The Association for Spiritual Integrity℠ (ASI), a 501(c)(3) charity, was founded in 2018 by Craig Holliday, Jac O’Keeffe and Rick Archer with input from many valuable friends, peers and students along the way. The ASI arose out of a deep need to address the numerous scandals and confusion involving spiritual teachers, their students and communities, over the years. The ASI aims to deepen the conversation and become an evolving force in education so that there is greater integrity and professionalism within the modern spiritual landscape.
The intention of the ASI is to grow and evolve as a community of spiritual leaders, teachers and guides, and prevent these unfortunate events by empowering teachers to become fully educated on the ethics and dynamics of working with students. The ASI team believes passionately that now is the time to fulfill the fundamental need for establishing education, transparency, responsibility and ethical standards within the spiritual guidance & teaching community. The ASI is not a judging, policing or mediating body. It seeks to create accountability and support leaders, teachers and guides professionally so that they may better serve their communities.
While Jac, Craig, and Rick are founding members of ASI, they are as equally accountable to the Honor Code of Ethics and Good Practice presented here as every other member. We all are “works in progress,” and will continue to explore the realm of ethics and spirituality and improve the Code. Nobody receives “special privileges” within ASI. We are in this together.
Jac O’Keeffe, Co-Founder, Board Member
Jac O’Keeffe is a spiritual teacher, leader and author of Born to Be Free and How to Be a Spiritual Rebel. She pushes the boundaries of the conditioned mind and encourages her students to engage their unique path with honesty, courage, and integrity. Students who are drawn to her are dedicated and passionate about their spiritual lives, and appreciate the no-nonsense approach. Jac’s work is driven by her capacity to envision the possible future of spirituality. She speaks about the required evolution of both teachers and methods to impart teachings to make spirituality relevant and applicable to regular life. Jac’s deep knowing that awakening is only the beginning of wisdom ensures the continued discovery of her own edges of evolution. She walks her talk. For more information about Jac visit jac-okeeffe.com or join one of her weekly Truth Serum Café sessions.
Philip Goldberg, Board Member
Philip Goldberg has been studying the world’s spiritual traditions for more than 50 years, as a practitioner, teacher, and writer. He was trained as a meditation teacher in 1970 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and has been ordained as an Interfaith Minister and spiritual counselor. He has lectured and conducted workshops in a variety of venues in the US and India. A prolific writer, his articles have appeared in numerous publications, and he is the author or coauthor of 25 books, including Roadsigns on the Spiritual Path; the award-winning American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation, How Indian Spirituality Changed the West; The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru; and his most recent, Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and Courage. He also blogs on Elephant Journal and Spirituality & Health, co-hosts the Spirit Matters podcast, and leads American Veda Tours to India. www.PhilipGoldberg.com.
Julia Nadine Padawer, Board Member
Julia Nadine Padawer is a spiritual and life purpose coach who assists her clients in attuning to their soul’s deepest calling in all areas of their lives. She is also an author and book coach. Over the last twenty-five years, her spiritual path has taken her through many traditions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, New Thought, Non-Duality, and A Course in Miracles. She spent a year living in an ashram based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, during which time she became a certified yoga and meditation teacher. She holds a master’s in spiritual psychology and believes that a mature spirituality integrates the transcendent and the embodied; both “waking up” and “growing up.” Julia is passionate about the idea that the seeker or student never give their power away. Having learned this lesson the hard way, she still honors the wisdom of those who have walked before her, while being grateful to have reclaimed her own heart, mind, and intuition as the ultimate measures of discernment. https://awakethenovel.com
Kimberley Lafferty, Board Member
Kimberley Theresa Lafferty, MA, is a scholar practitioner specializing in human development, adult education and extraordinary experiences. Her trans-disciplinary practice includes private counseling and online and in-person educational retreats. She is a seasoned teacher in Indo-Tibetan contemplative psychology, leading hundreds of hours Mahayana, Vajrayana and Classic Yoga trainings internationally. She is the founder and decade-long director of the global non-profit Yoga Studies Institute, and is a certified Stages therapist. confluenceexperience.com
Ray Bratcher, Board Member
Ray Bratcher shares the energetics of personal transformation and “embodied enlightenment,” primarily through Sacred Breath–the culmination of nearly 30 years as a professional Rebirthing-Breathworker. After training with Rebirthing’s discoverer, Ray served as Lead Trainer and then Executive Director of Rebirth International. He was then led to Sacred Breath and was recently recognized as a “Global Breathwork Leader” by the International Center for Breathwork. He has served on the board of directors of a Unity Church, and as a founding board member of both the Church of the Father-Mother God and Kagyu Shenpen Tharchin, a Tibetan Buddhist Sangha. He has explored a wide variety of paths, both Eastern and Western, and has taught classes, workshops, and seminars at various venues. He is also the host of the “Children of the Sun” program. https://linktr.ee/breathe_only_love
Sara Priestley, Board Member
Sara Priestley is a spiritual guide and writer with an eclectic background in boutique consultancy, corporate IT, bodywork and coaching. Her degree in theology and postgrads in technology, teaching and psychology led her to a modern spirituality, independent of religious tradition or life path. Sara’s simple philosophy is that happiness is found in knowing our true nature and living it. She provides the support, structure, tools and language to empower students in their own awakening and ongoing enlightenment process. She is interested in the evolution of metaphysical explorations within a nondual understanding and supports those affected by abusive behavior in cults. Her books include The Complete Book of Awakening and quintessence: the poetry of true nature. Sara lives in London, England, with her husband and a small colony of rescue cats. She’s currently learning Japanese. www.sarapriestley.com
Rick Archer, Co-Founder, Special Advisor
Rick is the creator and host of the interview show Buddha at the Gas Pump. Since the Fall of 2009, he has interviewed over 600 “spiritually awakening” people, from the well-known to the unknown, from a variety of backgrounds and traditions. A former Transcendental Meditation teacher for 25 years, Rick instructed hundreds of people and spent years on long meditation retreats. He has practiced meditation daily for over 50 years. He is also one of the founders of the Association for Spiritual Integrity and speaks regularly at the Science and Non-Duality Conference. https://batgap.com
David Beaver, Advisor
David Beaver had an unexpected kundalini experience in college, leading to encounters with Eastern and Western teachers, finally becoming the student of an order of Christian mystics. After their authorization to teach, he became one of the first teachers of A Course in Miracles. He has taught weekly classes and occasional seminars for nearly forty-five years. In his professional life, he created a series of public service projects derived from his Course work. Undergraduate work in both physics and cognitive science led to three decades of independent research into human perception, and its interaction with media images, leading to invited lectures at graduate schools in psychology, design, virtual reality, theater, film and cognitive neuroscience. He invented and received multiple patents in VR technology based on his research. He initiated and co-founded the Overview Institute, which brought the perspective-altering experience of the astronauts, the “Overview Effect,” into cultural awareness. www.davidbeaver.org
Miranda Macpherson, Special Advisor: Outreach, Education
Australian-born Miranda Macpherson is a spiritual teacher, modern mystic and author. Unapologetically feminine, joyful and down-to-earth in her way of being, she’s internationally recognized for her depth of presence and her refined capacity as a guide into direct experience of the Sacred. Her wisdom and palpable transmission invites others to become more graceful human beings, deepening through inquiry, meditation, devotion and psychological integration. Grounded in extensive study of the world’s wisdom traditions, Miranda is inspired by the silent presence of Sri Ramana Maharshi, A Course in Miracles, and more recently, the Diamond Approach. In her twenties, she founded the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation in London, where she trained and ordained over 600 ministers. Today she leads the Living Grace sanghas in Marin and Sonoma county, Northern California, teaches retreats across the USA and Europe, and global online courses through The Shift Network. Author of The Way of Grace: The Transforming Power of Ego Relaxation, Boundless Love, and Meditations on Boundless Love, Miranda is also a kirtan musician with a mantra album The Heart of Being. https://www.mirandamacpherson.com
Krish Srikanth, Special Advisor
Krish works as a spiritual mentor, therapist, life coach, business family mentor and teacher in India. He has spent the bulk of his life in spiritual pursuits, learning & development and giving back to the community. As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) he has spent his childhood in periods of silence, enabling him to grow his intuition and connection with the divine. As a global traveller with 30 years of experience in spirituality, therapy, corporate training, new age teaching & publication he has developed the expertise to detect teachers who have fallen from grace/ are blind to their shadow, institutions that have become cults or beginning to and in prosecuting conmen & charlatans. He shares his knowledge and expertise with spiritual teachers & aspirants to save their time and effort on the spiritual path. krishsrikanth.com
Christopher Key Chapple, Special Advisor: Education,
Clyde W. Ford, Special Advisor: Social Justice
Clyde W. Ford is a software engineer, a chiropractor, and a psychotherapist. He’s also the award-winning author of twelve works of fiction and non-fiction, whose most recent book, THINK BLACK: A Memoir was published in September 2019 by Amistad/HarperCollins. His expertise lies in Body-Mind Healing, Racial Healing, African Mythology and Healing, and the effect of climate change on the marine environment he loves. www.clydeford.com
Angel Marcloid, Special Advisor
Angel Marcloid is a mixing and mastering engineer, musician and composer, visual artist, and feline enthusiast living outside of Chicago, IL. She runs Angel Hair Audio LLC, and is the sole member of experimental music projects Fire-Toolz, Nonlocal Forecast, and others. On paper, she would be considered “transgender,” or more specifically “transfeminine,” “agender,” and “nonbinary.” However, her experience is far too nuanced and mysterious to be put in any number of static definitive boxes, as she does not have any sense of a particular gender identity despite her biology or resonance with femininity. Since the 2010’s, Angel has been on a gradual but life-transforming journey along the path of self-realization and Oneness. After escaping a hijacked and misappropriated version of Christianity as a teen, she ventured into the atheistic/agnostic world of mindfulness and cognitive behavior therapy. However it wasn’t long before she found herself deeply “seeking” again as she stumbled across the teachings Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chödrön, Rupert Spira, Miranda MacPhearson, Swami Sarvapriyananda, Thich Nhat Hanh, Shinzen Young, and others rooted in various nonduality-oriented modalities. Only a few years later did she start to settle back into Christianity, this time with an entirely transformed understanding of it, by way of mysticism and contemplation. Though she considers the wisdom of figures like Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj to be vital to her path, it is the work of Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr, John Butler, Cynthia Bourgeault, and A Course In Miracles that resonate with her the most. As of 2021, she is also studying Law Of One.
Tom Murray, Special Advisor
Tom Murray is a scholar/researcher in the fields of wisdom skills, adult developmental theory, meta-theory (including integral and metamodern theories), we-space practices, and advanced learning technologies. He brings a life’s worth of informal experiences in contemplative practices, conflict resolution advising, and improvisational dance to his professional work. He is Director of Research and Innovation at STAGES International, Chief Visionary and Instigator at Open Way Solutions LLC, and a Senior Research Fellow at the UMass School of Computer Science. He is an Associate Editor at Integral Review and is on the editorial review board of the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education. Tom is co-organizing the Peer Support Group project at ASI. www.tommurray.us
Rev. Renata Haqiqa Le Dantec
Amara Palmer
Kimberly Braun
Kalika Peralta
Celia McBride
Ragda Deeb
Clare Lavender
