Kundalini Splendor

Spiritual Emergence Anonymous: A 12-Step Program for the Integration of Spiritual Emergence
by SEA Service Board Members Marie Grace B., Teresa M., & Tee C.


A grassroots 12-Step program has recently been launched to assist in the integration of spiritual emergence (SE) and spiritually transformative experiences (STEs), based upon the principals and ethics of the original Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12-Step program. The purpose of Spiritual Emergence Anonymous (SEA) is to help support the integration of SE and STEs in individuals whose spiritual transformation is so powerful that they desire assistance and support within a group environment. SEA offers the potential to serve ‘STErs’ worldwide through online meetings until local chapters can flourish. We are ever-forming and transforming, welcoming the dynamic growth of this organization as more people join and help shape the endeavor.

Since opening its virtual doors in March 2018, following two years of development, Spiritual Emergence Anonymous (SEA) has so far reached spiritual emergers in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Denmark, and Nederlands. SEA has been invited to hold a presentation and round table discussion, similar to the presentation at the 2018 ACISTE conference in Chicago, by the European Transpersonal Association (EUROTAS) at their annual conference this September in Paris. Each 12-Step meeting begins with the following affirmation, or Serenity Prayer, taken directly from the original 12-Step program: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Q: Why ‘anonymous’?
A: Equality and safety are paramount. SEA promotes respect for each individual to develop and follow their own inner divine guidance. SEA creates a confidential group space (both sensitively considerate and warm-heartedly comfortable) where people share first-names only with no strings attached. Equality is of primary importance, to nurture a sense of being peers in the common process of grounding and integrating spiritual experiences. Participants are encouraged not to disclose their status, profession, or work identities. No sharing or soliciting of healing or spiritual commercial interests are advertised or promoted.

Q: Is this mainly a group meeting?
A: That is only one aspect of the program. Initially a person joins through a group meeting. Currently group meetings are held at various times weekly online until enough people in specific locales can meet together in person. Each individual selects someone they trust to ‘sponsor’ them, which means they meet outside the group. The sponsor becomes a companion while the person works the 12 Steps of SEA. Working the 12 Steps is a personal experience of journal writing and self-reflection that takes the participant on an inner journey of revelation and integration.

Q: Why 12 Steps?
A: For spiritual cleansing and grounding. The primary purpose of the 12 Steps in SEA is to assist individuals in re-centering their lives from ego-oriented towards divine orientation, while simultaneously integrating their new sense of spirituality into the social earthly environment. By supporting the impending transformation within us to ripen, we allow ourselves to grow into inner peace and outward grace. This is both the natural healthy maturation of human spiritual development, which is also aided by divine guidance. It can be a difficult journey with extensive time commitment and need for communal support. The 12-Step program is particularly valuable for STErs who have already experienced a spiritual awakening, albeit too suddenly to integrate comfortably into their former self-identity. The program offers the steps that STErs did not have the opportunity to take in preparation for their powerful experience. Working the 12 Steps provides spiritual/emotional cleansing and psychological/energetic grounding needed to integrate the spiritual awakening and bring it to its potential transformation.

Q: Aren't the 12 Steps only for addicts?
A: No. There are other 12-Step groups, in addition to SEA, that gather for spiritual growth rather than addiction rehabilitation. The original 12 Steps were ‘channelled’ during a spiritual experience through Bill W. in the 1930s, who adapted them to help his fellow alcoholics, thus starting Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He had experienced spontaneous recovery from alcoholism resulting from an STE experienced earlier in his life, which led him to search for ways to help his addicted friends. The effectiveness of the 12 Steps for alcoholism and other addictions is simply that it prepares an individual for, and leads one to, a spiritual awakening.

Q: Are the 12 Steps Christian-based?
A: No. Bill W. was not Christian. He rejected Congregational Sunday School at age 11.

Q: Does SEA make any money?
A: SEA is completely volunteer-based. SEA is a self-supporting, not-for-profit organization. Money needed to run the program is acquired through donations only.

Q: Who runs the show?
A: Group conscience and the 12 Traditions of ethical organization. Each group is self-organizing and independent, making decisions through consensus and waiting for ‘group conscience' as the highest quality of decision-making – our way of discerning divine guidance. The 12 Traditions of organizational ethics (used by AA and other 12-Step groups) form the backbone for governance. The SEA steering committee (called the SEA Service Board) also makes decisions through group conscience. The Service Board will assist groups in starting up, give ongoing support, and support groups to hold to the standards of the 12 Traditions. The 12 Traditions prevent exploitation of individual participants, groups, and SEA from commercial interests, advice-giving, dependencies, and internal political maneuvering.

Q: Doesn’t a person have to hit rock bottom before being motivated to work the 12 Steps?
A: Not necessarily in SEA. We in SEA are not addicts and do not have to wait until we have lost our homes, jobs, or relationships. We have already surrendered our lives (both willingly and unwillingly) to some extent through our STE. We admit to feeling our lives are unmanageable when we face the painful situation of the inner conflict we may feel – wanting to return to the bliss we experienced, yet finding ourselves suffering in new ways in what seems like a discordant, difficult-to-tolerate world. In SEA we use the 12 Steps to move from spiritual awakening to spiritual transformation, bringing us more fully into the world by living fully from our spiritual core.

Q: But what if I want MORE spiritual experience?
A: SEA is the gift that keeps on giving. Everyone in SEA loves spiritual experience. That is why we choose to honor it, open up more to it, and integrate it, rather than stuff it down out of sight and mind, or broadcast it for fame and financial gain. The more we embody and humbly embrace the myriad aspects that radically opened to us in our STEs, and the more we experience inner divinity, then the more flows through us from that place of inspiration. SEA is a program in which candid sharing is both the cure and the service. The natural outcome of ‘simply showing up as who we are’ is the vehicle for us to heal, companion others through the journey of spiritual transformation, and receive support to develop our own personal spiritual gifts to serve the planet.

Q: Why choose this over other spiritual paths?
A: This is not a spiritual path – it is the core of spiritual process. SEA is a transformational process that excludes no religion and requires no religion. People of all religions and no religion find it relevant. The 12 Steps are similar, for example, to the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, a spiritual development process that first came to Saint Ignatius during a spiritual experience in the early 16th century. They were passed on for centuries through European monasteries and convents. Ironically, Jesuit priests assumed that Bill W. had distilled the 12 Steps from the Ignatian Exercises and were surprised when they met Bill W. in 1941 to hear of his direct ‘download’ during a spiritual revelation! Monks and nuns engaged in contemplative practices have passed on through generations this Ignatian process for spiritual purification and practical grounded discernment to further deepen their experience of union with the Divine integrated with service to mankind.

Other examples of spiritual processes that have much in common with the 12 Steps of cleansing and grounding are the Balinese rites of cleansing, Native American shamanic soul retrieval, and various religious pilgrimages. These initiatory/purification rituals are intended to be practiced within the context of their specific community and culture. In contrast, the 12 Steps have been embraced by the Western world, where those who consider themselves ‘spiritual but not religious’ are growing exponentially, concurrent with an increased lack of multi-generational local community. The 12 Steps have become a global phenomenon—thus, they are more easily and authentically accessible on a global scale.

Q: What adaptations has SEA made to the AA 12 Steps?
A: Adaptation is ongoing in order to make the steps relevant to current needs for people around the globe going through spiritual emergence. For example, SEA has substituted “spiritual transformation” in the final Step 12 for “spiritual awakening,” because people come to SEA after some kind of spiritual awakening, thus transformation (or integration) is the goal. Similarly, in Step 3, we say “God as we understand God” rather than “God as we understand Him." Or in Step 8 we “include[s] ourselves” in the list of people we may have harmed.

To learn more about SEA or to attend a 12-Step meeting, find the website at: www.spiritualemergenceanonymous.org

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