Catapulting Over Spiritual Silos

IT’S TIME TO CATAPULT OVER SPIRITUAL SILOS

This past year cracked my heart wide open.

I never imagined that following my inner wisdom—simply seeking help outside the walls of one beloved spiritual community—would ignite such swift and painful rejection.

My husband, Bill Pettit, and I have long been immersed in the Three Principles understanding. We love it. We share it. We’ve seen it transform lives. But when, during a season of personal pain, we consulted a coach outside the Three Principles community, the response was chilling.

Testimonials were pulled from my book. Testimonials were pulled from Bill’s website. We were excluded from behind-closed-door deliberations. Attempts to meet, to clarify, to reconnect were spurned. Friends stopped calling. Others whispered behind the scenes—but their stories were strangely inconsistent. When we named that inconsistency, the fire ignited.

Was that cultish behavior? That word feels much too harsh. But it was exclusionary. It was fueled by the innocent perception that by exploring outside the silo, we had dishonored it.

Over the past year, we’ve heard of people being told not to consult Bill or me because we are no longer blessed by “the inner circle.” That rejection has cost us income. But more importantly, it may have cost people the very help they were seeking—ironically, help grounded in the same Three Principles we were “punished” for loving too freely.

Let me be clear:
The metaphor of the Three Principles is the furthest thing I can imagine from a cult. It is a doorway to heaven.

And guess what?
There’s more than one doorway.

MANY RIVERS, ONE SEA

When my climb out of the silo began, I was reading The Way of Mastery. One of its core premises stopped me in my tracks: You have not begun the journey to understand what the spiritual is until you know that you create everything you experience from within.

Steve Hardison, the coach we consulted, said, “All you do all day long is create. You cannot not create.”
Wow.

Sydney Banks said the same thing— even more precisely: We create with the spiritual power of Thought.

Around the same time, I was serving as a reader on a public health dissertation by a brilliant Yale student, Crystal Harrell. Her research asked whether spirituality and religion protect mental health in young people. The answer? Sometimes. But her results suggested that what offered the strongest protection was something she called Spiritual Consciousness.

Her distinctions helped me see clearly:

• Religiosity is belief in a specific dogma and its rituals.
• Spirituality is a broader belief in something beyond life, often still seen as separate from being human.
• Spiritual Consciousness is the awareness that we are the creators of what we experience—and that the creative principle is conscious, intelligent, and benevolent.

A COMING UNITY OF STRANDS

The Way of Mastery published by the Shanti Christo Foundation ends with a stunning vision:
A coming together of spiritual lineages. A unity of strands. A wheel whose spokes radiate from the same sacred hub.

“All of these strands are like spokes emanating from the hub of one wheel, reaching out to the farthest reaches of the dream of separation… part and parcel of One Mind that recognizes the reality of the invisible permeating the realm of the visible… therefore embrace that which you are, honor that which you are, extend that which you are… you are all part of the same script.” [page 396-399]

In January, Bill and I were invited to speak at The Ultimate Experience in Scottsdale, a program organized by Judy and Erik Thureson and aligned with a movement called Beingness. It was remarkable.

First, because it honored many strands of spiritual wisdom.
Second, because it welcomed Bill and me to speak of the Three Principles.
And third, because, as one participant said so beautifully:

“Every single one of you pointed to the same thing—LOOK WITHIN!”

Indeed. Sydney Banks said that was the core metaphor of the Three Principles:
Look within.

That truth has always challenged those who seek power over others.
It always will.

CLARITY IN THE QUESTIONS

Earlier this year, I participated in a powerful boot camp to learn how to share story ideas with media outlets. One of the most clarifying questions we were asked was:
What conversations do you want to start or join?

Here’s what got affirmed from deep within me:

1. How can we stop outsourcing our inner wisdom?
2. How do we help people recognize that spiritual consciousness is the missing link in today’s mental health crisis
3. How can we spread the word that intuitive wisdom is a science-backed path to mental, physical, and emotional health?
4. Why do people who don’t seem to fit in often hold the greatest potential for transformation?

These are the conversations that light my path now. If you see ways to unite and move them forward, I’m all ears. Because this—this is how we create a world rooted in humanitarianism, justice, well-being, and love.

UNITED IN THE DIRECTION OF TRUTH

“There are many ways to find the inner wisdom that will lead you to a healthier state of mind. You must exercise your freedom of choice to decide on your own individual path. No matter which path you take, the wisdom you seek will always be found within the depths of your own consciousness.”
— Sydney Banks, The Missing Link, p. 141

Today, I find myself grateful for the rejection from the Three Principles community.
It catapulted me out of a spiritual silo and into the wide, luminous field I was always meant to inhabit: a field of unity.

I am here for this:
To stand shoulder-to-shoulder with all communities who point toward Spiritual Consciousness—who remind us that we are creators, vessels, and expressions of divine intelligence.

Whether your heart was cracked open by the Three Principles, Beingness, The Way of Mastery, Christ Consciousness, Indigenous spirituality, The Course in Miracles, Byron Katie, Eckhart Tolle, Rupert Spira—or something else, named, or unnamed and deeply your own—

Let us stop guarding the doors.
Let us celebrate every hub in the wheel.
Let us wake each other up to the magic within us—
and the choice we all have to use that magic for good.

We were built for this.
Together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Linda Sandel Pettit, Ed.D., is a psychologist, writer, spiritual mentor, and author of Leaning into Curves: Trusting the Wild Intuitive Way of Love, winner of the 2024 Maxy Award for Inspiration and Self-Help. Her work helps intuitive women reclaim their power, navigate transitions with grace, and live from the deep well of spiritual intelligence within.

📖 Read more stories like this in her memoir, Leaning into Curves:
https://drlindapettit.com/leaning-into-curves/

🌿 Interested in working with Linda?
Explore The Curves Collective, a small-circle coaching experience for intuitive, creative women ready to live from rested well-being and radical self-trust.
https://drlindapettit.com/thecurvescollective/