The Center for World Spirituality is driven by our mission of articulating and advancing a spiritual movement that will ripple across the globe in the hearts and minds of many millions of people. Such change the greatest urgent need and planetary adventure of our time: catalyzing a World Spirituality based on Integral principles to address a wide spectrum magnitude of challenges faced by individuals and communities all across the globe. In our work we are each challenged to lead not from ego but from our Unique Self, finding ourselves in harmony with the evolutionary impulse itself in its expression as ever expanding degrees of love and compassion.
We are led by an active leadership team consisting of some of the most respected spiritual teachers, leaders, authors, and activists in the world today. This team consists in Board Chairs, Board of Directors, Vice Presidents, and other members of the Board of Directors who play a hands-on role in guiding the organization on its mission. This team couldn’t do its work without the inspiration, influence, and participation of the spiritual teachers, luminaries, thought leaders, and change agents of our Scholars and Wisdom Council.
Leadership Team Highlights
Marc Gafni, D.Phil., Scholar-in-Residence and Director of the Center for World Spirituality, is a philosopher and public intellectual who is leading the emergence of the World Spirituality movement based on what Gafni has termed the Democratization of Enlightenment. At the core of his teachings is what he calls the Enlightenment of Fullness, the linchpin of which is Unique Self Teachings, a breakthrough technology with the potential to change the source code of the human experience. The Unique Self teaching is now being adapted in leading treatment centers, universities, private schools and spiritual centers all over the world. In each of these fields serious work is being done by leaders in their respective fields to bring Gafni’s teaching to bear in a way that redefines the field.
Over the past 30 years, Dr. Gafni has developed many educational programs and workshops rooted in traditional wisdom and yet fully adapted to the needs of the contemporary world. His acclaimed writings and standing-room-only lectures are known for their unique mix of profound teaching and transmission, open hearted compassion and love, intellectual rigor. Depending on the night, he might include stand-up comedy or storytelling.
An iconoclastic artist and provocative visionary, Dr. Gafni has led spiritual movements and learning communities as well as created and hosted the leading national Israeli television program, on Israel’s leading network, on ethics and spirituality. Now, he is focusing on bringing his passion, brilliance, and ability to transmit an open hearted presence to the World Spirituality movement. [in-depth biography...]
Mariana Caplan, PhD, is a psychotherapist, professor of yogic and transpersonal psychologies, and the author of seven books in the fields of psychology and spirituality, including The Guru Question: The Perils and Awards of Choosing a Spiritual Teacher and the seminal Halfway Up the Mountain: the Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment. Her recent release, Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path, won five national awards for best spiritual book of 2010.
She has spent 20 years researching cutting edge and controversial topics in Western Spirituality, and focuses her consultation and psychotherapy practice on somatic approaches to healing trauma and spiritual issues. She is the co-founder of The Center for World Spirituality and an adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies and Naropa University. She has degrees in cultural anthropology, counseling psychology, and contemporary spirituality, and is a teacher and practitioner of yoga philosophy and asana.
Ken Wilber Ken Wilber is the most influential figure in defining the terms of discussion on what constitutes the “Integral” perspective today. His corpus of 25 widely translated books has erected an intellectual framework for understanding the nature of converging trends in philosophy, psychology, sociology, and other disciplines. His books have often been bestsellers, and his scholarly books have been the basis for numerous academic programs, master’s and doctoral dissertations.
Revered as the “Einstein of consciousness,” Ken has written over twenty books exploring different facets of human development and cultural evolution. His first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness, written when he was only 23, became a seminal text in the emerging field of transpersonal psychology. Among his diverse corpus of writings are a novel, Boomeritis, which provided a groundbreaking critique of postmodernity, and The Simple Feeling of Being, a corpus of mystical, spiritual writings of transcendent and lyrical beauty.
Wilber has also played an active role in supporting and promoting integral thinking. He is a leading voice in support of World Spirituality based on Integral principles and has been one of the founding members of the Wisdom Council of the Center for World Spirituality.
Joe Perez is the author of books including Soulfully Gay, one of the first memoirs in the tradition of World Spirituality based on Integral principles. He is Director of Communications, Scholar-in-Residence, and Executive Editor of Spirit’s Next Move at the Center for World Spirituality. He is an Honors graduate of Harvard University with a concentration in Comparative Religion with Philosophy as Allied Field. His M.A. in Divinity from the Divinity School at The University of Chicago is pending, and he is a graduate of the Generating Transformative Change program in Integral Leadership at Pacific Integral.
Joe is also a blogger and Facebook Page curator exploring and advocating emerging ways of being an awakened human being by consciously evolving a better world and brighter future for all sentient beings. Earlier in his career, he was a communications manager, Internet advertising entrepreneur, and technical writer/editor, working independently and for companies such as Microsoft, Microsoft Press, and Siebel Systems (now part of Oracle). He is also a former résumé writer, job search strategist, newspaper columnist, and the author of two published books. He holds active professional certifications in career coaching.
Academic Chairs
Sean Esbjorn-Hargens, Ph.D. is the chair of the Integral Theory Department at John F. Kennedy University, the Executive Editor of the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice and he is co-author of the newly released Integral Ecology. He is currently the most published author applying the Integral model to a variety of topics including education, sustainable development, ecology, intersubjectivity, science and religion, consciousness studies, and play.
Clint Fuhs is the founder of Core Integral, a company dedicated to expanding access to, and ensuring the integrity of a comprehensive understanding of the Integral approach. He is a senior student of Ken Wilber’s, and is currently completing a PhD in Human and Organizational Development at Fielding Graduate University. He is also an adjunct faculty member at both JFK and Fielding Graduate Universities.
Richard Mann, Ph.D. has degrees from Harvard and the University of Michigan, and has taught psychology at both prestigious schools. In 2001, he co-directed a team of prominent developmental psychologists for the Human Change Project. Its goal was to create an Encyclopedia of Human Development, a detailed and easily accessible catalog of all research on human psychological and spiritual growth.
Zachary Stein received a B.A. in philosophy from Hampshire College in 2004 and an Ed.M. in Mind, Brain, and Education from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 2006. He is currently a student of philosophy and cognitive development pursuing a doctorate at Harvard. He is also the Senior Analyst for the Developmental Testing Service where he has worked for years employing cognitive developmental models and metrics in a variety of real world contexts.
Center for World Spirituality Ambassadors
Thomas G. Goddard, JD, PhD, is the President and CEO of The Integral Company, a firm dedicated to helping individuals and organizations to operate consciously and joyfully in the world. In his work with organizations, Dr. Goddard brings his expertise in Integral Theory and industrial and organizational psychology to diverse organizations, primarily in the health care sector. His work with organizations has taken him throughout the United States and to Latin America, the South Pacific, and the Middle East. In his work with individuals, Dr. Goddard empowers his clients to live full, conscious lives. Dr. Goddard has earned a law degree and master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology. He has received specialized training in emotional intelligence, Respectful Confrontation, shadow work, tantra, the Shalom process, and consciousness studies. A founding member of Ken Wilber’s Integral Institute, he has led mindfulness and Integral Theory trainings and workshops for the National Institutes of Health, Shalom Mountain, The Omega Institute, The Chrysalis Group, and the Center for Creative Therapies and the Arts. Dr. Goddard serves as one of the three members of the Executive Council of Shalom Mountain, Inc., a retreat center in the Catskill Mountains of New York.
Tom writes, “My spiritual journey throughout my adult life has been marked by a yearning for a global, transformational conversation at the ‘deep end of the pool,’ where the mystics of all the great spiritual traditions meet in deep resonance with one another. The Center for World Spirituality has drawn my support because it offers the best opportunity for such a conversation I’ve seen in nearly 40 years of searching.”
Australian Chair
Dr. Christine McDougall is an authority on integrity. When people lead with integrity they get results, build enduring brands, and gain respect. They can look themselves in the mirror and like who they are. Organizations that model integrity are leaving a positive legacy for everyone and everything they touch.
European Chairs
Germany
Kerstin Tuschik has been on a conscious path of spiritual and personal growth for more than 20 years always yearning for unity, love and consciousness.
Her professional, academic and experiential background ranges from stage dancing and its didactics, physics, psychology, alternative education, personal and spiritual growth studying different practices and approaches with various teachers, constellations processes, human resources and organizational development, change management, coaching and various forms of psychodynamics.
Integral Theory has helped her to connect the dots. Through her dedication to this field, she met Dr. Marc Gafni and connected deeply to his vision of a World Spirituality based on Integral Principles, his trans-lineage path dharma on Unique Self and the New Enlightenment, and his transmission of Love. Studying with him and representing Center for World Spirituality in Germany while being connected to this international trans-lineage sangha is a deep pleasure and joy for her.
Holland
As one of the founding members of the Venwoude Integral Practice community in Holland, Renso Chahat Corten is well-trained and thoroughly cooked in communal living for 25 years. Lightness, humor and endless creativity for life’s challenges in the area’s of relationships, sexuality, embodied practice and a motivating WE-space, rooted in her realization of emptiness and fullness, is what she offers from her heart.
Leon Gras is trainer, coach and core-member, living at Venwoude Integral Practice Community in the Netherlands (www.venwoude.org) for the past 10 years. He facilitates training programs on issues like Men, Women, Intimacy & Relationships and guides people individually in the field of love making and the art of relating. At Venwoude, Leon is responsible for the movement of bringing Venwoude in connection to the (integral) world and the growth of the beautiful container Venwoude is and can be for this planet. Leon holds a strong vision of creating synergy between people and organizations from different backgrounds, countries and beliefs from which a world spirituality may emerge.
Norway
Chameli Ardagh is the Director, Founder and Senior Teacher of the Awakening Women Institute. She is a celebrated transformational leader and one of the world’s leading pioneers on contemporary feminine spirituality.
Switzerland
Annette Kaiser is today a spiritual director of „Villa Unspunnen“ in Switzerland and „Windschnur“ in Germany. She was authorized by the English-Russian Sufi teacher Irina Tweedie to carry on this tradition, which she makes accessible in today’s world. She is married, has two grown children and teaches mainly in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She is author of eight books and in 2000 developed in the Integral DO-Path. Her deepest heart-wish is the transconfessional spirituality that manifests in this world based on the reality of Oneness.
Spirituality and Sports Chair
Kristen Ulmer is an American pioneer of the Extreme Sports revolution. Starting as a mogul skier on the U.S. Ski Team, she quickly decided to pursue a career jumping off cliffs for cameras and skiing you-fall-you-die ski descents around the world instead. Subsequently, for a run of 12 years, Kristen was voted and named the best big mountain or overall woman skier in the world by the media and her industry peers, beating even Olympic Gold medalists. Around the turn of the millennium, Powder Magazine called her “The biggest icon the ski industry never expected” and the “protoplasmic mass of the ski industry” in a cover-feature about her life. Expanding into and mastering other dangerous sports such as rock and ice climbing, paragliding, adventure cycling and kiteboarding also scored her the vote in Women’s Sports and Fitness Magazine as the most extreme woman athlete in North America. Kristen became a popular speaker, television show host and sports journalist — writing for some of the most prestigious American sports magazines and scoring monthly columns in 4 different ski publications around the world. 
