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Watkins’ Spiritual 100 List for 2020

We are delighted to share with you Watkins’ 2020 list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People – spiritual teachers, activists, authors and thinkers that change the world. The list came out in print in the Spring issue, #61 of Watkins Mind Body Spirit magazine on February 29 (you can get a copy of this issue here or take out a full year’s 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.

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

To discover more about each spiritual teacher, pick up a copy of issue 61, Spring 2020.

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, 2020
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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