"The Spiritual Guidance Training Institute is helping me learn to be an effective provider of interfaith/interspiritual spiritual guidance. In the process I am developing and deepening my own spiritual life as the faculty, my fellow learners, and I form a close community. The faculty (Jan and Jeanette) are seasoned, knowledgeable, compassionate, and committed personally to their own spiritual growth and helping others learn the art of spiritual guidance, no matter their background. I look forward each week to the assigned readings, suggested activities and projects, and interactions with the faculty and my fellow spiritual pilgrims. There's no program like it!" ~ J. P., Illinois, USA
Testimonials"I have had an extremely positive experience in the SGTI program. Our teachers are thoughtful and knowledgeable. My cohort is super-supportive and excited to learn together. The content of the course is nothing less than life-changing. The course assignments are engaging and encourage synthesis, creativity and personal reflection. My local spiritual director, who was previously unfamiliar with SGTI, has commented more than once that she is impressed when I share my course content with her. I highly recommend the program to any individual who wants a front row seat to what interfaith spiritual direction offers, personally and professionally!"
J. N., Texas, USA "I do not have enough positive things to say about SGTI! It has not only opened me up to the beauty and diversity of the spiritual traditions and practices our world holds, but it has offered me a deeper understanding of myself and my own spiritual life and by extension the potential I hold to compassionately serve others on their spiritual journey. The environment created by Drs. Banashak and Lundy is intimate even though it is primarily a distance learning format. And they both bring such a depth of knowledge, experience, and support, that I feel incredibly privileged and full of gratitude to have them as mentors and guides."
K.G., Michigan, USA "Drs. Banashak and Lundy have developed SGTI in a thoughtful and respectful way. The curriculum is built around multifaith inclusiveness, holy listening, and spiritual friendships and mentoring which has served our cohort very well. They have developed a curriculum that is historically based and presently relevant. My own sense of our Beloved has been enhanced as has my confidence in reaching out and accompanying others as they recognize and embrace Divine presence."
M. B, Illinois, USA |
Professional Endorsements
"We live in a time of increasing endarkenment which, if we engage with it rightly, can lead to a new age of increasing enlightenment. Spiritual guidance is central to right engagement, and, given the global nature of this dark night, a global, interfaith, and interspiritual understanding of human religiosity is central to effective spiritual guidance. The Spiritual Guidance Training Institute provides that understanding. Embracing the variety of human spiritualities while training you to rest in That which is beyond them all, SGTI invites you to work with the known while remaining open to the Unknown and even the Unknowable. Drs. Banashak and Lundy have created a new and dynamic approach to spiritual guidance and the training of spiritual guides, one with which I am honored to be associated."
Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Author and Columnist, Spirituality and Health Magazine 
"During these times of crazy strife, there is an answering response of deep sanity, perennial wisdom, and fierce-hearted compassion rippling from the roots of the human family and spreading across the global landscape. The Spiritual Guidance Training Institute is one of those healing spaces. Rooted in peace and justice, lifted by longing for the sacred, Jeanette Banashak and Janice Lundy offer rigorous and supportive programs for those who wish to step up as a source of interfaith and inter-spiritual healing and guidance. I highly recommend these trainings."
Mirabai Starr, Inter-spiritual Author & Speaker |
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"I am thrilled to have been part of this training program. Our leaders, Drs, Banashak and Lundy, were amazing and I feel they have carefully crafted a unique and enriching program that is ripe with possibility for me personally and as a future spiritual guide."
B. B., California, USA |
Cohort 2 member Jane speaks about the impact of the Pure Presence training she received
through SGTI. |
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My cohort and teachers for this program have taught me so much, especially about the incredible power and importance of community. I have felt and seen the great power of Our interconnectedness. I have learned so much from each individual as well as the groups’ collective wisdom. I have been blessed to witness rapid and inspiring levels of spiritual growth and transformation in others that has encouraged and supported my own growth. I have felt genuine love and care radiate from this community even from afar. I am forever grateful!
A. A, Washington, USA |
Tending one another's Light. Residential Institute, Chicago, 2019
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The past 18 months have been transformative for me. This has been such an amazing journey of self-discovery and exploration of themes I had barely considered prior to this. The change I experience in myself is an inner softening, a more peaceful co-habiting with the people in my world, a letting go of the gavel and other roadblocks to listening that leaves me feeling more open and receptive to new ways of understanding my world, the Divine and all beings as carriers of this Presence. What a journey! and so worth everything it has cost me in finances, time and energy. My heart and my feet are lighter for the journey ahead.
R. W. Canada
R. W. Canada
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As I move into the next phase of my practice as a spiritual guide, one change that I see is that I am more sincerely appreciative of established religious traditions, and have a more intimate and personal relationship with what they are perhaps even uniquely positioned to offer. I still feel the allegiance I came in with to the “spiritual but not religious”/”nones”/spiritual in(ter)dependents crowd, and that is where I plan to focus my practice and explorations, but I feel like I’ve become a little bicultural in this sense, bringing understanding and
appreciation of each to my experiences with the other. C. O., Texas, USA I depart with gratitude for having been entered more fully into simple, joyful oneness with humanity and the Sacred. These gifts of solidarity and oneness are much more than the vocational growth I expected. I hold dear my calling to serve this world as spiritual guide.
L. H., Indiana USA |
SGTI students sharing Friday prayers and meeting with our Muslim friends at IMAN, The Inner City Action Network, Chicago, 2019
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