The document outlines an upcoming talk on spiritual stages. It will define key terms, discuss various frameworks for understanding spiritual growth proposed by authors and religious figures, and describe the speaker's own research into common patterns of spiritual development. The goals are to help participants understand their own stage of spiritual growth, identify next steps, and avoid potential pitfalls along the journey. Descriptors of religion, inner life, and relationships will be used to characterize each stage.

1. The Stages of the Spiritual Life
Introduction

2. PRAYER

3. Outline
• 1. The intellectual stuff—don’t be
threatened—just to show anyone who is well
read that I am acknowledging the literature.
• 2. The definitions—so we can speak the same
language
• 3. The MEAT
• 4. Questions? Write them down. Session at
the end.

4. Question:
If you could see and get to know the perfect
person, the person who has “arrived” and
they were still on earth, please describe what
you would be seeing.

5. Goals and Objectives
• At the end of the talk, participants will:
– Have a better understanding of Applied Theology
(Spirituality that practically relates to our lives)
– Glimpse the scope of information on Christian
spiritual growth.
– Understand the next steps toward creating a
lifestyle conducive to their own spiritual growth.
– Be able to state incentives to the pursuit of that
lifestyle.

6. What are the Stages
• People tend to grow through different levels
as they go through life.
• Each level includes certain
needs
tasks
attitudes
accomplishments

7. Does Everyone Go Through the Same
Stages?
• Basically yes—as there are certain tasks to
accomplish
• Differences depend on the following:
– Personality
– Thought processes
– Environment
– Incentives
– Religion
– More

8. What the Study of Spiritual Stages is
NOT
• Meant to embarrass those at a lower level
• Meant to judge others so we can look down at
them from our lofty height
• Meant to so humiliate us that we give up on
spirituality all together
Remember: Only God is the judge.
He knows all our circumstances
all the influences on our lives.
He loves us!!!

9. So what am I getting out of it?
• Your spirituality is the most important aspect of your life.
• You will feel more fullness and joy as your spirituality
grows.
• You will have more knowledge to find the helps you need in
your spiritual walk today
• You will understand where the next step is, what you need
to go there, and when you are ready for it.
• You will be better able to avoid temptations and see them
for what they are.
• You will be able to grow closer to Jesus and understand
your faith more completely.
• You will be better able to get along with others and
understand where they are in their spiritual lives.

10. It’s about Jesus
“God wants us to meditate on the beauty of
Jesus as we set the intention of our heart to
obey. Then He Himself will work in us until we
attain to maturity in due time.” Mike Bickle
“Being confident of this very thing, that he
which hath begun a good work in
you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ” Philippians 1:6

11. Why is the study of stages important?
• To understand others in order
to relate to others better.
• To be able to provide spiritual nourishment to
those at different states.
• To know myself better
• To understand the world and other religions
• To understand and be able to avoid dangers
and pitfalls of each level.

12. Why study the Spiritual Stages
(Continued)
• To challenge yourself to get closer to God.
• To realize the time is short and there is a long
way to go.
• God loves us and cares for us so much that He
really should be loved enough in return, for us
to take Him seriously and return His love.
• To take God’s salvation, which offers us a
remedy for the curses of the fall.

13. God Takes Delight in Us, His Home
• What do you do in a home?
• “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him,
and make our abode with him. John 14:23”
• The world cannot accept him, because it neither
sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for
he lives with you and will be in you. John 14:16-
18
Romans 8:9, 2 Tim. 1:14

14. The Roadmap
Navigation is a lot
easier when you
have some help.

15. Disclaimer
• Everyone is not the same—but surprisingly get
more different spiritually as one progresses
• It is impossible to state every nuance of every
stage
• There is still so much to learn that only God
has a real grasp of the topic.
• We are looking through a pinhole in a sheet of
paper.

16. God Won’t Divulge Everything
• God has millions of surprises waiting for you.
• Many will be yours and His alone.
• Divulging too much would be like telling a
young lady what gift her lover has bought for
her birthday.
• God has gifts along the way waiting for those
who seek Him.

17. Who Has Researched Stages?
• Abraham Maslow Paper: A Theory of Human
Motivation—Heirarchy of Needs
• Erik Homburger Erikson (1902-1994)-- Stages
of Human Development
• James Fowler— Emory University--The
Spiritual Stages
• M. Scott Peck— The Different Drum, Further
Along the Road Less Traveled
• Numerous less well known authors

18. Ericson
• 1. Infancy: Birth to 18 Months -- Ego Development Outcome: Trust vs. Mistrust
• Basic strength: Drive and Hope
• 2. Early Childhood: 18 Months to 3 Years --Ego Development Outcome: Autonomy vs. Shame
Basic Strengths: Self-control, Courage, and Will
• 3. Play Age: 3 to 5 Years--Ego Development Outcome: Initiative vs. Guilt
• Basic Strength: Purpose
• 4. School Age: 6 to 12 Years --Ego Development Outcome: Industry vs. Inferiority
• Basic Strengths: Method and Competence
• 5. Adolescence: 12 to 18 Years --Ego Development Outcome: Identity vs. Role Confusion
• Basic Strengths: Devotion and Fidelity
• 6. Young adulthood: 18 to 35 -- Ego Development Outcome: Intimacy and Solidarity vs. Isolation --
Basic Strengths: Affiliation and Love
• 7. Middle Adulthood: 35 to 55 or 65 -- Ego Development Outcome: Generativity vs. Self
absorption or Stagnation -- Basic Strengths: Production and Care
• 8. Late Adulthood: 55 or 65 to Death -- Ego Development Outcome: Integrity vs. Despair
• Basic Strengths: Wisdom

19. Maslov’s Heirarchy of Needs

20. Any Catholic Authors?
• How many stages are there?
• St. Theresa of Avila:—The Interior Castle—7
Mansions
• St. John of the Cross-The Ascent of Mount
Carmel—3 stages
• St. Ignatius Loyola— The Spiritual Exercises —
4 weeks
• St. Francis of Assisi—You can almost miss
them! No Books—Two rules, one burned.

21. Private Research
• Conducted hundreds, even thousands of
interviews for at least 30 years—jail inmates,
hospice, children, and other ordinary folks.
• Interviewed many religions, even wiccan,
athiest, etc., and of course Catholic, Christian.
• Listened to personal testimonies, insights, and
sharing.
• Observed the lives and stories of the mundane
and the spiritually serious.

22. Definitions
• Body and Soul or
• Body, Soul and Spirit?
• Why define terms?

23. Examples of others who have
defined these terms in different
ways
Terms can be defined in many
ways (because spirituality is not
so much outwardly defined as is
the Trinity or the Virgin Birth.
Take notice of the definition of
the terms of the spiritual authors
you read.

24. To make this simple….
• The Body is physical—if you are sick and go to the
doctor, he treats the body.
• The Soul or Psyche we will define as Emotions,
Imagination, Thoughts, Memory that are real but
we cannot touch or cannot see them. When our
soul or psyche is sick we go to a Psychologist.
• The Spirit we will define as that part that contacts
and contains God. God fills our spirit and His life
spreads through our mind, psyche, and to the
body. You go to your spiritual director for
spiritual health.

25. Quotes
• The Bible uses the terms Body, Soul and Spirit
in the way defined in the last slide.
• Quotes from authors during this talk may use
soul and spirit in the traditional way: Soul =
Psyche and Spirit
May God himself, the God of peace, For the word of God is quick, and powerful,
sanctify you through and through. May and sharper than any two edged sword,
your whole spirit, soul and body be piercing even to the dividing asunder
kept blameless at the coming of our of soul and spirit, and of the joints and
Lord Jesus Christ. marrow (body), and is a discerner of the
1 Thessalonians 5:22-24 thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews
4:12).

26. We are Connected
• We may have a three part definition, but our soul
affects our body
• Some say 90% of diseases are psychosomatic
• Our spiritual state affects our soul and our body.
– It affects our mood as well as our actions.
Example: A person apart from God (spirit) feels
rotten about themselves (soul) so they strike
out at others (body).

27. Spiritual Stages—
Spiritual Descriptors
These are the topics we will use to describe
each stage. Are they the same or different for
each?

28. RELIGION
1. Who is God?
2. What are the Scriptures used for?
3. What is sin (or wrong or evil)?
4a. Do you go to church, synagogue, etc.?
4b. How often? What church? Why?
5. Does religion cause wars?
6. Which religion or set of beliefs is right?

29. Inner Descriptors
7. Meaning—What makes you go on living?
8. Purpose—What do you want from your life?
9. Pet Peeves—What are some of your pet
peeves?
10. Personal suffering—How do you feel about
discomfort, pain or suffering?
Extra: Parenting—what are some of your views?

30. Relational Descriptors
11. Who should respond in a crisis?
12. Do you vote? If not why not, and if so, how do you
decide how to cast your vote?
13. If a law made you uncomfortable would you still obey
it?
14. Where do our rights come from?
15. What do you think of homosexual marriage?
16. If someone did something that didn’t hurt anyone,
and the next day did the same thing, but it did hurt
someone, would the first action be right and the
second one wrong?

31. Spirituality Is Like Birds

32. Spirituality Is Like Getting Water
• St. Teresa of Avila gives us this comparison.

33. Spirituality Is Like Driving a Car

34. Spirituality is Like a Castle
“I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed
of a single diamond or a very transparent
crystal, and containing many rooms.... If we
reflect, sisters, we shall see that the soul of the just
man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He
takes His delight. What, do you imagine, must that
dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and
so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight
to rest? Nothing can be compared to the great
beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our
intellects may be, they are as unable to
comprehend them as to comprehend God….”

35. Stage 1--Hatchling
Stage 1 includes outside St. Teresa’s mansion,
and her first mansion.
You are not considered to have started
according to St. Ignatius, or St. John of the
Cross until Stage 3.
Since most people, including church goers, are
in stages 1 or 2, we should examine these
stages closely as they are foundational.

36. St. Teresa Says…..
• Certain books on prayer that you have read advise the soul to enter
into itself, and this is what I mean. I was recently told by a great
theologian that souls without prayer are like bodies, palsied and
lame, having hands and feet they cannot use. Just so, there are
souls so infirm and accustomed to think of nothing but earthly
matters, that there seems no cure for them. It appears impossible
for them to retire into their own hearts; accustomed as they are to
be with the reptiles and other creatures which live outside the
castle, they have come at last to imitate their habits. Though these
souls are by their nature so richly endowed, capable of communion
even with God Himself, yet their case seems hopeless. Unless they
endeavour to understand and remedy their most miserable plight,
their minds will become, as it were, bereft of movement, just as
Lot’s wife became a pillar of salt for looking backwards in
disobedience to God’s command.

37. Raisin Look Alike
Many people have told me when they first
found their spirit it was shriveled like a raisin
or prune from not being used or nourished.

38. Baby Bird

40. Everybody’s Doing it

41. Thirsty
No
Nourishment
For your
Spirit or
Soul

42. Sickness of Body

43. The Hatchling
• No hair
• Not fully developed
• Sleeps and Eats
• Needs Care
• Vulnerable

44. ONE

46. TWO

47. THREE

50. FOUR

52. FIVE

54. SIX

56. SEVEN