Mission and Purpose

Mission:

The mission of the Lorian Association is twofold: first, to be a spiritual research center that explores a contemporary spirituality, in particular the sacredness of incarnation and a re-imagination of self, Sacred and the world; and second, to provide educational services that can empower individuals as they respond to the opportunities and needs of our time.

Purpose:
The purpose of the Lorian Association is three-fold:

• To support the research, development, articulation and dissemination of incarnational, holistic, ecological, and generative forms of contemporary spirituality.
• To support a community of people exploring the magic and beauty of incarnation.
• To support other projects that further the re-imagination of self, sacred and the world.
  
  

History

Lorian’s history includes the overall story describing the flow of events and spirit that has carried it through to its current day, and, of course, it includes individuals who have made the story possible. We include both here—the story and the individuals behind Lorian.

The Story Behind Lorian
Lorian’s story is about the emergence of a new spiritual impulse and how it has made itself known through a group of people responding to its call.  In a way, it began in 1962 when a young David Spangler spontaneously experienced a vision that propelled him toward a life of spiritual research and understanding. Lorian itself has become identified with his thought as the early vision deepened and expanded into a body of work he calls Incarnational Spirituality.

     The group of persons who would found Lorian originally met as participants in the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland in 1971. As they helped to create a unique experimental community in Findhorn, they developed a deep bond of spirit and friendship that shaped itself around serving the birth of this emerging planetary spirituality. Upon leaving Findhorn, these founders created Lorian as an informal organization linking several independent projects, each fostering a new and growing awareness of the Sacred in the world. In 1974 Lorian Association was formally incorporated.

     Since its founding, Lorian has served as a grounding place for a particular facet of this emerging spirituality. Although Spangler has carried the impulse most publicly within Lorian, others have contributed to its call through support to Lorian and though their own work. Many people have participated in Lorian, leaving their mark and then going forth into the world to plant new seeds with their own expressions of the impulse.

     In 2003 the Lorian Center for Incarnational Spirituality was created to define Lorian’s role more specifically. Its purpose is to administer a series of approaches to education, including:

• A long-term program with Masters degree options
• Home study education books and materials
• A worldwide network, using online connections and classes to explore and research Incarnational Spirituality.

     Today Lorian remains an organization committed to the definition, grounding, and support of an emerging spirituality that recognizes and engages the Sacred within the heart of all life.

The People Behind Lorian
The individuals sharing this work have arrived at just the right moments, for just the right actions to be taken to preserve and enhance the spiritual impulse underlying Lorian.

     The original founders of Lorian came together in Findhorn, as described in the above story. After leaving Findhorn and returning to the US, they formed a new community in Lorian to focus on exploring, understanding, and teaching their understanding of the emerging spiritual impulse. As artists and educators each left a valuable and lasting mark in the heart of Lorian:
David and Julia Spangler, currently directors of Lorian, have been the leaders of the community; Myrtle Glines, now deceased, was an important spiritual teacher and pioneer; Dorothy Maclean, one of the three original founders of Findhorn, was also an influential teacher and partner in Lorian’s work; Roger and Katherine Collis, currently directors of Meditation Mount in Ojai, California, are also founders of the Pacifica Foundation; Freya Secrest is currently a director of Lorian and a faculty member; Kathi and Milenko Matanovic went on to found the Pomegranate Center based in Issaquah, Washington.

     In 2000, marking a new century and flow of energy into Lorian, came another group of individuals that contributed significantly to the work of Lorian. David, with a creative faculty including Jeremy Berg; Freya Secrest, MDS; Suzanne Fageol, MDiv; Terri O’Fallon, PHD; Elizabeth Fowler, MD; and supportive board members Donna Alvarado; Ruth Chaffee, PHD; Dan Paulson, MS; and Julie Spangler moved to stimulate Lorian’s public outreach and education.  In 2003 this group created the Lorian Center for Incarnational Spirituality (LCIS) to offer a long-term program with Masters-degree options, home-study educational books and materials, and to build a worldwide network to teach and explore Incarnational Spirituality through active online interaction. Their work has evolved into the current day’s programs and activities.

     Today, along with our Board of Directors, Lorian is supported by an Advisory Council who meet twice yearly offering their experience and insight into developing pathways that will facilitate our mission.

We are grateful for the creativity, joy and fellowship of all who have contributed, and who continue to contribute to Lorian’s work.

 

A Spiritual Research Center

Spiritual research is the process of using the scientific method—asking questions, developing hypotheses, doing experimentation, and sharing the results through some form of peer review—in dealing with the non-physical realms of earth’s Second Ecology. This may seem unusual, as for many people science and spirit seem to belong to two different worlds, often in conflict; also, historically, people have seen the spiritual worlds as sources of revelation, guidance and instruction, not as places to be explored or researched as one might study the natural world. However, the idea of spiritual research has its own rich tradition. Two of its most famous practitioners have been Emanuel Swedenborg whose research and writings gave birth to the Swedenborgian Church, and Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Anthroposophy, whose own work gave rise to the Waldorf Schools and biodynamic gardening.

     To be sure, the methodology of spiritual research is different from that of normal scientific investigation. The primary instrument is human consciousness with its capacities for multiple states of knowing and perception. Among the tools used are dream work, visions, meditation, contemplative inquiry, clairvoyance, “journeying,” and communication with spiritual forces and allies. In recent years, methodologies and protocols for transpersonal research have proliferated and developed as scientific attention has been focused on alternative states of consciousness, mystical experiences, parapsychological phenomena, and the like. The book, Transpersonal Research Methods for the Social Sciences, by William Braud and Rosemary Anderson is an example of the kind of material that has come out of this growing discipline.

     In Lorian’s case, our approach has grown out of the work of David Spangler who since childhood has had a perception of and an engagement with the Second Ecology and who has often called himself a “naturalist of the inner worlds.”  Before becoming a spiritual teacher in 1965, he had been studying for a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry and molecular biology and brought to his work with the spiritual realms a scientific attitude. Incarnational theory grows out of his inner research, complemented and expanded by various colleagues and their own inner work.

     The primary implication of this is that incarnational theory, and all that emerges from it in the form of our classes and world work, is constantly evolving. It is not a “revelation from on high,” but a work-in-progress. Each of us in Lorian is learning to be a spiritual researcher in our own unique ways, applying our own talents and adding our insights to the whole. Even our students are involved in this process as we actively solicit their participation through testing and applying the material we offer. For this reason, our educational program is not static and may change in order to better accommodate and deliver new insights and understandings. Our emphasis is on exploration, experimentation, and discovery more than on presenting a fixed truth. 

     This does not mean that everything is fluid or without foundation. There are core principles in incarnational theory that have remained consistent for many years and form the bedrock on which the rest of the program is based. But, it does mean that classes evolve. It means that what you receive from Lorian is not so much a product as a process-- a process focused on helping each individual discover his or her own inner teacher, to develop a spiritual practice grounded in his or her unique sovereignty and relationship to the world and to the Sacred, and, if he or she chooses, to become a spiritual researcher in his or her life.

Lorian's Present Work

Today, while based in Washington state, Lorian is an international organization. We are dedicated to supporting a re-imagination and new understanding of what it means to be human at this point in time. We celebrate the intrinsic human and spiritual capacities within each person that, when understood and put into practice in our daily lives, can build an ecology of wholeness, health, and beauty for the whole earth community.

Lorian’s organizational focus is in these four areas:

Lorian Association:

• Conducts the business of Lorian—coordinates the research, educational and community aspects, and responds to the needs of the organization as a whole.

Lorian Center for Incarnational Spirituality, (LCIS):

• Explores and researches incarnation and wholeness, and the spirituality and practice that emerge from them, as experienced in the Path of the Chalice.
• Presents basic and advanced concepts of Incarnational Spirituality for both new and experienced spiritual-seekers. (See Education for more information.)
• Is guided by David Spangler with a talented faculty who contribute their own understandings and experiences in how Incarnational Spirituality elevates human consciousness.

Lorian Associates:

• Respond to the call for community by those of us who are committed to the practice of Incarnational Spirituality in our daily lives and work.
• Work at the boundaries where an incarnational and wholeness-creating spirituality engages with the world through a variety of applications. (See Boundaries for more information.)
• Extend as a network across the U.S. and internationally which is fostered through our website, the monthly David's Desk essay, the quarterly Lorian newsletter, local group activities, educational events and occasional conferences.
• Vary widely in our interests and practices, political leanings, life experience and circumstances in the world. We are a microcosm of the world.

Lorian World Work:

• Seeks, through energetic and physical action, to facilitate healing and service and the creation of wholeness within our daily lives, relationships with our families, local communities, and our world. See Inner Service.

Is Lorian for You?

Yes, if -
You are a spiritual seeker feeling that something new and powerful is stirring in you and in the world, and you are drawn to meet its call.

• You want to create wholeness and transformation in your life and in the world.
• You want to be able to turn your vision of a better way of life into practical results in your world.
• You want to undertake a practice of energy activism and world work in service and healing to the world.
• You have studied and practiced various spiritual approaches, and you want to integrate them into an embodied practice that allows your gifts to express and serve.
• You appreciate the value of paths that seem to focus on the transcendental and overcoming the personality, and yet you see a need to empower your personal capacities as tools to serve the greatest good.
• You have a sense there are invisible, spiritual allies seeking to help in the world, and you want to know how better to collaborate with them.
• You feel a wellspring of compassion and creativity based on something other than personal desire or need, and you want to tap that generative spirit.

     Lorian has been pioneering new insights into a contemporary holistic and incarnational spirituality for over thirty years. We are skilled as teachers and counselors and have been explorers and researchers in cooperation and alliance with spiritual allies and forces. We bring a spirit of joy, fun, and honoring of the sovereignty and freedom of all our students to our programs. We seek to work collaboratively out of an attitude of mutual learning and respect that orients itself around the uniqueness of each student. We see our work as creating conditions allowing the innate spiritual consciousness within each person to emerge in ways that honor and express his or her uniqueness. We do not offer a "truth," but serve the truth within each person.