We are delighted to share with you Watkins’ 2025 list of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People – spiritual teachers, activists, authors and thinkers that change the world. […]
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.
Visst är den en bagatell. Men intressant att kika på ändå. Den årliga Topp 100-listan från Watkins’ spirituella bokhandel i London, via deras magasin ”Body Mind Spirit”.
I topp sedan länge, vilket blir tydligt om man dyker ned i tidskriftens arkiv, hamnar påve Franciskus och Dalai Lama. Eckhart Tolle strax därefter. Många namn som inte är allmänt kända, tänker jag, inte ens bland spirituellt intresserade, när man kommer längre ned i listan.
Filmreggisören David Lynch, som gick bort för bara en månad sedan, har fått en hedrande 6:e plats. Aktrisen Gwyneth Paltrow har legat högt upp i listan flera år nu. Denna gång på en 9:e plats. Oklart vad det är hon sysslar med nu för tiden? Skedböjaren från 70-talet, Uri Geller, på 16:e!
Jag har roat mig med att jämföra 2025 med 2020. Bara de översta 25. Det kan ju hända att någon som fanns med för fem år sedan bara har halkat ned strax under, eller tvärsom. Men, men.
Det verkar finnas som två, tre olika skikt? I det översta återfinns som sagt påven, Tolle och Dalai Lama. Sedan 2020 har Desmond Tutu (1931-2021) och Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926-2022) gått bort. Det är rimligt att anta att de annars fortfarande hade stått med där uppe.
Sedan finns det som ett mellanskikt. Där rörelserna kan vara större, men individerna faller inte bort helt. Ett slags halvgudar om man uttrycker det vanvördigt: Oprah Winfrey, Paulo Coelho, Deepak Chopra.
Paltrow blir jag nyfiken på. Hon dök upp på listan med dunder och brak 2022. Har hållit sig inom topp 10, så också i år.
In September 2008, Paltrow launched the weekly lifestyle newsletter Goop, encouraging readers to ”nourish the inner aspect”. Goop has expanded into a web-based company, Goop.com. According to Paltrow, the company’s name came from someone telling her that successful internet companies have double O’s in their name, and ”is a nickname, like my name is G.P., so that is really where it came from. And I wanted it to be a word that means nothing and could mean anything.” Goop has expanded into e-commerce, collaborating with fashion brands, launching pop-up shops, launching a wellness summit, a print magazine, a podcast, and a documentary series streamed on Netflix.
Goop, and by extension Paltrow, have faced backlash for showcasing expensive products and promoting medically and scientifically impossible treatments, many of which have harmful consequences. The controversies have included vaginal steaming, the use of jade eggs, a dangerous coffee enema device, and ”Body Vibes”, wearable stickers that were claimed to ”rebalance the energy frequency in our bodies” and which Goop falsely claimed were made of a NASA-developed material. Goop settled a lawsuit regarding the health claims it made over the jade eggs.
Jill Avery, a brand analyst, has noted how Goop’s response to criticism seems designed to ”strengthen their brand and draw their customers closer”, noting Goop’s references to feminism, traditional Asian medicines and Eastern philosophies, and anti-establishment politics to do so. Late Show host Stephen Colbert had repeatedly lampooned Goop products; in 2018 Paltrow appeared in a Late Show sketch seemingly making fun of her company’s approach.
On January 24, 2020, Netflix released The Goop Lab, a documentary series. The 6-part show promotes Goop, and covers pseudoscientific topics in energy healing, the use of psychedelic drugs, cold therapy, anti-aging, mediumship, and female sexuality. Critics argued that granting Goop access to Netflix’s platform was a ”win for pseudoscience”. Upon release of the first trailer, and again after the full six-episode series was available, the series sparked controversy concerning the medical and scientific misinformation it presented.