It's time to take up a more integrated approach to the study of exceptional human experiences [EHEs].  One approach is  comparative / conjunctive studies of the great "Seers" of humankind as a whole, such as Kurt Leland, Gitta Mallasz, Rudolf Steiner, Quan Yin, Emanuel Swedenborg, David Spangler, Parahamsa Yogananda, B'ha 'ula, Ranier Marie Rilke, Jane Roberts/Seth, Rasha, Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, David R. Hawkins, Kathryn Kuhlman, Claire Blatchford, William Blake, Tiffany Snow, Krishnamurti, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche, Joseph McMoneagle, Carolyn Myss, Don José (aka Matsuwa), Robert A. Monroe, Jesus Christ, Kahlil Gibran, Mother Meera, Black Elk, Confucius, Robert Moss, Esther Hicks / Abraham, Prem Das, A. K. Mozumdar, Gautama Buddha, Eileen Garrett, Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi, Albert Taylor, Gurdjieff,  Edgar Cayce, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Johann W. von Goethe, Ramana Maharshi, Frances Vaughan, Rhea A. White; also from our past and from other cultures  ... ..... .  For all their different Giftedness, these Giants among us and so many others through the ages have been great Seers into and descriptors of the Larger Life Reality.  They have taught others various means toward the same objective.  Although there has been good solid reasoning behind our usual way of picking one as a Teacher / Guru / god, we could stand to learn so much more, now, by looking deeply into what they and their Inward-Seeing have in common. .. and in common with our personal experiences and higher knowing.  It seems to me that one hardly even acknowledged taproot of major discovery and insight into a more holistic perception of the LLR, to its laws, to methods for becoming more effectively our own seers and even to become a seer community, even a Seer Race, the best approach is to see what all our greatest Seers have "in common" to teach us.  

          Historically, in our earliest years we have been 'fed' specific ideologies of a religious, spiritual or non-religious or spiritual nature that for the greater part comes right out of our immediate social heritage.  Certain cultures of this or that religious or philosophic persuasion tended to produce generations of people.  As infants and very young children, we drink in the words, beliefs, behaviors, feelings of those who raise us as fully and trustingly as we drink the essential milk of those earliest years.  Since we do not have an intellect to allow for independent thinking much intact until we are several giant developmental steps and years older, so much of our learning happens most powerfully through our feelings in relation to this acculturation process.  We may easily mime the words, 'thou shalt not lie', 'thou shalt honor thy mother and father', and so forth, and we have a feeling of rightness and wrongness about such things when they come up. But we have no sense of perspective about these things in the external world, and therefore, no cognitive means of discrimination and understanding with which to consider other possibilities or even different takes on what we have absorbed during these first years of our lives.  

          Then when the individuating cognitive faculties [and if we are very, very fortunate, and some most surely are, and certain spiritual understandings / insights become our direct experience] we may develop quite other, even contrary beliefs and knowings.  But that gut feeling remains a very powerful influence in any case.  

          So what does this have to do with the present topic?  We have an abysmally long history, like, back to 'the garden', of regarding perceived differences as threatening rather than interesting and exciting.  Many of Essau's kin are still engaged passionately in battle with brother Jacob's kin, and ... pick almost any group of people on any scale -- nation against nation, religion against religion, one small group of children in a classroom vs. another.  Pick any topic -- doesn't have to be religion.  It can be favorite sports teams or idols, music, the color of someone's skin or their shoes or whether someone wears jewelry or not, where and how, whether and how one may eat or greet each other in public.    

          How much more we could enjoy together -- and in this world that is getting radically smaller and more populated by the day that's a most worthwhile idea to consider -- the scintillating richness in variation of our histories, rituals, beliefs, understandings, wisdoms.  Through learning to cherish the differences, inevitably we must also come to appreciate what we hold dear in common as well.  We all want to love and be loved for just being ourselves; we all want good health and a sense of safety and pleasure in being alive with a sense of Home, connectivity, community, good and nourishing food, clean air, beauty, harmony within which to grow ourselves and to raise our children.  We all want to learn and to be able to give something meaningful to the world or to do meaningful work that gives us and others great satisfaction, even joy.  Every culture has its wisdom traditions.  For each person, there are people or divine beings from the present and the past to whom we look up to because of their ideas and beliefs, abilities and knowledge.  

          Just as we as unique individuals, as unique families and nations would benefit beyond measure from learning to appreciate the contrasts and likenesses of others, so we could gain such a collective treasure of treasures by bringing together into one field of study all the great specifically spiritual / religious wisdom teachers and exemplars to learn what they have in common.  My feeling is we may be quite amazed at what they had or have in common!!  It is the power of that universality and our coming together to explore them [together] that is the heart of this urging.  

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This doesn't quite work in tandem.  Hmmmm...

The same can just as well be said for our collective spiritual experiences, which is addressed below:

          Although Rhea White's objectives are not entirely congruent with my original suggestion above, in a way, her article inspires this direction, even in the title concerning 'Coincidence to Context to Connection.'  Millions and millions of us, however consciously and intentionally, have been stretching to make sense of what similar kinds of giftedness have brought to our individual lives.  We are reaching out more and more to hear and to be heard, to understand, to appreciate, to integrate others' such experiences and offer in turn our own EEs and EHEs.  Each of these named Great Teachers / Seers has naturally attracted