There was a psychiatrist I knew in Los Angeles who, when he has patients who have problems sleeping, has them listen to John-Roger tapes instead of prescribing sleeping pills. -John-Roger

In the spring of 1991, I was convening a session at a conference on nontraditional religions when someone mentioned that John-Roger Hinkins, a “New Age guru,” was in attendance. Scanning the audience, I failed to notice anyone fitting my image of such a personage. The only individual in the room who seemed to have some of the aura of a spiritual master was, I later discovered, a Baptist minister.

When I finally met John-Roger (whom almost everyone in his movement calls J-R), it was easy to see why I had previously failed to notice him: Dressed informally, and otherwise innocuous in appearance, he struck me as an old farmer who had put on his best blue jeans to come to town for supplies. He had also neglected to bring along a retinue of admirers - a sure-fire giveaway for most “New Age guru”-types. Having in the past encountered many ostentatious spiritual leaders whose very presence seemed to demand attention, I was frankly impressed.

The next time I encountered John-Roger was at a meeting in the fall of 1994, during which we finalized arrangements for the present study. I was again struck by J-R’s ordinariness: Even at his headquarters, surrounded by members of the Church of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA), everything about the man seemed to say, “nobody special.”

In our chitchat before the meeting, J-R himself commented on his lack of personal magnetism when he jokingly remarked that “MSIA can’t be a cult because a cult is supposed to have a charismatic leader!” This remark seemed to speak directly to the thoughts that were in my mind at the moment. John-Roger was, indeed, one of the least charismatic people I had ever met.

Within a few weeks after this meeting I drove back to Los Angeles to collect some preliminary materials for the study. Like many other contemporary religious movements, MSIA’s teachings are propagated via the medium of audio tapes. In fact, very little of what John-Roger has spoken in public seminars across the span of three decades has not been preserved in audio form. Residing as I did some 1-1/2 to 2 hours north of MSIA’s Los Angeles center, I was delighted to think that the “road hours” I would be spending on the freeway between L.A. and Santa Barbara could be used productively as part of my research. This initial supposition, however, turned out to be mistaken.

During the course of my first round trip, I dutifully popped in an MSIA tape and began listening. John-Roger has a pleasant, soothing voice. However, except for occasional humorous remarks, his delivery does not particularly arrest the attention. His talks frequently meander around, as if he had just sat down and started speaking about whatever came to his mind. And his teachings, while nice enough, are neither especially original nor otherwise remarkable.

While the novelty of the experience preserved me during my first trip, I was not long into my second journey to L.A. when I found myself starting to nod off in my effort to follow J-R’s voice. I was soon forced to eject the tape and listen to a radio station to wake myself up. My next few experiments with MSIA seminar tapes produced the same result - a drowsy feeling as if I had overdosed on antihistamines.

I made a mental note to suggest to the MSIA staff that every tape be labeled with the warning, “Do not listen while operating heavy machinery!” None of the MSIA books I was reading were any more engaging than the tapes.

In the early months of my research, I attended an “Introduction to MSIA” class at a member’s home. While this class was fruitful for gathering impressions of Movement participants, I could not help but notice that whenever the facilitator led us in any extended meditation, or whenever he played a J-R tape, almost everyone in the room - new and old members alike - nodded off. “That’s nice,” I thought, “at least I’m not alone in being bored to tears.”

However, my relief at having company in my tedium was not great enough to compensate for the increasing sense of exasperation I was beginning to feel at being unable to understand the draw of MSIA. What in God’s name was it that attracted people to this movement? I had studied many other minority religions at close range and, while I might have been profoundly at odds with their practices and doctrines, I could at least understand why someone might be attracted to join. With respect to MSIA, however, every aspect of the Movement seemed bland and unappealing. I can remember coming home to my wife after one particularly narcoleptic meeting, exclaiming, “What the hell is this? What brings people into this movement? Am I going to be bored out of my mind for the next six months of this study?” The prospects looked bleak.

When I confronted members with my frustration, they just laughed: “Jim, it’s not what happens at the outer level that’s important; it’s what happens at the inner levels!” I could at least partially understand their reasoning because of my personal background in meditation and meditative experiences, but what about when participants are constantly falling asleep at meetings? “Oh, that’s O.K. Ninety percent of what happens takes place on the inner planes anyway, so even if one falls asleep at a seminar, one still receives most of the spiritual benefits!” This kind of response greeted many of my queries on this topic, and I was perplexed that so many otherwise intelligent people could actually accept such a strange doctrine. Nevertheless I persevered, hoping that eventually something would happen that would make the whole thing come together for me. I was, I felt at the time, searching for some key idea or experience that would make the information I was taking in “jell.” Methodologically, I was seeking to understand the religious experience of Movement participants, either in terms of a religious studies approach or in terms of traditional participant-observer research.

Most of the scholars who study minority religions are sociologists. While I often rely upon sociological methodology - to such an extent that I have sometimes described myself as a “born-again” sociologist - my primary training is in the Religionswissenschaft (termed “history of religions” in the English-speaking world) tradition of religious studies. While drawing on insights from sociology, history, anthropology, and so forth, this approach to religion sets itself apart from other academic disciplines by attempting to take religious experiences seriously. Drawing on Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy, historians of religion make a disciplined effort to study the influence of religious experiences in the life of believers without either dismissing such experiences as “merely” psychological or acknowledging that such experiences are linked to some larger, spiritual reality. In other words, to oversimplify, an attempt is made to study the structure and role of such experiences in the religious life without evaluating them as either true or false. What seemed to be missing in my study of MSIA was the understanding of some core experience that would make the teachings come alive as an attractive religious option (whether or not I judged the experience to be ultimately “real”).

In the social sciences, particularly in anthropology, the standard approach to field work is participant-observer research. In such an approach, one attempts to set up a dynamic relationship between the role of involved participant and the role of detached observer. When the participant role is properly assumed, one becomes, in effect, a partial, temporary convert who is able to view the world of the people one is studying from the inside (to the extent that this is realistically possible). In terms of this methodology, a large part of my frustration was that, despite my participation in MSIA events and spiritual techniques, I seemed to be fundamentally unable to break out of the role of observer and view the world as an MSIA participant.

The more I spoke with MSIA people, the more it became evident that the key to comprehending the Movement was tied up with the teaching that we are multidimensional beings, existing on many levels of consciousness at the same time. We normally perceive only 10% of reality (the physical world), and the often unperceived 90% (the spiritual worlds) was the arena in which most of whatever happened between John-Roger and his students took place. MSIA teaches that students can learn to become more aware of the other levels of consciousness, ultimately knowing himself/herself as divine. MSIA also teaches that John-Roger and John Morton (J-R’s spiritual successor) are “anchors” on the physical plane for the Mystical Traveler Consciousness - a spiritual presence that is able to work simultaneously with many different students. (John-Roger was the anchor for this consciousness from December 1963 through December 1988; John Morton has subsequently anchored the Mystical Traveler Consciousness.) Most of the Traveler’s work takes place on the inner levels, guiding students in ways that often do not register on the conscious mind.

As MSIA’s full name - the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness - indicates, part of the goal of Movement participants is to become more aware of these inner processes. However, as should be evident from the experiences I have thus far described, participants do not seem to be particularly upset if much of their spiritual work takes place while they are “unconscious” or otherwise unaware. As one might anticipate, MSIA explicitly teaches that the Traveler Consciousness works with students during sleep. In fact, one of the explanations I have heard for why J-R’s tapes put people to sleep is so that the really important inner work that takes place during a taped seminar can happen without unnecessary interference from the conscious mind. As a statement in one of the Soul Awareness Discourse pamphlets asserts, “You are often not told about the work the Traveler is doing because if you don’t know, you can’t block it.” Sleepers can sometimes become aware of this dimension of the work in dreams, particularly when one encounters the Traveler Consciousness clothed in the image of J-R or John Morton or some other figure symbolic of wisdom to the dreamer.

One evening, when I was at the peak of frustration with my inability to understand the attraction of MSIA, I had a particularly vivid dream in which John-Roger and I talked about the future of MSIA. We seemed to be discussing a presentation I was going to be doing in a distant town. After I woke up, I had the distinct feeling that the “distant town” represented academia, and that the presentation referred to my published study of MSIA. Did I actually encounter something called the “Mystical Traveler Consciousness” in my dream? MSIA’s teachings on such dream encounters are nuanced, and readily acknowledge that meeting a dream figure who appears to be J-R or John Morton can simply be a confused reflection of thoughts one has had during one’s daylight consciousness.

Taking my cue from history-of-religions methodology, I was not necessarily interested in determining whether or not my encounter with the dream image of John-Roger was “real” in some ultimate, ontological sense. I was, however, excited finally to have had something like an insider’s experience - an experience that made distinct sense in terms of MSIA’s ideology and world view. This single dream opened up the Movement in ways I cannot fully articulate. I can only report that, from that day forward, J-R’s assertion that, “It doesn’t matter what I say; I could just repeat ‘ham and eggs, ham and eggs’ for a half hour and you’d still get it,” made perfect sense. The really important, spiritual work takes place at the inner levels, no matter what is taking place at the outer level.

I looked back at the MSIA books that I had been having difficulty getting into, and they suddenly became lucid and even interesting. Things about MSIA that before had seemed dull and boring suddenly came alive. I was looking at the same data through new eyes. I now had the missing ingredient: the dimension of inwardness. Everything in the Movement was shot through with inwardness and was incomplete and lifeless without this added dimension. I finally had a deep, experiential sense of why people joined MSIA. Some time during their involvement, most Movement participants had had direct, confirming experiences of the Traveler Consciousness operating in their lives, and these experiences formed a core around which the rest of J-R’s teachings congealed and made sense.

One of the respondents to a short survey that was mailed to a sampling of current MSIA participants described his attraction to the Movement in a way that perfectly captures the importance of the inner dimension for understanding MSIA:

I chose MSIA (which is important, MSIA did not recruit me or proselytize to me) because of my own inner experience, not necessarily the John-Roger seminars or Discourses or the group connection, but because of what I experienced as an individual consciousness. . . . You can read all about MSIA from John-Roger’s books and hear about MSIA from John-Roger and John Morton seminars, yet you might not really ever find anything out.

Or, in the words of another respondent,

While there are many opportunities to participate in MSIA . . . the real Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, inside of me, comes in my S.E.s [spiritual exercises], my dreams, and in times of introspection and contemplation.

The first MSIA event I attended after my dream experience was a seminar given by John Morton. I hitched a ride to the event with the Movement’s treasurer. On the trip over, I related my dream experience, and explained how that relatively minor experience had opened up my understanding of MSIA. Upon our arrival, I had several stimulating conversations with various people prior to the event itself. For the first time in months, I was relaxed rather than exasperated and took the opportunity simply to enjoy the social interaction. John Morton’s talk was preceded by announcements and a little music that set the tone for the gathering. By the time John got up to talk, the room was filled with two or three hundred expectant people.

John Morton is a nice-looking man with a ready smile and a polished manner. He also has a pleasant, but not what I would call a mesmerizing, voice. On that particular night, he began his talk by mentioning that he had been fasting for over a week. I earnestly hope that the lack of food accounts for the spacey, disconnected nature of his presentation which, to my perception, was one of the least engaging lectures I had ever heard. As in many of my earlier experiences with MSIA seminars, I found myself nodding off, uncontrollably drawn into the twilight consciousness between sleeping and wakefulness. Later I had the thought that, if the Movement ever decided to sell a tape of that night’s lecture, they should entitle it something like, “MSIA’s Answer to Sominex.”

After what seemed an eternity, John ended his seminar and walked out of the room. The assembled crowd burst into many separate, highly animated conversations, obviously stimulated by what was to my mind a lackluster presentation. As for myself, I returned to full consciousness and noted with pleasure the response of the audience. While I had gotten nothing out of the lecture myself, the great majority of attendees obviously had, even the ones who, like myself, had nodded off. The event had confirmed the conclusion I was already reaching, namely that what many participants get out of their MSIA-related experiences is something that cannot be fully grasped at the overt level.

The notion of an inward (and often unconscious) level at which 90% of one’s consciousness resides and where spiritual work takes place does much more, however, than explain why it is spiritually okay to fall asleep during seminars. Rather, almost every key idea in MSIA’s conceptual scheme is informed, directly or indirectly, by this notion. This is particularly evident in MSIA practices and ideas that appear to be parallel to practices and ideas found in other religious groups.

Take, for example, the practice of creative visualization, which is omnipresent among groups in the metaphysical, occult, New Age family of spiritual groups. Creative visualization is the practice of visualizing a state of affairs one wishes to bring about, with the idea that the simple act of visualization will marshal forces in the spiritual realm that will help create the desired result in the physical. Creative visualization is a kind of “mental magic” that is employed for everything from physical healing (e.g., visualizing a diseased part of the body in full health) to affairs of the heart (e.g., visualizing oneself in a romantic situation with a desired partner).

In terms of its significance within the movement, MSIA’s parallel to creative visualization is calling in (or sending) the Light, which is a kind of cross between prayer and visualization. “Light” refers to the same spiritual “energy” that (according to MSIA teachings) Christians call the Holy Spirit. When calling in the Light, one states the problematic situation on which one wishes the Spirit to act and asks for the highest good for the situation and for everyone involved. One need not visualize anything (though, in practice, one often does visualize the wished-for result). One need not, in other words, imagine any specific outcome; rather, one can simply request that the Holy Spirit, in its wisdom, act in ways that are best for the situation - whether or not we are able to grasp the wisdom behind the Light’s actions. Furthermore, even when one does imagine a specific result, offering the matter up to the Light “for the highest good” allows the Light to act in ways that can supersede our limited vision of what we think we want.



To make the point, J-R has related a number of stories, including the tale of his efforts to attract a new residence:

Some time ago I programmed from the universal mind for a house, and the houses started coming forward. I thought I had done everything right, but . . . I found out that I’d neglected to mention the yard, so I had a long house sitting on a little yard and felt cooped up. So I decided I wanted a better yard, but I forgot to program for drainage. So, in the next house, the backyard flooded. I said, “Fine, I want good drainage,” and the next house was built beside a big wash. . . .

One night I was sitting at home, and I said, “You know, I think the house that’s for me is waiting. And, Father, I think you know what I have in mind, so just open my consciousness and direct me to it.” I turned it over to God and placed it in the Light for the highest good. About a week later a house came forward that was exactly what I wanted.

Turning a matter over to the Light with a generic request for the greatest good reflects MSIA’s belief in the inner, spiritual dimension of life - that greater reality lying behind the 10% level we normally perceive. The Light acts in ways we often cannot comprehend, in order to bring about the greatest good for all people. As with the spiritual development that takes place during sleep, we do not have to be conscious of the specific processes at work behind the scenes for these processes to be effective. As a matter of fact, if we knew exactly what was happening, we might be tempted to try to interfere, thus involving ourselves in other people’s “karma.” Although comparable, it is clear that sending the Light represents a profound departure from creative visualization.

As a way of delimiting MSIA practices, John-Roger makes a distinction between the Light and what he terms “magnetic light.” Magnetic light refers to the impersonal, mechanical energies of the lower spiritual planes that can be manipulated by the human will. Magnetic light is by definition inferior to the Light. The Light proper may be invoked but not manipulated by human beings. Creative visualization makes use of the power of magnetic light. By way of contrast, holding something in the Light for the highest good is a way of focusing spiritual energy into a situation and asking (but not compelling) God to work His/Her/Its will in the matter. This distinction holds for many other MSIA practices: Though related to, or even derived from, similar practices in other spiritual movements, MSIA practices set themselves apart by allowing room for what in more traditional language we might call the activity of God’s Grace (from the 90% level) into our physical lives (the 10% level).

I have laid out the story of my initial efforts to understand MSIA at some length for several reasons. In the first place, while all religious movements speak of visions and revelations that lie beyond the experience of outside observers, I have never before studied a movement for which these experiences played such a central role in understanding both group ideology and individual participation. By relating the tale of my grappling with this issue, I hope that I have thrown some “light” on what participants regard as the most significant aspect of their spirituality.

In the second place, I have attempted to describe my encounter with MSIA in a manner that captures some of the humanity of the Movement. While MSIA may view itself as being directed primarily to the 90% of existence that lies within and beyond, it is also a deeply human venture - a point often lost in outsider accounts of such religious groups.

Finally, academic treatments of other peoples have traditionally been written as if observers of events were machinelike tape recorders who never engaged in human contact with the subjects of their investigations. This mode of presentation misrepresents the actual situations in which information is gathered, and some essential element of understanding is lost when researchers adhere rigidly to this kind of detached style. My approach has been shaped by my background and by certain specific experiences I had in the course of this study. Where relevant, I have made reference to such personal encounters so that readers can have access to some of the experiences which shaped my interpretation of the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness.

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