ABSTRACT
I was trained to keep all discussions of religion and spirituality out of the classroom. When I made the long journey to Stanford University from Virginia Street Baptist church, where my soul had first been touched by the mystical dimensions of Christian faith, I knew that Stanford was not a place there would be any discussion of divine spirit. Of course the “Jesus freaks,” as they were called, the born-again Christians spread their word openly. They had no knowledge of Christian mysticism. It was my longing to become an intellectual that had led me all the way from Kentucky to California, the first child in my family to go so far away from home to attend college. My fundamentalist Christian parents actually talked about California as Babylon. They feared I would lose touch with a sense of the sacred there; they feared my soul would be tempted by evil, tempted to turn away from God.
