Dear Students for “Becoming a Teacher of ‘Finding Your Mission in Life.’”
Our course IS 525 can commence just after New Years, using the Study Guide/Workbook and
tapes I’ll be sending you. (Note: IS stands for Intuitive Studies, and this course
has been placed in that part of the curriculum because of the frequent use of intuitive methods in helping people
to find a life’s purpose.)
Our course will be a 5-day intensive, meeting from 9 am until about 5 pm each day, from
February 20 through 24, 2002. The
first two days will be at ARE, at 67th and
Atlantic Ave.
I am still working on the
site for the remain three days, which may be at my home, about 10 minutes drive from the ARE. In addition to the 5 days of residential work,
there will be assignments to complete and send to me after February 24, including a “practicum” in which you do
a demonstration project of helping three people with one-on-one work OR a workshop to a small group.
Between early January and our first class session February 20, you
will be focusing on a personal exploration to clarify your own
mission statement. I’d
like everyone to go through the exercises in the Study Guide/Workbook before we gather on February 20. Since you will have access to the materials in
early January, that will give you about six weeks, which should be ample time.
I developed these materials out of my book Soul-Purpose: Discovering and Fulfilling Your Destiny. (This
book, plus Discovering
Your Soul’s Purpose are
the two books you will need for the course.) I’ve created worksheets at the end of the Study Guide/Workbook to be completed at various
phases of your progress through the course.
There
are also some cassette tapes with guided experiences that will come with the Study Guide in early January. The Study Guide/Workbook will tell you when to play a particular tape. (Note: Sometimes a guided imagery experience or meditation on the tape does not fill the entire
side of the cassette. For example, one experience lasts only about 10 minutes and fills only about one-third
of the tape on that side. For other tapes, nearly the entire side is used.)
The
steps that you'll follow in the various modules of the workbook are the same steps that I've used with hundreds
of people in the past 15 years. I've presented a weekend seminar on this topic in more than 40 U.S. cities and in 6 foreign
countries.
Once you receive it in early January, read, study, and do all exercises in the Study Guide/Workbook
for the Introduction and Modules 1 through 6. Bring the Study Guide/Workbook and the results of your efforts to the first session in
Virginia Beach.
Try
to pace yourself so that you will have had the chance to complete all the Modules before our first session. By having gone through this self-discovery process for yourself – at least a preliminary
version of it – we can better address the subject of how we teach the material to other people, in a variety of formats.
Between now and February
20, there are only a few things you need to do:
- Complete at least the first pass through
the Modules of the Study Guide/Workbook, as described above;
- Keep a dream journal. Even dream fragments. We’re
going to focus especially on your own life-purpose clarification, and dreams may begin to give us some clues.
- Order a copy of my books a) Soul-Purpose: Discovering and Fulfilling Your
Destiny and b)
Discovering Your Soul’s
Purpose.
The second book is an ARE
Press publication and most easily available via ARE Press from the ARE website www.edgarcayce.org. Both
books should also be available via www.amazon.com
- Get your lodging arranged if you are
coming from out of town. You
can call ARE and ask them to mail you an “alternative housing list” – that is, ARE
members who have a room to rent to a conferee or AU student. Call 757-428-3588 ext. 7400 and ask for this. Once the list comes, then you have to make calls
to people on the list to see if a room is available when you want it
I’m looking forward to working with
you on this course. Call
me if you have questions: 757-437-7200 or send
an email to mthurston@atlanticuniv.edu
My best,
Mark Thurston, Ph.D.
Faculty Member
One final note: At
the end of the study guide/workbook I’m mailing out to registered student during the first week of January, there
is a lengthy set of worksheets. If you anticipate wanting to use some of the worksheets
for clients or students you may have in the future, then treat this set as your “masters” and either photocopy
them before you write your own responses OR make your personal responses onto blank sheets of paper instead of
directly onto these worksheets.
