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Watkins’ Spiritual 100 List for 2019

We are delighted to share with you Watkins’ 2019 list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People – spiritual teachers, activists, authors and thinkers that change the world. The list comes out in print in the Spring issue, #57 of Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine on February 29 (you can get a copy of this issue here or take out a full year subscription here).

Watkins bookshop in London has been encouraging spiritual discovery and providing seekers with esoteric knowledge for over 120 years. In 2011, we started publishing the 100 list with the goal of celebrating the world’s living spiritual teachers. Our special magazine issue features 16 pages dedicated to interesting details, bios, photos and highlights about each person on the list. As you read through this list, we hope that you feel as inspired as we are by each individual’s significant impact.

2019 Spiritual 100 list at a glance:

1 Pope Francis
2 Oprah Winfrey
3 Dalai Lama
4 Eckhart Tolle
5 Desmond Tutu
6 Rhonda Byrne
7 Edith Eger
8 Alejandro Jodorowsky
9 Neale Donald Walsch
10 Julia Cameron
11 David Lynch
12 Russell Brand
13 Sam Harris
14 Ken Wilber
15 Tony Robbins
16 Thich Nhat Hanh
17 Paulo Coehlo
18 Deepak Chopra
19 Teal Swan
20 Steve Taylor
21 Sadhguru (Jaggi Vasudev)
22 Gabor Maté 
23 Arianna Huffington
24 Alice Walker
25 Matthew Fox
26 Fethullah Gülen
27 Brian Weiss
28 Brené Brown
29 Iyanla Vanzant
30 Bob Dylan
31 Elizabeth Gilbert
32 Gabrielle Bernstein
33 Byron Katie
34 Marianne Williamson
35 Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
36 Ruby Wax
37 Mooji
38 Ram Dass
39 Esther Hicks
40 Amma
41 Francis Chan
42 Robin Sharma
43 Don Miguel Ruiz
44 Jon Kabat-Zinn
45 James Lovelock
46 Erich von Däniken
47 Clarissa Pinkola Estés
48 Vandana Shiva
49 Rupert Sheldrake
50 Michael Bernard Beckwith
51 Rob Bell
52 Graham Hancock
53 Hamza Yusuf
54 Thomas Moore
55 Justin Welby
56 Martin Seligman
57 Richard Bach
58 Abdullah II of Jordan
59 Rowan Williams
60 Karen Armstrong
61 Alex Grey
62 Robert Thurman
63 Pema Chödrön
64 Ervin Laszlo
65 Prem Rawat
66 Andrew Weil
67 Richard Rohr
68 Daniel Goleman
69 Gary Snyder
70 Jack Canfield
71 Eben Alexander
72 Dan Millman
73 Daisaku Ikeda
74 Andrew Forrest
75 Anita Moorjani
76 Gregg Braden
77 Ajahn Brahm
78 Bruce Lipton
79 Stanislav Grof
80 Zainab Salbi
81 Daniel Pinchbeck
82 Robert Bly
83 Sherin Khankan
84 Jack Kornfield
85 Satish Kumar
86 Caroline Myss
87 Adyashanti
88 Starhawk
89 David Frawley
90 Elaine Pagels
91 Richard Rudd
92 Daniel J. Siegel
93 Tara Brach
94 Elizabeth Lesser
95 Lee Carroll
96 David Deida
97 James Redfield
98 Lorna Byrne
99 Vadim Zeland
100 Sharon Salzberg

To discover more about each spiritual teacher, get a copy of issue 57, Spring 2019.

There are several factors that were taken into account when compiling the list. The main three criteria are:

1) The person has to be alive as of January 1st, 2019
2) The person has to have made a unique and spiritual contribution on a global scale
3) The person is frequently googled, appears in Nielsen Data, has a Wikipedia page, and is actively talked about throughout the Internet. By taking into account the amount of times that a person is googled or how many times their Wikipedia profile is viewed, the list gains a highly democratic and transparent parameter. Additionally, we were highly selective in creating this list and did our best to remove candidates who spread messages that were hateful or intolerant. Ultimately, this list is meant to celebrate the positive influence of today’s spiritual teachers.

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