A Teacher
Michael Bernard Beckwith
Conscious co-creation through visioning
The transmission
Michael Bernard Beckwith (born July 21, 1956) is an American New Thought minister, author, and the founder and spiritual director of the Agape International Spiritual Center, a transdenominational community he established in 1986 in the Los Angeles area.
Rooted in the New Thought-Ageless Wisdom stream - the tradition of affirmative prayer and mental causation that descends from figures such as Ernest Holmes - Beckwith built Agape into a large congregation and developed a practice he calls Life Visioning, a meditative method for discerning and aligning with what he describes as a higher pattern for one’s life rather than merely petitioning for outcomes.
Beckwith reached a mass audience through his appearance in the 2006 film The Secret, where he was among the teachers articulating the law of attraction, and he has written several books including Spiritual Liberation and Life Visioning.
He co-founded the Association for Global New Thought and has been active in interfaith and nonviolence work. His place in the mind-power lineage is as a contemporary, charismatic carrier of classic New Thought: he teaches that consciousness is creative and primary, that mind and feeling shape circumstance, and that disciplined inner practice - prayer, meditation, visioning - is how a person participates in the unfolding of their life.
What they gave
Life Visioning: He developed a distinctive practice that shifts from asking for outcomes to “listening” for and embodying a higher vision.
- Mass exposure via The Secret: His role in the 2006 film carried New Thought principles to a global popular audience.
- A thriving New Thought congregation: Founding Agape (1986) gave the tradition a large, visible, contemporary center.
- Organizing the movement: Co-founding the Association for Global New Thought helped network New Thought communities.
In their words
Enthusiasm is not something you have to create; it is an organic quality of your consciousness.
You have only to invite it forth, to let it arise from within you and let it fuel your endeavors, your creative expressions, and your interactions with others.
We have been given this precious human incarnation in which each and every one of us is a candidate for enlightenment.
Within our core self is an indelible blueprint of unrivaled individuality—the singular being that each of us exists to express.
Ego cannot be annihilated, but it can be tamed.
Nonattachment is inherent within Stages Three and Four consciousness because self-love, a sense of interconnectedness to all beings, and Oneness with Source co-exist within those stages.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: the New Thought / Religious Science tradition (Ernest Holmes lineage); ageless-wisdom and Eastern meditative practice; the discipline of affirmative prayer.
- Influenced: the global audience of The Secret, the Association for Global New Thought, and many contemporary New Thought and law-of-attraction teachers.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul's Potential2008
- Life Visioning2013