Helpful Spiritual Organizations

We all want resources with which we can interact when we require (or simply desire) special attention. Below are some basic resources for new seekers of spiritual living. 

Spiritual Care Association

 

The Spiritual Care Association (SCA) is the first multidisciplinary, international professional membership association for spiritual care providers that establishes evidence-based quality indicators, scope of practice, and a knowledge base for spiritual care.

 

SCA is leading the way to educate, certify, credential and advocate so that more people in need, regardless of religion, beliefs or cultural identification, receive effective spiritual care in all types of institutional and community settings in the U.S. and internationally. SCA is committed to serving its multidisciplinary membership and growing the chaplaincy profession.

 

The nonprofit SCA is an affiliate of HealthCare Chaplaincy NetworkTM (HCCN), a health care nonprofit organization founded in 1961 that offers spiritual-related information and resources, and professional chaplaincy services in hospitals, other health care settings, and online.

 

https://www.spiritualcareassociation.org/

 

SDI

 

Spiritual Directors International (SDI) is a global educational nonprofit. We are committed to supporting and growing access to spiritual direction, spiritual companionship and the deep listening, open questions and compassion our healing modality offers. In short, we are an invitation to be your true self. Our work concerns "Cultivating the Practices of Deep Listening and Spiritual Presence Across All Faith Traditions and Spiritual Orientations."

 

  • We have more than 6,600 members spread across 40 countries — spiritual directors and spiritual companions who offer support and companionship to people so that they may integrate spirit with the rest of their lives to feel whole.

  • We invite everyone to join us on the Public Square of Spiritual Direction and Companionship, where all people are welcome with their spiritual traditions and orientations intact – or no tradition/orientation at all.

  • We respect the spiritual independence of each person and believe our lives grow richer and deeper, the more we embrace the diversity of faith and practice.

  • We honor listening as the active art that allows spiritual knowledge to emerge.

  • We work on the assumption that all beings are connected, and that this connection often is revealed in mysterious and wonderful ways.

  • As a nonprofit organization, SDI is devoted to educating and supporting the people who choose spiritual direction/companionship as a calling. We do this through our annual conference, webinars, online courses, spiritual journeys, SDI Press Books, our website and our publications including our international journal of spiritual direction and companionship, “Presence.”

 

Comprehensively defining an intensely personal and sometimes mystical experience is an impossible challenge. Any definition is limited by its very nature and therefore bound to come up short when compared with the actual experience of the limitless.

 

https://www.sdicompanions.org/

Spiritual Awakenings International

 

Spiritual Awakenings International is multi-faith, multi-cultural, non-aligned, and is open to anyone peacefully seeking a higher understanding. We promote respectful and supportive dialogue of diverse views and perspectives on STEs. Opinions expressed by speakers at our SAI events are their own personal opinions, and do not reflect an official position of Spiritual Awakenings International.  SAI is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and is strongly opposed to any type of discrimination. Spiritual Awakenings International (SAI) is a nonprofit worldwide network of individuals and groups interested in collaborating to raise awareness, network, and share personal experience relating to diverse types of Spiritually Transformative Experiences (STEs) to raise global spiritual awareness.

 

 “Spiritually Transformative Experiences,” (STEs), was first coined by Dr. Yvonne Kason MD in 1994 in her groundbreaking book, A Farther Shore, and expanded upon in her more recent books, Farther Shores (2000), and Touched by the Light: Exploring Spiritually Transformative Experiences  (2019). 

“Spiritually Transformative Experiences” is an umbrella term for a broad range of spiritual and paranormal experiences of consciousness, that all tend to cause a spiritual awakening and gradual expansion of one’s range of consciousness. All types of STEs tend to transform experiencers’ values in a more spiritual direction and propel an increased desire to be loving, ethical, and of service to others.

  • Dr. Kason defines Spiritually Transformative Experiences into 6 major sub-types:

  • Mystical experiences;

  • Near-Death Experiences (NDEs);

  • Other Death-related STEs such as: Deathbed experiences/End-of-life experiences; Death-Watch/Shared-Death experiences; and After-Death Communications;

  • Psychic/intuitive and out-of-body experiences of many types;

  • Kundalini / Spiritual Energy Awakenings;

  • Inspired creativity

STEs are sometimes referred to as “extraordinary experiences”, “exceptional human experiences”, “spiritual emergence syndrome”, samadhis, siddhis, ascension experiences, and other terms.

https://spiritualawakeningsinternational.org/