Spiritual Intelligence: What We Can Learn from the Early Awakening Child

Self-actualization guru Sinetar (Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow) has repackaged her follow-your-bliss message here, enumerating the qualities of children, to whom she alternately refers as ""spiritually intelligent"" and ""early awakeners."" Though she nods to experts ranging from Alice Miller to Maria Montessori and makes passing reference to interviews with youngsters and successful adults, Sinetar never concretely articulates any research she has done, scholarly or otherwise, that might qualify her to create such a category. Muddying the waters further is Sinetar's seeming discomfort with the thought that any child does not belong in this group. For example, she takes pains to describe the ""self-sheltering"" impulses that early awakeners exhibit--impulses to flee abusive homes, to distance themselves from smothering parents, etc.--but then quickly adds that a tendency to gladly accept mistreatment may be a sign of spiritual intelligence, too. Sinetar's observations are vague and contradictory enough to allow virtually all of us to imagine that we are among the prescient few. She does manage a sustained and often insightful meditation about the spiritual qualities we should be cultivating in ourselves and in our children, while the reader is treated to dozens of anecdotes ranging from lore about Teresa of Avila to revelations from the author's own childhood. These nuggets add a modicum of coherence to Sinetar's inscrutable lexicon, but it's likely that only those who enjoy her particular brand of spirituality-speak will hang around long enough to find out. (Mar.)