NYmichael

Sociologist, web site at http://www.thesecularspirit.com

I was an Irish Catholic kid who became a Jesuit at age nineteen. After 14 years there, I set out on a pilgrimage to find the key to culture. I got a Ph.D at the University of Chicago, explored new age offerings, then trained in Hakomi for bodyworkers (1995) and in Hakomi trauma treatment (1997). Now I get it. You can touch trauma imprints.

   In 1966 at the age of 33 I went through a "conversion" from religious to secular spirituality. Since that  time I have been busy trying to articulate the meaning of my transition.

    When it started, I was a Roman Catholic priest of the Jesuit order, and when it ended, I was a secular intellectual  thinking about what will be the form of the  post-christian global culture that will integrate the substance of Torah, New Testament, Koran, and the legacies of Buddha and Lao Tzu (to name but the major players on the world stage of spiritual inquiry).

I picked up a useful piece of equipment at the University of Chicago. In the grey city I learned how to read big-picture social forces. These are the sea changes that toss the skiffs of our individual lives and our institutions.