Endorsements:

The Coming Interspiritual Age is in part about just that – the emergence, happening now and gaining momentum – of an interspiritually unified world. It has its basis in a background coming transformation – that of the Integral Age. Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord give a clear,
compelling, highly readable account of this coming transformation, which indeed could prove world changing. If you’re not sure what all this means – and even if you are – get this visionary book and find out what all the excitement and enthusiasm is about. It might very well change your world!

Ken Wilber, The Integral Vision

A new integral world has begun to come into view, and a new human being is beginning to be called forth. This new humanity is capable of living responsibly and cooperatively in this radically self-transforming world. The implications will be world-changing. Drawing from the inspiring legacy of Brother Wayne Teasdale, Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord do us all a great service by bringing the sweep of this panoramic vision into focus in this wide-ranging volume

Terry Patten, author Integral Life Practice; founder, Beyond Awakening

The Coming Interspiritual Age is at once an insightful historical overview of the burgeoning interspiritual movement, an urgent call for transformation in the face of the many pressing social, ecological, and spiritual challenges of our time, and a passionate manifesto for the flowering of a new, integral culture that embodies the highest ideals of all the world’s great wisdom traditions, ancient and modern. I am happy to recommend this book to readers from any religious background, or none, who are inspired by the possibility that a better, more just and enlightened world awaits us in and through the miracle of "We." This text promises to be a valuable resource for all interfaith and integral religious students and practitioners; it is one I will be using in my classes on these topics going forward.

Bruce Alderman, John F. Kennedy University

The Coming Interspiritual Age presents a magnificent post-postmodern integral vision, heralding a new kind of spirituality already aborning. While it is written with passion, the authors Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord are well-grounded in the knowledge of science and of integral and evolutionary theories to make the book at once a systematic narrative of the past, both cosmic and human, a systemic interpretation of the present, and a splendid vision of the future. At the heart of all spiritual traditions is the “Mystic Heart” that connects us to the Heart of the Kosmos and enables us to unconditionally embrace all beings with Love and Compassion. The authors propose that in this New Axial Age it is time for the Mystic Heart to be luminously lit in the hearts of all humanity to transcend the differences and disagreements that have plagued the human family through spiritual alignment eternally existing in the Heart of our hearts. This is a timely book that transcends time.

Yasuhiko Genku Kimura, Founder, Vision-In-Action

Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord set a wide context of the evolutionary development of man and the earth, setting spirituality in a global and historical developmental context with hints as to its future potential. Backed up by abundant scientific evidence and global polls, they make the case for the marriage of science and religion. But the main message shining through is that of an experiential spirituality of the heart that beats through every living being and is the basis of the new emerging Interspirituality. If you want to keep abreast of the leading edge of spirituality, this book is a must read.

Nancy Roof, Founder, Kosmos Journal

This remarkable pioneering book, The Coming Interspiritual Age, taps and brings to the fore this deeper evolutionary narrative that is the lead event facing humanity today. This evolutionary drama of our maturation as a species takes the reader through a holistic and comprehensive journey into the emergent frontier of Interspirituality. The authors, deeply inspired by the groundbreaking lifework of Brother Wayne Teasdale, brilliantly help the reader read the “signs of our time” and experience the enormity of our current shift to the long-emerging Age of
Interspirituality. Building on advances from Brother Wayne’s life in global and interreligious dialogue- the awakening of the global heartmind the authors focus our attention on the most profound evolutionary moment facing humanity today our individual and collective crossing into the dilated global space of Interspirituality. In this respect the supreme activism of our time is to be in touch with this lead event in our human journey, to awaken our hearts to our primal unifying source, to our deep interconnectivity, to the challenges of entering a higher form of shared nonviolent culture through the literacy of global dialogue in which our entire human family may flourish together sharing our sacred earth. This book deserves to be widely read on a global scale as we discover, enter and co-create our new shared story of our human evolutionary journey.

Ashok Gangadean, Ph.D., Co-Convenor of the World Commission on Global Consciousness and Spirituality, Margaret Gest Professor of Global Philosophy (Haverford College), Director of the Margaret Gest Center for Interreligious Dialogue, Founder-Director of the Global Dialogue Institute; author, Awakening Global Enlightenment: The Maturation of our Species

As a colleague of Dr. Jonas Salk, whose famous “bio-philosophy” held that our survival as a species depends on our capacity to imagine and anticipate the future and, choosing among clear alternatives, thus co-creating, with nature, our destiny– I see this same wisdom in the message of The Coming Interspiritual Age. Like Johnson and Ord, Salk predicted that the most important adaptive mechanism for humankind would be a growing ability to collaborate and cooperate. If the religions of the world can apply this evolutionary point of view to their philosophical, cultural, social and psychological problems, and experientially draw wisdom from the primordial ground of being that underlies them all, indeed there may be hope that the Great Traditions can make a positive contribution to our human future.

Michael Jaliman, Founder, True North Advisers

A major contribution to the emerging interface of science, evolution, and spirituality – and its vast implications for the human race.

Stephan Rechtschaffen, MD, and Annette Knopp – Founders, Blue Spirit Costa Rica

Modernity has become obsessed with slicing, dicing, chopping, and dividing reality into tiny bits of data and, as a result, our world has become increasingly polarized, fragmented, and fractured. It hurts to be alive today. This magnificent book includes a sweeping diagnosis of our imbalanced condition and offers a powerful vision to heal the broken heart of humanity and unify the spirit of our species.

Rafael Nasser, author Under One Sky

This book will simply astonish you. It is not only a beautiful and powerful tribute to the work and vision of Brother Wayne Teasdale, it is also an Interspiritual Akashic Record that will help prepare the way for the Interspiritual Age to be ushered in…one where we will see with the eyes of the heart.

Diane Williams, Founder, The Source of Synergy Foundation.

The Coming Interspiritual Age is a timely gift for a world facing environmental, economic and geo-political crises — all of which can be seen as a spiritual crisis. There is a spiritual awakening organically happening amidst this, transcending cultures and religions and giving birth to new possibilities for all of humanity. The Coming Interspiritual Age is a brilliant and comprehensive exploration of the complexity, dangers and promise of this chaotic and profound time.

Phillip M. Hellmich, author God and Conflict: a Search for Peace in a Time of Crisis; Director of Peace, The Shift Network

Profound heart and deep intellect inform every page of this rich and beautiful book. May it have the success it deserves and open the minds and hearts who come to it.

Andrew Harvey, author of The Hope: a Guide to Sacred Activism and Radical Passion

The Coming Interspiritual Age by Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord is simply extraordinary. This much-needed book will change the discourse on religion and spirituality. Especially for the younger generation, who no longer recognize themselves in the traditional narratives that world religions are offering them, this book provides hope. It offers a new vision of spirituality and addresses the personal and societal implications of the possibilities that arise from this new way. The future will be interspiritual and this will be our textbook.

Adam Bucko, Founder, Reciprocity Foundation, co-author New Monasticism Manifesto and, with Matthew Fox Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation

Br. Wayne Teasdale’s momentous legacy of mystical ecumenism is powerfully amplified and elaborated in this sprawling work of historical, scientific and spiritual synthesis.

Pir Zia Inayat-Khan, Spiritual Leader, the Sufi Order International

In this truly panoramic book, Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord place Interspirituality within the whole vista of our global human history. They continue Wayne Teasdale’s heart-centered vision of our underlying mystical unity, showing how it naturally belongs to the evolution of human consciousness. The challenge facing us all is how to implement this vital vision in our present time of collective crisis. This valuable book helps us to understand why Interspirituality is so central to our shared destiny.

Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee PhD, Sufi teacher, author The Prayer of the Heart in Christian and Sufi Mysticism and many other books

Good News for Postmodern Humanity! Dancing through millennia of human biological and spiritual evolution, The Coming Interspiritual Age offers a compelling and comprehensive peek towards a positive future: stories shared rather than dogmas dividing, consciousness expanding to include global compassion rather than globalized consumerism. This is a book for all who are looking beyond interfaith (bare) tolerance to a larger vision of what makes us all human.

Neil Douglas-Klotz, author of Desert Wisdom: A Nomad’s Guide to Life’s Big Questions from the Heart of the Native Middle East and The Sufi Book of Life

A significant sign of our times is the quest to make a leap of consciousness from religious ideologies to a deeper spiritual consciousness and practice. As Jung warned, “only the mystics bring creativity to religion itself.” This book contributes to that important leap by celebrating our mystical roots that the authors believe can heal the split of science and religion and of religions against religions. This ambitious book joins the multiple efforts at interspirituality in our time to celebrate a mystical awakening that can move us from the religions of consumerism and materialism that dominate our culture with the cynicism and despair and addiction they spawn to something more resembling a full-hearted life. It invites us to new and more ancient ways of living our sacred lives in and on behalf of this sacred earth. I welcome it!

Matthew Fox, author of the inter-religious classics Coming of the Cosmic Christ and One River, Many Wells, and recently The Pope’s War, The Hidden Spirituality of Men, Hildegard von Bingen and other books.

In the face of life on the precipice of unimaginable calamity, here is a book of authentic hope – a work of expansive, integrative scholarship woven through and through with heart and spirit; a visionary book with its feet on the ground. The Coming Interspiritual Age is a compelling read, an engaging experience; a book to be lived with; a book with the potential to change your life, to change our lives, and with them the future of humanity. If I were you, I’d start reading it today.

Rev. Canon Charles P. Gibbs, Executive Director, United Religions Initiative

I really cannot exaggerate the value and importance of this book. This is where we are going, and we might as well go informed and enlightened! My heart leaps and my mind expands as I read this book.

Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., author, The Naked Now and Everything Belongs; Center for Action and Contemplation and Rohr Institute

If some scholars insist that “God is Not One,” Johnson and Ord respond “Oh yes He/She/It is!” Religious differences are real, but they do not obstruct, indeed they nurture, religious dialogue. Drawing on contemporary science (biology, physics, and brain studies), philosophy, the teachings of mystics and of religious activists, this book makes a strong case that an “interspiritual age” is both coming and needs to come soon. For both seekers and academics, this is a rewarding, challenging, and inspiring read.

Paul F. Knitter, Paul Tillich Professor of Theology, World Religions, and Culture, Union Theological Seminary

The Coming Interspiritual Age provides an essential understanding of the roots of the current spiritual-religious context and the evolution of consciousness affecting every sector society and culture. It inspires deeper contemplative awareness of the inherent interrelatedness of all being and a vision for the future of the global human family. A book to be shared and discussed!

Robert G. Toth, Past Executive Director, Merton Institute for Contemplative Living

I am very glad this wonderful book continues to draw praise and interest. I support and recommend it.

Fr. Thomas Keating, interfaith and contemplative pioneer

The Coming Interspiritual Age is a masterful blend of science and heart. It serves as both a wake-up call to the urgency of our global predicament and a potent dose of hope in our ability to come together to repair the world. Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord eloquently build a case not only for the evolutionary imperative of interspirituality but the great joy that comes when we remember that we already are interconnected, and ever shall be.

Mirabai Starr, author God of Love, A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam

A new world needs a new worldview and Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord’s The Coming Interspiritual Age is just that. If you are looking for a map of the unfolding spiritual landscape of tomorrow, this is it. Read this book. Then read it again.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro, author,The Sacred Art of Lovingkindness and Rabbi Rami’s Guide to God

“Man is a transitional being. He is not final. The step from man to superman is the next approaching achievement in the earth’s evolution”. Sri Aurobindo wrote these words a century ago. The FUTURE presses and will not let us lag behind. Its Presence is palpable. The authors of this book sense the urgency of our destiny… and bring together the myriad strands that could hasten the process.

Aster Patel, Governing Board, the Auroville (India) Foundation and author of The Presence of Time

Panoramic in scope and profound in its incisive probing, The Coming Interspiritual Age offers us a vision of hope and unity to shape this millennium. The authors identify Wayne Teasdale as a visionary who helped crystalize the interspiritual movement that seeks to develop a progressive spiritual template for our human advancement. Read it and act on it, for, through understanding the role of “consciousness” in the evolutionary process, you will not only shape history but perhaps life itself. This is a pivotal moment in history and this book is meant to help us understand the awesome power we hold in our minds, hearts and hands. Reading it will turn on the bulb of spiritual enlightenment for you!

Russill Paul, author, Jesus in the Lotus and The Yoga of Sound

The Coming Interspiritual Age is an important new book and enjoyable to read. Often religious beliefs that all proclaim love, forgiveness and unity have ended up dividing us and even turning us to war. Here in this book we can read about the past history and the new inner and outer movements of hope emerging today. This book highlights the importance of unity consciousness that can be developed by all people to be able to recognize and embrace our particular cultural and religious beliefs and yet recognize our underlying unity and our common community.

Loch Kelly, Founder, Awake Awareness Institute

The Coming Interspiritual Age explores the impact of awakening to our true nature of unlimited, ever-present Awareness in great detail, exploring its social, political, environmental and economic implications with depth, clarity and honesty. This book brings the perennial understanding of the reality that all beings and things share to the core issues that face our world culture today, holding up a mirror to society and asking questions that we cannot afford to ignore. It is a beautiful and courageous work which will, I’m sure, have far reaching implications.

Rupert Spira, author of Presence, The Transparency of Things, Conversations on Nonduality and other books.

A comprehensive handbook to move from tribal-based, sectarian religion to the actual perennial wisdom based in mystical experiences that give rise to love for all creatures. It is a welcome perspective, coming as it is at a time when life and death for our species, as well as many others, are on the line.

Catherine Ingram, author In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, and A Crack in Everything

This compelling and accessible new work is a tremendous contribution to the emerging field of global spirituality and the evolution of enlightened wisdom for us today. I am moved and impressed by the breadth and depth of the author’s offering here, and recommend it heartily to anyone interested in spirituality and consciousness. In the context of inevitable globalization and multiculturalism, this brilliant and inspiring book comprehensively documents the trend toward a global unity consciousness, makes crystal clear the gifts the Wisdom Traditions can bring to this global discussion, and challenges all domains– religion, science, economics, governance– to develop a profound sense of responsibility to the collective heart and soul, body and mind of humanity. I highly commend the authors, dedicated spiritual practitioners themselves, for directly challenging the established religions and their adherents to go deeply into the experiential heart and mystical consciousness of their traditions and refine their understanding of their place in our diverse yet interdependent world. In making available a comprehensive view of developmental history and how the characteristics of this current time reflect the past, it reveals how we can profoundly learn from those integral dynamics, laying out how a modern interspiritual outlook and journey can be accomplished both within traditions as well as in new and innovative structures. Read this book and you’ll be better for it.

Lama Surya Das, author Awakening the Buddha Within, Buddha Standard Time and other books; founder, Dzogchen Center and Dzogchen Osel Ling

This is a beautifully written panorama of the spiritual zeitgeist of our times and an eloquent description of the emerging interspiritual aesthetic and ethic that is bubbling up throughout the world. As the authors put it: “… interspirituality is a call for radical and universal exploration into the subtle realms of consciousness and the deepest regions of the heart. This involves plumbing exactly what unifying principles—what Archimedean points of unity—lie beneath the societal history of our species.” This book echoes the intention of the Spiritual Paths Foundation the Snowmass Interspiritual Dialog work that bring together contemplative teachers from many traditions. In our meditations we experience the marvelous diversity of contemplative method and experience. Our merging consciousness feels like circular ripples of water intersecting and overlapping from multiple pebbles dropped in the same pond.

Ed Bastian, Ph.D., Spiritual Paths Foundation, author InterSpiritual Meditation and Living Fully Dying Well; publisher, Meditations for InterSpiritual Practice

The Coming Interspiritual Age is sublime in vision, prophetic in wisdom, an inherently contemplative exploration into the most salient evolutionary choices we face as humankind. A masterful refined interdisciplinary book, I consider Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord’s scholarship a decisive word on the a-priori role of self-reflexive consciousness in the process of human spiritualization. I foresee the widespread reading of The Coming Interspiritual Age catalyzing beneficent societal transformation on a global scale of service beyond our seven generations. This book is a heartfelt contribution to re-Membering ourselves as a compassionate and peacefully cooperative planetary species. I enthusiastically recommend it to all earnest seekers and servers of the Great Work!

Don Oscar Miro-Quesada; Founder, The Heart of the Healer (THOTH) Foundation

Humanists will read this book with interest and appreciate its wide coverage of many writers who work to distinguish spirituality from religions. They will also appreciate the very readable treatment of the development of the sciences and the treatment of the evolution of our planet currently most complex in the Homo sapiens species. Humanists will have more difficulty, however, when the authors speak of scientific as well as spiritual “knowing.” They will also have difficulty reading of consciousness as a oneness state and also as an interconnected state in the same sentence. Some humanists, after this extensive exposure to “developmental” and “integral” thinking may be even less likely to favor “spirituality.” Another way of putting this would be to say that humanists are much more likely to spend time with Julian Huxley than with Aldous Huxley. Felix Adler was indeed a key figure in moving beyond traditional religion to an ethical movement, and his Kantian idealism may have some mystical elements. Those who have built upon him in different humanist movements, however, retain much more of his stress on ethics. Their nontheism is a starting point, certainly not central or a goal. Universal human rights are a goal rather than an inference from mystical or spiritual experiences.

Robert Tapp, Dean & Faculty Chair Emeritus, The Humanist Institute

The Coming Interspiritual Age sensitively teases from ethical culture’s message of infinite interdependence its special contribution to the 21st century discourse in the coming Age. Emphasizing the visionary aspect of ethical culture founder Felix Adler, the book cogently articulates a possible roadmap for humanists along the path of humanity’s quickening higher consciousness.

Martha Gallahue, Ethical Culture Leader, National Ethical Service at The United Nations; Faculty, National Peace Academy USA

The Coming Interspiritual Age is a hugely ambitious project – an extended apologia for interspirituality. Extremely readable, it draws widely from history and literature, ancient and modern, and builds on the work of Teilhard de Chardin, Brother Wayne Teasdale, and Ken Wilber, among others. Johnson, a distinguished scientist who has spent much of his life as a monk, is a student of evolutionary biology with a vast background in anthropology, philosophy, and comparative religion. The book comes with its own strong point of view and will be cut to pieces by predictable critics decrying more new age religion. Whether or not you agree with it, though, the writing is immaculate, the arguments compelling, the vision hopeful. Anyone interested in the future of religion (and why so much religion isn’t working today) will enjoy reading this book.

Paul Chaffee, Editor The Interfaith Observer

If one can use The Coming Interspirituality Age as a map and guidepost, then there exists the possibility that it will light the way towards a global interfaith and intercultural peaceful future for humankind.

Alison van Dyk, Chair and Executive Director, Temple of Understanding

The arc of religious history bends toward what the authors of this book call ‘interspirituality.’ In breathtaking detail, the book chronicles that long and continuing narrative and document the transformation of consciousness—individual and collective—that it entails. We desperately need that transformation, and we need this book to fully comprehend it.

Philip Goldberg, author American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West

The Coming Interspiritual Age is a very valuable contribution, articulating contexts for understanding the emergence of interspiritualities, acknowledging some of the key contributors, and providing many reference points for further study and exploration.

Neill Walker, Co-Founder and Co-Director, Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace.

As founder of a seminary that trains Interspiritual ministers, I am deeply grateful to Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord, who offer a comprehensive and panoramic view of the landscape that gave rise to the emergence of interspirituality and insightful glimpses of where we may be going. Anyone who cares about the evolution of consciousness and spirituality should read this book.

Rev. Diane Berke, Founder, One Spirit Learning Alliance/One Spirit Seminary

Wondering what is happening in the interfaith /integral/ interspiritualityworld? Then this is the book for you. It offers a grand perspective, a way of seeing our human journey, a heart-felt vision of what is happening now, and hope for the future. You’ll learn a lot and gain direction!

M. Darrol Bryant PhD, Huston Smith Award winner 2011, Director, Centre for Dialogue and Spirituality in the World Religions, Renison University College, University of Waterloo, Canada; author, Religion in a New Key

Birthed in this unprecedented time of breakdown/ revolution/ awakening/ and transformation– sometimes referred to as the divine chaos of creation– this remarkable work both individually and collectively reminds us of where we came from and expressively defines where we are going. The Coming Interspiritual Age focuses on the shift of human consciousness, the shift in the heart and anticipates what the Heavens are asking Humanity to become in the here and now. Trailblazing the way forward, the authors– grounded in science and guided by intuition– present with clarity, thoroughness and grace a framework for us to co-create our new spiritual narrative from a place of one heart, one mind. This book is a must read!

Marshia Glazebrook, Temple of Understanding and Founder, MetanoiaNow

These are noble and important goals… We are impressed with the heavy emphasis on unity consciousness, integral practice, collaboration projects among the world’s religions, global compassion, and creative educational ventures in interspirituality. We also agree with the idea that interspirituality is “spiritual maturity.” This concept opens many new doors for those of us on this path. That’s what good books do and The Coming Interspiritual Age does it with a rare blend of high-powered energy, enthusiasm, and zeal.

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.

The Coming Interspirtual Age identifies one of the most important evolutionary shifts in human religious life – the move away from doctrine and blind belief to the embrace of experiential knowledge, a turning inward to the source of knowledge. The book describes the shift from a paradigm of separation, exclusiveness and religious competition to one of unity, inclusiveness and cooperation, one that allows an integration of the practices of multiple religious traditions, without threatening any. This burgeoning spirituality brings great hope and promise for the future.

Dena Merriam, Founder, The Global Peace Initiative of Women; Founding Member and Convener, The Contemplative Alliance

A comprehensive overview of the central themes, history, cosmology, and key leaders in the nascent field of interspirituality. Full of vital information that remains as yet too little known, The Coming Interspiritual Age is an apt title for the evolutionary transformation that is rapidly emerging across spirituality, religion and science today.

William Keepin PhD, co-editor, The Song of the Earth: A Synthesis of the Scientific and Spiritual Worldviews; author, Divine Duality.