Article February 24, 2003 Issue

Taking the high road

Author Joseph Dispenza talks about travel with a spiritual purpose.

By Kate Dearborn

An acquaintance I'd lost touch with recently e-mailed me. We'd had some really interesting chats about our mutual interest in spirituality, and he told me of a friend who was having a book signing at an independent bookstore near my home. I "Googled" the book title (What did writers and researchers do before the invention of Google.com and the other search engines?), and learned that The Way of the Traveler by Joseph Dispenza was about how to travel with a spiritual purpose.

At the event, the author introduced himself and recounted his interest in spiritual living as a very young man. He became a Roman Catholic monk early in life, and lived a fully committed monastic life for eight years. After a great deal of thought, he left the monastery but didn't quit his spiritual journey. Ultimately, that journey led him to study religious subjects, including books on Christian mystics, holistic healing, and Eastern religions, as well as the writings of Sentinel founder, Mary Baker Eddy. Dispenza has taught and written on cinema, travel, and holistic healing, and founded a center designed to advance the philosophy of holistic healing.

A publisher of travel books in Santa Fe, New Mexico, asked Dispenza to write a "cross-over" book connecting travel with mind-body-spirit phenomena. As he thought about the request, the phrase "All travel is inner travel" came to mind and became the idea on which he based the book.