About

Sacred Ecstatics is a radically practical approach to whole life transformation that brings together the tacit know-how of ecstatic spiritual traditions, the improvisational performing arts, and embodied cybernetics. This ignites something profoundly unfound in the world—the visceral numinous fire that melts away whatever
impedes the next adventure into mystery.

We live in a time when calm mindfulness, quiet stillness, and cool composure are overemphasized at the expense of heightened sacred emotion, quaking bodies, and soulful commotion. The less traveled path to transformation aims to set the heart and soul aflame.

Welcome to the quest for sacred ecstasy.

In 2010, Hillary and Brad made it their mission to bring sacred ecstasy back to contemporary times, welcoming the vastest palette of metaphors and inspirations while maintaining an unwavering focus on lighting a spiritual fire. They first conducted their experimental work in various venues around the world including theatres, clinics, temples, cathedrals, nightclubs, a historic dude ranch, and a shotgun house in New Orleans. They became celebrated for demonstrating how sacred ecstasy can reenter a world largely out of touch with ecstatic wisdom.

In 2014, after retiring as university professors to conduct Sacred Ecstatics full time, the Keeneys launched the Guild—a small global community dedicated to the daily numinous art of cooking the soul.

Then something extraordinary and unexpected happened.

The Keeneys began receiving mystical visions almost every night. A pantheon of dreamed saints emerged to provide the Guild with higher guidance and illumination. (See the book series, Climbing the Rope to God.)

These visions paradoxically brought less interest in the phenomenon of dreaming and more emphasis on the actions needed for getting spiritually cooked: 1) Clearing a space for sacred fire-setting 2) Performing the daily spiritual cooking practice of Ecstatic Sound Movement and 3) Mystical experimentation with everyday reality alteration.

A new way of old-school spiritual living was unleashed. The Keeneys pioneered the art of igniting mystical transformation over the internet. The Sacred Ecstatics Guild quickly became a global tribe whose ongoing virtual community enabled everyone to keep the spiritual fire burning.

Rather than reduce spiritual experience to a diluted platitude, pseudo-magic bullet, or dumbed-down method marketed to the masses, the Keeneys are more aligned with the classic mystery schools and avant-garde innovators of the past. They embrace wild thinking, outrageous fervor, absurd revelry, and unbounded creativity.

Brad and Hillary’s visionary dreams continue to steer the ongoing development of Sacred Ecstatics. In the manner of Emmanuel Swedenborg and Hildegard von Bingen, the Keeneys’ communicative link to the “mystical library” has resulted in more than 3,000 pages of visionary teachings plus nearly a thousand ecstatic musical recordings.

Listen to the Keeneys tell the story of the first season of Sacred Ecstatics: Click Here

Sacred Ecstatics is based on over 40 years of extensive involvement with diverse global healing traditions, research on the cybernetics of experiential change, the development of radically creative innovations in therapeutic practice, and exploration of the widest range of evocative expression cultivated in the performing arts.

With over 45 published books and widespread critical acclaim for their creatively charged mysticism, spiritually cooked shamanism, and heart-opening healing sessions, Hillary and Brad have touched the lives of people throughout the world. As spiritual guides they help incubate and maturate your inborn natural gifts and unique life mission. Dr. Robert C. Fulford, the renowned physician that Dr. Andrew Weil cites as the leading healer of our time, called the Keeneys’ work “the most direct path to healing and spiritual growth.”