccur but not necessarily the other(s). A spirit supposedly stated throughVuorinen that from the numeral side of the last book in the Bible(Revelation), one can get very different dates. These dates depend on howwell the reader is capable of interpreting the writer’s intent (Vuorinen, 1998).This is the only case in which the alternative effects of information wereconstrued as many. The following sample gives three alternative effects ofsome sort of coding carried out in our world by ‘supermundane guides’:

The contentual functioning of code opening can be consideredas having at least three main target-oriented forms. The firstone, in which the meant opening influence in the environmentis activated on the spot, immediately. The second one, in

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 277

which opening up happens with a small delay. Only a smallpart of the opening up occurs at that moment, and a greatershare of the purposed activation comes true slightly later. Thethird alternative, in which the coding affects with even aconsiderable delay, and is activated into operation onlythrough the content of some other, milder animator.(Riikonen, 1993, p. 322)

The alternatives in Riikonen (ibid.) are based on the idea of how delayedthe effects of coding are. Other binary alternatives in the data wereconstructive versus debilitating effects (Riikonen, 1993), for instance. Thealternatives were obviously construed as a multitude (first example), a scale(long quote above) or a pair of absolute or relative opposites (the lastsample). But why were alternative effects brought out in the first place? Thedata do not respond to this question, but the most likely answer is that theauthors simply wanted to lay out the possible options.

11.6.5. Nonexistent Impacts

In rare instances, it was reckoned that certain effects of SI are not real at all.Hypothetical influences were only presented as thought experiments, layingout what would happen if a particular piece of information was divulged. InLaaksonen’s (1993, p. 44) work, it says: ‘No one, not anybody, can give orget God’s pure word or His knowledge — no one would bear it’. Thispassage announces that the very reception of information directly from Goddestroys a person, but implies that such communication never takes place.Most hypothetical effects of SI were portrayed in a negative light, as ifsuggesting that sometimes it is better not to know. One specimen of this typeis more neutral: the transmigration of souls is voluntary — that is notnecessary or obligatory in the sense that it would have been ordained byGod or another higher power (Raunio, 2004). This utterance seems tointimate that reincarnation could be a result of a divine command, but it isnot.

The second type of nonexistent impact was no effect — SI was sent orreceived, but it was not perceived to have a specified influence. One group ofeffects was those which are desired not to be manifested. In three texts, thesources stressed that they do not wish to scare us with their ‘speech’. In afourth text, the source did not wish the readers to be hurt by theinformation: ‘These [words] are not meant to be such reproaches or thingsthat you on your human part take umbrage at these’ (Lune, 1994, p. 12).The other group of effects was those which are viewed as factually not

278 Jarkko Kari

manifested. A publication had this to say about the dawning New Age: ‘thenwe [angels and humans] can hear each other’s thoughts in such a way thatour thoughts no longer get muddled due to hearing each other’ (Raunio,2006, p. 461). The message is that telepathic information confuses ourthoughts nowadays, but will not do so in the future.

11.6.6. Conditional Impacts

Some effects of SI were viewed as conditional, meaning that they would onlybe manifested in the form specified if another given thing is manifested, aswell. There was a general example of this in the analysed material: spiritualcoding may not impact on an individual until some other, milder enlivenermanifests itself (Riikonen, 1993). All discovered conditions on the influencesof SI are laid out below. Each condition was linked to a specific impact. Tobegin with, there were impacts contingent on the (purported) supranaturalsender of the information (see Table 11.3). What the sender thought or didin connection with the information evidently had a bearing on how it wouldaffect.

In general, divulging information may be seen as a necessary impactcondition at all times: if information is not released, it is unlikely to have aninfluence. The corpus for this study just left the condition unsaid usually,perhaps because it is so obvious. It also sounds natural that all impacts ofinformation are conditioned by the information itself. In the data for thisstudy, though, effects dependent on the SI were again not mentioned toooften. Table 11.3 reveals that either a quantitative, qualitative or impactaspect of the information had an influence on whether or how the effect ofthe SI took place.

When the impact was contingent on an impact of information, it meantthat one impact had to occur first before the other, ‘final’ impact couldoccur. Many effects of SI were conditional on humans — whetherintermediaries or recipients of the information, or the human society atlarge. Human characteristics, experiences and actions were all seen asshaping the impacts of SI (see Table 11.3). Evidently, the human factor wasthe most varied type of condition in the data; especially human actionsexhibited remarkable heterogeneity.

Effects contingent on the situation only numbered four, but they werequite disparate. In the first case, the situation was a failure. If this conditionarose, it would result in an effect of the SI — that is the person was tocontinue his/her activity (see Table 11.3). The second occurrence urged thereaders to exploit old people’s knowledge, while it is still possible (Luoto,2003). Here, the situation was obviously an opportunity. The third instance

Table 11.3: Conditions on impacts.

Category Types Example

Supranaturalsender

Sender’s objective,divulginginformation,sender’s action

‘[By telling you my own view,] I striveto open your way of thinking,whereupon you’ll have greateropportunities to look at yourselvesand so make contact withyourselves’ (Kokkonen, 1992, p. 12)

Information Quantity ofinformation, qualityof information,impact ofinformation

‘Humans will be informed of thingslittle by little, for a greater amountcould break them’ (Jupiterin kuunhumanoidi, 1973, p. 11)

Humans Humancharacteristics,human experiences,human actions

‘If you believe in prophecies you closeyourself and wait for the propheciesto come true and this way you can’tsimultaneously live in this moment.Many good opportunities go pastyou, because you’re not able to payattention to them’ (Kokkonen,1992, p. 121)

Situation Failure, opportunity,way of life, rightmoment

‘If the experiment comes to nought,then practice further, until youreach the necessary ability toconcentrate and force of mind’(Jupiterin kuun humanoidi, 1973,p. 36)

Unconditionalimpacts

Persons’s will,development

‘If I put my own truth into you, it willoperate through your subconscious,whether you wanted it or not. Thisway you lose your energy and try toproduce a result which is inaccordance with the truth and thegatekeeper, in other words theinternal control shuts out all otherinformation from within you, yourown truth and your possibility ofgrowing closer to the goal whichyou have set for yourself’(Kokkonen, 1992, p. 121)

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 279

280 Jarkko Kari

discussed a way of life, saying that the pernickety interpretation of holybooks has petrified our life into a strict model which has prevented thepossibility for changes typical of life, rather than encouraged them(Moilanen, 2000). The implication is that if our life was not petrified, holybooks could actually foster changes in life. Finally, the fourth piece of dataannounced the excellent help from power incantations when it is time towork like ancient heroes (Tolvanen & Hartonen, 1998). The ‘time to work’suggests that the impact of the SI was dependent on the right moment.

Lastly, there were two cases in which the effects of SI were deemedunconditional. The impacts could take place regardless of the persons’s will(see example in Table 11.3). Elsewhere, development could not nullify theeffects: the information and skills used in previous incarnations by differentpeople at the same developmental level influence their potential today, evenif it were developed by exactly the same methods (Riikonen, 1993). Thesetwo occurrences do not represent totally unconditional impacts of SI, ofcourse, because they only talked about one specific factor not interveningbetween SI and its impact. There may have been other conditions whichwere just left unsaid. In this regard, at least these ‘unconditional’ effectsdiverged from the factual effects (in section ‘Real Impacts’) which, it seems,were absolutely free from conditions of any kind.

11.7. Conclusion

The investigation at hand explored the targets and actuality of the impactsof SI. These dimensions and their categories emerged from the data, butmany of them have been foreshadowed or even discussed in scientificliterature (see section ‘Literature Review’). Let us briefly review thenewfound typologies and compare them with earlier research.

Firstly, the impact targets were classified as follows:

� organisms (human individuals, human communities, extraterrestrials,spirits);� things (parts of beings, objects, information, situations);� processes (events, practices, life);� spaces (areas, Earth, universe).

The data strongly suggested that organisms, especially humans, are theprimary target influenced by SI. This is quite natural, because the empiricalmaterial was aimed at human beings. However, this investigation expandsthe conceptual range of organisms affected by information. Prior studiesonly seem to link impacts to humans, whereas the current study found thatentirely other kinds of entities may be impacted, as well. Surprisingly

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 281

enough, these entities were not ‘lower’ life forms (animals, plants, etc.) but‘higher’ ones (extraterrestrials and spirits). The category of ‘things’ is also anenlargement over earlier conceptions which just take into account spheres ofthe individual (e.g. mental vs. physical), human attitudes and information.Admittedly though, Kari’s (2007a) definition of the effect of informationdoes include situation as a potential target. Except for human behaviour,‘processes’ have not been scrutinized as impact targets for informationbefore. The same goes for ‘spaces’, for the literature merely mentionschanges outside the individual. According to the data, it appears SI has thepotential to impact on practically anything. The same can be said aboutextremely few sorts of information, if any at all.

Secondly, the actuality of SI’s impacts fell under these categories:

� desired (implicitly desired, intended, explicitly desired, requisitioned)impacts;� real (possible, believed, factual, alternative) impacts;� nonexistent (hypothetical, no) impacts;� conditional (on supranatural sender, information, humans, situation) andunconditional impacts.

Many impacts of SI were ‘desired’: usually, the sources wished theirinformation had certain effects. In contrast, previous information researchsays nothing about the desirability of information impacts.2 Moving on to‘real’ impacts, it appears that many future things were quite uncertain evento supernatural beings (if they exist); this is reflected by the possible believedand alternative impacts of SI. Obviously factual impacts were occasionswhen the sources appeared certain and thus ‘omniscient’ about the power ofSI, but the truth is that there was a wide scale of confidence in the effectsactually occurring. In earlier research, such diversity has been reduced topotential versus real effects. Real impacts of information may be differentfrom its desired impacts, too, and this was indeed witnessed in the data.

Through looking at the ‘nonexistent’ effects of SI, an interesting patternemerged. The majority of such effects were negative (cf. ‘hurts’), while thedesired and real effects were, as a rule, positive (cf. ‘helps’). Thus, the twoperspectives reinforced each other: the empirical material usually portrayedthe impacts of SI in a good light. Nonexistent influences of information havenot been noted in the reviewed research literature. The conditions — whichcan be seen as intervening variables regulating the ‘conditional’ impacts —

2. However, this subject may well have been examined in other disciplines like communication

studies or political science.

282 Jarkko Kari

bring some realism to the otherwise so simple-looking ‘equation’ of‘information - effects’. In fact, it may be more credible to presume thatthe impacts of information are normally contingent on something. It wasalso noticed that there could be more than one condition on an impact,either at the same time or sequentially. The conditionality of informationinfluences has attracted some attention in information research before, butits treatment has tended to rather narrowly focus on information and its useas the orienting factors.

Since earlier research on the effects of information is so fragmented, it isdifficult to estimate just how similar or different the impacts of SI might bein comparison with those of ‘conventional’ information. Certainly, thecategories dealing with spiritual phenomena are peculiar to the spiritualcontext, but not necessarily exclusive to it. The other categories could wellbe manifested in other contexts, too. All in all, this inquiry has revealedseveral new varieties of information impact and even built whole newtypologies, because quite little was known about both the targets andactuality of the impacts of information before the present study. Thesecontributions can be taken advantage of in information research in othersettings.

The effects suggested by the sources of information afford an importantperspective on the impacts of information. It depicts how the originators ofthe information view their (or similar) information as influencing variousphenomena. One thing to keep in mind is that these effects are not justdesired impacts, but also real, nonexistent and conditional impacts arereported (see above). So the scene is much more diverse than what thesources intend to achieve with their information. Accordingly, this studyelicited knowledge that could not have been efficiently and validlydiscovered by analysing the recipients’ or intermediaries’ perceptions. Thechosen perspective does mean, on the other hand, that we in fact do notknow to what extent the influences presented by the originators of theinformation are manifested in reality. Nevertheless, the discoveries offer anopportunity to take the research further by examining how the source-suggested effects of SI differ from actual effects, as reported by receivingindividuals (Menou, 1995; Wilson, 1982). This is not a criticism of thereliance on either source propositions or user experiences when assessingimpact, but rather a wake-up call to see both phases of the informationprocess.

It is unknown how much the content of Finnish SI diverges from thatcreated in other languages. There may be some cultural differences, so itcould be prudent to compare the impacts of SI across different countries.The unique nature of SI — which shows in both the content and manner ofpresenting the communications — makes it fascinating research data. The

Impacts of Information: An Analysis of Spiritual Messages 283

sheer number of different information phenomena alone means that SIcould be studied within any subspecialty of information science. As a whole,it covers almost every imaginable topic, and extends to territories beyondimagination. The results of this research have practical implications, as well.For instance, information systems could be improved by adding a new fieldto document metadata — ‘anticipated impact’: what effects does the authorof the information expect it to have? In everyday life, on the other hand,people may use the findings to decide whether to obtain SI, and if so, whatvariety of SI and in what kind of a situation. Considering its great potential,it appears that SI is a remarkably understudied variety of information. Thischapter shows new research directions — SI and impacts of information —which certainly challenge the established views and paradigms of informa-tion behaviour studies. Judging by the fruitfulness of researching thesephenomena (as attested to by the investigation at hand), both of themshould be paid more attention to.

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the Finnish Academy of Science andLetters (Jutikkala Fund). I also acknowledge the infrastructural supportfrom my university department. Finally, I appreciate the editors’ commentson the manuscript of this chapter.

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