Survey participants
The informants were recruited in late autumn 2009. It's a comfort choice. On the one hand, this is done via a letter (Appendix 1) distributed via a rented advertising site at Vattumannen's bookstore in Stockholm, which sells literature with such idea content that the study focuses on, and partly via calls for new-age discussion forums on the internet. The choice of the latter places is based on the author's prior knowledge, reading of literature (Arlebrand, 1992; Hammer, 2004) and with the help of search engines. Inclusion criteria are that the informants should be in adulthood, have a worldview that includes reincarnation and karma, and a conviction that the individual is gradually evolving towards perfection. It is also desirable to get informants with slightly different roots in the field of new age or newness. The informants will also have the opportunity to meet in the Stockholm area for a personal interview.
A short reconciliation is done by phone and in some cases by email with those who register interest to see if these meet the inclusion criteria. Among other things, it is important to weed out people who have a spiritual interest who lean more towards Satanism, wicca, paganism, or the like, for whom the basic beliefs above are not normally central or even covered. One person is excluded because he is too young and perceived as too seeking, another is rejected because he has a Buddhist view of reincarnation that does not involve individual rebirth. A couple of people get no as these are personally familiar to the essay author. A person is excluded when they live in another part of the country and it is considered difficult to get a personal meeting during the time when the interviews are to be conducted. A couple of requests towards the end of the recruitment phase are declined as it is assessed that these variants of newness are already sufficiently represented.
Eleven people are recruited, 7 women and 4 men. The youngest are in their thirties, while the oldest are a little over sixty. Two are retired, three are students at college, three work with alternative treatments and the like, one person works in the private sector, one is an artist and one works in public administration.