Sounds True is pleased to reprint this article with permission of Watkins Review. Sounds True authors are in boldface type if we have published their work at any time in our 26 year history.
100 Spiritual Power List by Watkins
The 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People
We’re delighted to share the début list of the 100 most spiritually influential living people, that was published in the Spring issue #26 of the Watkins Review.* Yes, we’ve taken up the not so simple task of naming the most popular authors and spiritual teachers, whose contribution in spirituality and spreading awareness is affecting us all.
We live in an age of lists – from groceries and obituaries to Facebook friends, resume facts, lists of city capitals and lottery numbers. Of course, lists that classify the past, are easier to compile than lists that attempt to predict the future. With the holy grail of sorting algorithms, the world is sure to be your oyster.
Lists help us organize, explore and perceive our environments. But are so many lists really necessary? It is very much in vogue to publish lists of people: Time Magazine publishes an annual list of the 100 people who most influence the world; Forbes publishes several lists including a Celebrity 100 list, the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women, and a list of 1000 Billionaires; Art Review’s Power 100 is an annual list of the worlds 100 most powerful collectors, artists, gallerists, etc…
The lists of lists of people, just keep going and going. However, the Watkins Review believes that an important list has been long overdue, and we are delighted to share with you our list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People. Lists of influential people contribute to the discourse and issues that each person represents, and the Watkins Review hopes that our list will nurture the debates surrounding contemporary spirituality.
There are several factors that were taken into account when compiling the list. Listed below are the main three:
- The person has to be alive
- The person has to have made a unique and spiritual contribution on a global scale
- The person is frequently Googled, appears in Nielsen Data, and highlighted in throughout the blogosphere
It’s interesting to think about the amount of times that a person is googled; in a sense, being googled is a form of digital voting, and illustrates just how often someone is being sought out.
Read about the Top 10 people in the Watkins 100 Spiritual Power List >>
List at a glance:
| 1. Eckhart Tolle | 34. Joseph Alois Ratzinger | 67. John Bradshaw |
| 2. Dalai Lama | 35. Krishna Das | 68. Jeff Foster |
| 3. Dr Wayne W. Dyer | 36. Drunvalo Melchizedek | 69. Patrick Holford |
| 4. Thich Nhat Hanh | 37. Sai Baba | 70. Andrew Cohen |
| 5. Deepak Chopra | 38. Jack Kornfield | 71. Vladimir Megre |
| 6. Louise L. Hay | 39. Pema Chödrön | 72. Thomas Cleary |
| 7. Paulo Coelho | 40. T.K.V. Desikachar | 73. Daniel Pinchbeck |
| 8. Oprah Winfrey | 41. Esther & Jerry Hicks | 74. Jonathan Goldman |
| 9. Ken Wilber | 42. Dan Brown | 75. Sonia Choquette |
| 10. Rhonda Byrne | 43. Z’ev Ben Shimon Halevi | 76. Seyyed Hossein Nasr |
| 11. James Redfield | 44. Diana Cooper | 77. Mother Meera |
| 12. Neale Donald Walsch | 45. Ram Dass | 78. Barefoot Doctor |
| 13. Doreen Virtue | 46. Andrew Weil | 79. Richard Bandler |
| 14. Alejandro Jodorowsky | 47. Satya Narayan Goenka | 80. Robert Bly |
| 15. Richard Bach | 48. Jon Kabat-Zinn | 81. Adyashanti |
| 16. Alex Grey | 49. Alan Moore | 82. Sogyal Rinpoche |
| 17. Byron Katie | 50. Dan Millman | 83. Li Hongzhi |
| 18. Masaru Emoto | 51. Bruce Lipton | 84. Sri Bhagavan |
| 19. Nelson Mandela | 52. Peter Kingsley | 85. Rupert Sheldrake |
| 20. Bernie Siegel | 53. Karen Armstrong | 86. John & Caitlín Matthews |
| 21. Caroline Myss | 54. Judy Hall | 87. Chogyal Namkhai Norbu |
| 22. Brian Weiss | 55. Colin Wilson | 88. Kenneth Grant* |
| 23. Mantak Chia | 56. Joscelyn Godwin | 89. Stanislav Grof |
| 24. John Gray | 57. James Lovelock | 90. James Hillman |
| 25. Gregg Braden | 58. Satish Kumar | 91. Clarissa Pinkola Estés |
| 26. Stephen R. Covey | 59. Shakti Gawain | 92. Stephen Levine |
| 27. Marianne Williamson | 60. Elaine Pagels | 93. Candace Pert |
| 28. Desmond Tutu | 61. Kyozan Joshu Sasaki | 94. Barbara Ann Brennan |
| 29. Mata Amritanandamayi | 62. Gary Zukav | 95. Coleman Barks |
| 30. Philip Berg | 63. Erich von Däniken | 96. Robert Thurman |
| 31. Ervin Laszlo | 64. David Deida | 97. B.K.S Iyengar |
| 32. Andrew Harvey | 65. Oberto Airaudi ‘Falcon’ | 98. William Bloom |
| 33. Don Miguel Ruiz | 66. Stuart Wilde | 99. Lynne McTaggart |
| (for full details read the 100 List in the Watkins Review #26) | 100. Marion Woodman | |
Interesting statistics:
Male: 76%
Female: 24%
Median age: 67 years
The oldest: 104 years, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki
The youngest: 30 years, Jeff Foster
*88. Kenneth Grant passed away on January 15th, 2011. His extraordinary influence will continue to be felt.
Read more about the Top 10 people in the Watkins 100 Spiritual Power List at the Watkins Books blog.
*The Watkins Review magazine (published by and available from Watkins Books at £4.99 or as a subscription) not only offers reviews of all the latest releases in the Mind, Body, Spirit field, but also features articles and interviews with leading authors. The Review is published three times a year and has a readership of over 30,000 people worldwide.
