It's part of the broader new age movement. It coincided with the rise of commodification of the identity, individualism of the 80s and 90s, and the self-care movement. People express beliefs in a higher power as a way of dealing with many things, and many new age people look either to the stars or into "other dimensions" (whatever that means) for these higher powers.
I'd also like to point out that although you could view this as being cynical about the capacity of humanity, you could also view this as hope that someone will save us from ourselves. You can also see this in political belief with eg posadism (where dolphins/aliens elevate us after we destroy ourselves with nuclear warfare and recuperate by turning to communism, which to be fair is also basically the plot of star trek) or the belief that a free market expresses superhuman collective rationalism that will save us from individual failings.