Ellis Linders, PhD
Student Experience Coordinator
Email: ellis.linders@aleftrust.org
Biography
Ellis Linders was born in the Netherlands and lives in the UK. She did her undergraduate degree in theatre-studies at Dartington College of Art, after which she worked as a theatre performer, director, and drama teacher. Her main spiritual and transpersonal influences are Theosophy and Anthroposophy, energy medicine, the Qabalah of the Western Mystery Tradition, Women’s temple, Psychosynthesis, and Transpersonal Psychology. She now walks an intuitively led pathless path. In 2011 she gained her MSc in Consciousness studies and Transpersonal Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University where she wrote her thesis on the subject of illness as a transpersonal process of embodiment and spiritual path. She conducted her doctorate studies at Liverpool John Moores University on the subject of Spiritual Pathfinding: as the psychological process involved in finding a meaningful spiritual life outside of religious tradition in those who identify as spiritual but not religious.
Ellis is module leader of ALEFTP 7503 Learning through Integrative Practice and ALEFTP 7502 Spiritual Psychology, and tutor on the ALEFTP 7504 Transpersonal Psychology module. In her role of Alef student experience co-ordinator, Ellis facilitates student engagement with all aspects of the programme. She works closely with student representatives, and oversees the co-creative circle process both within the student-body, and between student representatives and core-faculty. Her role is centrally concerned with enabling students to reflect on their learning journey, as well as come together effectively as a learning community.
Research interests
Ellis’ particular areas of interest are contemporary spirituality, the meaning of spiritual self-agency, spiritual emergency, the role of embodiment in spirituality, and the Sacred Feminine. These concerns are born from her personal experiences, specifically after undergoing an extended period of spiritual emergency in her mid-thirties. Her principal inquiry both in relation to research and in her teaching-approach concerns the complexities involved in finding a meaningful spirituality that meet the unique needs of the individual whilst being relevant and in service to the Collective. Central to this inquiry is how we might evaluate spiritual pathways which are outside the norm or possibly newly emerging, and whether our understanding of what spirituality means and what purpose it serves is changing or needs to change to meet the challenges of our life and world.
Key publications
Lancaster, B. L., & Linders, E. H. (2019). Spirituality and transpersonalism. In L. Zsolnai & B. Flanagan (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Spirituality in Society and the Professions (pp. 39-47). Routledge.
Linders, E. H., & Lancaster, B. L. (2013). Sacred illness: exploring transpersonal aspects in physical affliction and the role of the body in spiritual development. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 16(10), 991-1008. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2012.728578
Linders, E. H. (2009). A Patent on God: the influence of Gnosticism and Christian mysticism on the founder of Psychosynthesis. In: W. Parfitt (Ed.), Psychosynthesis – new perspectives and creative research. The best of the Synthesis Journal (pp. 144-164). P.S. Avalon.
