Something there is about a list. Its orderly encapsulation of trailing bits of knowledge appeals to our inherent desire to categorize, to contain in neat packages the glut of the world’s information. If we can catalogue it, we can imagine it.
To wit, the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People, a compilation recently published by an esoteric British publication called The Watkins Review, applies a sense of order to an eclectic collection of individuals whose names we’ve long heard fluttering in the spiritual breeze and whose relevance enjoys new credence for their inclusion in this index.
With this debut tally, the magazine offers fresh insight to people whose appetite for enlightenment might be sated through exposure to the world’s most thoughtful spiritual teachers.
The magazine took several factors into account when nominating list members. Each person had to be alive, had to have made “a unique and spiritual contribution on a global scale” and had to rank prominently in Web searches.
The result is an inventory, spearheaded by Vancouverite Eckhart Tolle, that contains a thoughtful collection of names, including Oprah Winfrey (#8) and Dan Brown (#42). The bulk of its ranks are male (76%) and their median age is 67.
“Lists of influential people contribute to the discourse and issues that each person represents,” the editors explain in their intro. “The Watkins Review hopes that our list will nurture debates surrounding contemporary spirituality.”
Have a look for yourself, and start the nurturing:
- Eckhart Tolle
- Dalai Lama
- Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
- Thich Nhat Hanha
- Deepak Chopra
- Louise L. Hay
- Paulo Coelho
- Oprah Winfrey
- Ken Wilber
10. Rhonda Byrne
11. James Redfield
12. Neale Donald Walsch
13. Doreen Virtue
14. Alejandro Jodorowsky
15. Richard Bach
16. Alex Grey
17. Byron Katie
18. Masaru Emoto
19. Nelson Mandela
20. Bernie Siegel
21. Caroline Myss
22. Brian Weiss
23. Mantak Chia
24. John Gray
25. Gregg Braden
26. Stephen R. Covey
27. Marianne Williamson
28. Desmond Tutu
29. Mata Amritanandamayi
30. Philip Berg
31. Ervin Laszlo
32. Andrew Harvey
33. Don Miguel Ruiz
34. Joseph Alois Ratzinger
35. Krishna Das
36. Drunvalo Melchizedek
37. Sai Baba
38. Jack Kornfield
39. Pema Chodron
40. T. K. V. Desikachar
41. Esther and Jerry Hicks
42. Dan Brown
43. Z’ev Ben Shimon Halevi
44. Diana Cooper
45. Ram Dass
46. Andrew Weil
47. Satya Narayan Goenka
48. Jon Kabat-Zinn
49. Alan Moore
50. Dan Millman
51. Bruce Lipton
52. Peter Kingsley
53. Karen Armstrong
54. Judy Hall
55. Colin Wilson
56. Joscelyn Godwin
57. James Lovelock
58. Satish Kumar
59. Shakti Gawain
60. Elaine Pagels
61. Kyozan Joshu Sasaki
62. Gary Zukav
63. Erich Von Daniken
64. David Deida
65. Oberto Airaudi “Falcon”
66. Stuart Wilde
67. John Bradshaw
68. Jeff Foster
69. Patrick Holford
70. Andrew Cohen
71. Vladimir Megre
72. Thomas Cleary
73. Daniel Pinchbeck
74. Jonathan Goldman
75. Sonia Choquette
76. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
77. Mother Meera
78. Barefoot Doctor
79. Richard Bandler
80. Robert Bly
81. Adyashanti
82. Sogyal Rinpoche
83. Li Hongzhi
84. Sri Bhagavan
85. Rupert Sheldrake
86. John and Caitlin Matthews
87. Chogyan Namkhai Norbu
88. Kenneth Grant
89. Stanislav Grof
90. James Hillman
91. Clarissa Pinkola Estes
92. Stephen Levine
93. Candace Pert
94. Barbara Ann Brennan
95. Coleman Barks
96. Robert Thurman
97. B. K. S. Iyengar
98. William Bloom
99. Lynn McTaggart
100.Marion Woodman