Resource Report for Further Reading on Religious/Spiritual Development
Resource report for further reading on religious/spiritual development.
If you are new to this field and like things simplified, start with M. Scott Peck. The concept of spiritual development is first mentioned in The Road Less Traveled – Section III Growth and Religion. It is further expanded upon in The Different Drum. Chapter IX Patterns of Transformation. Written in 1987, this book goes into the stages in much greater depth than the original text which was written in 1978.
If indeed you still want to learn more about Peck’s stages, (and I want to point out here that the concept of stages of development is only a very small part of Peck’s message) his Further Along the Road Less Traveled has more explanations in Chapter 7, Spirituality and Human Nature and The Road Less Traveled and Beyond also more about them in Chapter 7 The Science of God.
Once you have had enough of Peck, you may want to delve further. At this point, if you are more interested in the religious side of spiritual development, your next step is James Fowler, Stages of Faith. I warn you that this is a very abstract text and takes quite a lot of determination to get through. Nonetheless, what is very clear is that the subject is much more complex than M. Scott Peck made it seem. AND – more importantly, by the time you read through to Fowlers’ Stage Six you begin to understand that there are probably other stages beyond his six – just that there is no one at those higher levels yet to interpret them for us.
If on the other hand, you prefer a more secular view, instead of Fowler – or maybe before Fowler, you may want to move on to Ken Wilber. Now I must warn you, Wilber writes in a very vast realm and is not talking just about spirituality. That is about all I am going to say – his concepts are very complex. If you start though with Integral Spirituality, I think the introductory section outlining his major general points gives a sufficient overview of his big picture without your having to read all of his works.
Both Fowler and Wilber bring into their discussion many other researchers who studied other aspects of human development. Some of these are Piaget, Kohlberg, Loevinger, and Erikson.
Walter Clark wrote Psychology of Religion long ago, before the stage theorists began their research, yet he seems to be sharing some of the same concepts as well.