InterSpiritual
Mandala Course
Create Your Spiritual Practice and Path by
Harnessing Your Spiritual Styles
to Find Answers to your Spiritual Questions.
June 16 – August 4, 2026 (8 weeks)
Tuesdays 4:00pm – 5:30pm Pacific / 7:00pm – 8:30pm Eastern)
Live sessions via Zoom (will be recorded).
The InterSpiritual Mandala Overview
The InterSpiritual Mandala offers a universal, non-sectarian, and
holistic process for developing a personal spiritual path from one
or more spiritual and secular traditions. It outlines a life-long
journey of spiritual inquiry, insight and integration wherein we are
empowered to fully engage the challenges of the world from the
inside out. The Mandala contains twelve families of spiritual styles,
questions and traditions. By systematically moving through these,
we gradually can discern valid teachers and resources that will
help us define our own spiritual paths.
Explore the Mandala
Click on the words in the Mandala to learn about each of the 12 Styles, Questions & Sources.
- Arts
- Body
- Devotion
- Imagination
- Love
- Meditation
- Mystic
- Nature
- Prayer
- Reason
- Relationships
- Wisdom
- Consciousness
- Death
- Existence
- Freedom
- God
- Good & Evil
- Happiness
- Reality
- Soul
- Spirit Beings
- Suffering
- Transformation
- Buddhism
- Christianity
- General
- Hinduism
- Indigenous
- Islam
- Judaism
- Mythology
- Philosophy
- Psychology
- Science
- Taoism
InterSpiritual Mandala
8-Session Mandala Course Membership Includes
- 8 sessions for both live synchronous interaction and asynchronous independent study.
- Certificate of Completion for those who attend all of the live sessions.
- Live & recorded meditations.
- Instructional video clips from Ed Bastian and teachers from various traditions.
- Online personal journaling tool for each student.
- Profile tools for harnessing your personal styles and questions.
- Curated search engine for diverse spiritual and secular resources to help develop a personal contemplative practice.
- Discussion forums for course members.
- Guided audio meditations.
- A mobile-ready platform for easy use on your tablet or phone.
- Monthly ongoing community meditations and discussions.
- Support from mentors and facilitators.
- Ability to re-take the course without additional payment.
How the Mandala Course Works
Your Personal Spiritual Styles Profile Tool
We begin by discovering and harnessing our internal archetypal styles. These are the internal lenses through which we perceive, process and interpret spiritual information and practice. The Spiritual Styles Profile Tool helps us to discover, honor, harness and harmonize our 12 styles. By gradually activating all our styles, we can fulfill our highest human potential.
The Way of the Arts
The Way of the Body
The Way of Devotion
The Way of Imagination
The Way of Love
The Way of Meditation
The Way of the Mystic
The Way of Nature
The Way of Prayer
The Way of Reason
The Way of Relationship
The Way of Wisdom
Your Spiritual Questions Profile Tool
The Spiritual Questions Profile Tool is designed to help re-awaken our natural curiosity about life’s big spiritual questions. We engage with an intention to energize our journey of discovery by exploring perspectives from profound spiritual and secular sources that will give our live meaning and purpose.
- Consciousness – Is it confined to my body?
- Death – What happens when I die?
- Existence – What is the source of my being?
- Freedom – How can I be truly free?
- God – What is God? How do I define God?
- Good and Evil – What is their source?
- Happiness – How can I be truly happy?
- Reality – Is the world I perceive real?
- Soul – Do I have a permanent soul?
- Spirit Beings – Are there spirit beings?
- Suffering – What is the cause of my suffering?
- Transformation – How can I be transformed into my highest potential?
Find Your Answers
Then, our Custom Search Tool helps us to find our answers f rom
authentic sources. These sources include spirituality, science,
philosophy, psychology and mythology. The 12 Families of Sources are listed in the inner circle of the Mandala. These are:
- Buddhism
- Christianity
- Hinduism
- Islam
- Judaism
- Taoism
- Indigenous
- General (Authentic Spiritual & Secular Sources)
- Mythology
- Psychology
- Philosophy
- Science
Mandala Course Syllabus
Week 1:
Course
Introduction
Week 2:
Styles:
Arts & Body
Questions:
Consciousness & Death
Week 3:
Styles:
Contemplation & Devotion
Questions:
Existence & Freedom
Week 4:
Styles:
Imagination & Love
Questions:
God & Good and Evil
Week 5:
Styles:
Mystic & Nature
Questions:
Happiness & Reality
Week 6:
Styles:
Prayer & Reason
Questions:
Soul & Spirit Beings
Week 7:
Styles:
Relationships & Wisdom
Questions:
Suffering & Transformation
Week 8:
Course Review & Presentations
The Instructors
Each class will be led and moderated by Anna Wolfe with the support of Patricia Knutson and other trained Mentors and Facilitators who will share their perspectives and experiences working with the InterSpiritual Mandala.
Anna Wolfe
I grew up in Illinois, was raised an Episcopalian. Through early travels my mother opened my eyes and heart to learning about and connecting with people of other cultures and religions.
After graduating from Yale, I settled in Washington, D.C. where I worked on Capitol Hill for my Congressman. I began to raise my family in Virginia, and I started to take courses in spiritual subjects, getting an adult education certificate in theological studies from Georgetown University, completing the Education for Ministry program for lay people from the University of the South, and I became a Stephen Minister.
In 1997, I founded a retreat center, the Mandala Center, on the high plains of New Mexico. My family moved to New Mexico, where we lived for about 15 years to serve those who came on retreat. Over the years the Mandala Center has had programs on meditation, yoga, healing, Buddhism, and many of the arts, as well as personal growth. In December of 2023 I gave the Center to the the Charis Foundation for New Monasticism and Interspirituality so that it can continue into the future as a place of retreat, learning and making connections. I now live in Carpinteria, California. On our Center’s 20th anniversary in August of 2017 I learned about InterSpiritual Meditation, and I have practiced this daily ever since. I have taken the ISM course multiple times, and also the Mandala class, often assisting as a resource lead, and I am now certified as both a facilitator and a mentor, and now an instructor.
Patricia Knutson
Patricia has been a life-long student of the world’s spiritual traditions. Trained by the founders of Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, she serves as anam cara (soul friend.) Patricia lives in Northeast Wisconsin where she has been a hospice chaplain and pastor for many years. Her experience and connections include being an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, UMC endorsed hospice chaplain, student and mentor in The Living School of The Center for Action and Contemplation, certified by the Center for Loss & Life Transition and holding seminary graduate degrees in inter-spiritual and Celtic studies. She is a commissioned presenter of Centering Prayer for Contemplative Outreach and a certified facilitator of InterSpiritual Meditation. Patricia is also part of several groups seeking to be faithful to the Spirit’s call to living love and compassion – Integral Christian WE spaces, Cynthia Bourgeault’s Wisdom network, and Quaker meeting, among them. She is currently working to develop ISM meditations with those in the midst of suffering and with Christians seeking authentic dialogue with the world’s great spiritual traditions.
What spiritual leaders say about our programs
Father Thomas Keating Founder, Centering Prayer
Spiritual Paths is an
excellent program that grew out of the
Snowmass Inter-religious Conference at St. Benedict’s Monastery. As inter-religious dialogue continues to deepen and spread, experienced spiritual practitioners, with some capacity for scholarship, need to suggest what works best for spiritual growth. This is the thrust of the Spiritual Paths conferences and educational activities.
Rabbi Zalman Schachter Founder, Jewish Renewal
Spiritual Paths brings
together the wisdom of
authentic teachers from
the worlds spiritual
traditions, provides an
excellent curriculum
based on those traditions, and leads us toward a new paradigm of InterSpiritual education and practice.
Imam Feisal Abdul-rauf Founder, American Sufi Muslim Association
I am particularly excited
by this initiative of
Edward Bastian and the
Spiritual Paths
Foundation. It as a sea
change in the evolution
of what we used to call
the ecumenical activity. I see us coming into the
next phase of
inter-religious dialogue,
to introduce one another to the inner experience of each others faith traditions. For when we do, we shall come to the
realization that the end is One. In a sense, the
previous intellectual
phase of inter-religious
dialogue was like reading cookbooks on French food, or Indian food what Spiritual Paths is suggesting we do now, is to taste and sample it!
Carol Pearson Past President, Pacifica Graduate University
Dr. Bastian has done for
spirituality what I’ve
worked to do with
archetypes, developing a system through which
anyone–religious or
not–can identify his or
her own natural mode of assessing spiritual truth. Dr. Bastian’s work is a great and important
breakthrough, as so many believe they are not spiritual because they do not follow a particular dogma or because the tradition in which they were raised does not fit for them. His work also can be of assistance to
those within any spiritual tradition to expand their
horizons and to promote
respectful interfaith
dialogue.
Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault Author & Teacher
