Jean Houston

"…The time, or zeit, is certainly jumping with Geist… the passing spiritual landscape a riot of unexpected terrains: A group of sophisticated New Yorkers dressed in fashionable and expensive gear struggle up a mountain to study with a Peruvian shaman, who drums them into trances… In a temple in Sri Lanka, a yellow-robed figure sits in deep meditation. The shaved head is expected, but then the adept’s eyes open, and they are Western and blue and belong to a journalist from Dayton who has become a Buddhist nun.


A community of elderly nuns in Montana integrates sweat lodges and other Indian ceremonials into their traditional Catholic retreat program… The wildly innovative Jewish Renewal Movement blends the wisdom traditions of classical Judaism with Sufi, shamanic, Christian, Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu practices and good doses of transpersonal psychology, spiritual “eldering,” and human potentials work. Catholic monks and maroon and gold robed Tibetans share and compare meditative and contemplative techniques as they take turns leading morning meditation at an interfaith dialogue at Gethsemane Monastery in Tennessee attended by the Dalai Lama.


This fusion and confusion of previously separate and sacrosanct traditions is drawing a new topographic map showing a planet heaving with volcanic activity as the Source pours forth its energy and the lava of Spirit runs through valleys of once and future faiths. Some have ridiculed this eruption of spiritual polyphony, calling it…“cafeteria religion.”…Others have argued that the new “mix-and-match spirituality” has deepened the quest, citing as evidence the range of obscure esoteric texts now lining the shelves of mall bookstores or deliverable overnight with a one-click order from an online bookseller.


Our seminars and workshops are filled with exuberant practitioners of crossover spirituality. Their words that echo the original meaning of enthusiasm, “being filled with god.”…Ultimately, it is about summoning the sacred… or mystical experience… Perhaps we needed the changes and accelerations of our unique and challenging time to put the flame under the alembic so that such inward alchemy could take place. Add the sufficiency of current shadows and the breakdown of all certainties, and we have the ingredients for the current universal pursuit of spiritual realities. The deconstruction of traditional ways of being may invite the Deep Life of which we are a part to break through.”


~ Jean Houston (born 1937) is a renowned visionary, scholar, and one of the principal founders of the Human Potential Movement. Recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars in mythic and spiritual studies, Dr. Houston founded the Mystery School in 1982.






“Houston was born in New York City. Her father(related to Sam Houston of Texas) was a comedy writer who developed material for stage, television and the movies. She spent her teen years in New York City and attended Barnard College. She subsequently earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from Union Graduate School and a Ph.D. in Religion from Graduate Theological Foundation. While participating in a US Government sanctioned research project on the effects of LSD (before such research was banned), Houston became acquainted with Robert Masters, a writer and a researcher into the varieties of human behavior and potentials. The two married in 1965 and soon became known for their work in the Human Potential Movement. Together they founded The Foundation for Mind Research. Houston taught at Marymount College and was a lecturer at Hunter College. Her interest in anthropology brought about a close association with Margaret Mead, who lived with Houston and Masters for several years before her death in 1978.” ~ Wikipedia