Hillary Keeney, Ph.D. is an internationally renowned teacher and interdisciplinary scholar of ecstatic spirituality and creative transformation. She is also currently Associate Editor of the journal, Dance, Movement, and Spiritualities.

Jay Walljasper, former editor of Utne Reader, calls Hillary a “bold explorer” of the “healing arts.” Her extensive study of dance at the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado, along with academic degrees in women’s studies, social work, and interdisciplinary studies, provide unique breadth and depth for understanding the art of changing lives. Hillary spent eight years studying Zen Buddhism that included residency at the Zen Center of Los Angeles, and was awarded the Frederick P. Lenz Residential Fellowship for the Study of American Buddhism at Naropa University in Fall 2009. She later made contributions to the comparative study of diverse ecstatic spiritual practices that include Kalahari Bushman n/om dancing, Japanese seiki jutsu healing, and St. Vincent visionary traveling.

Hillary holds the appointment of Distinguished Visiting Professor at Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla and is Director of Research at Etfasis Insitute of Systemic Family Therapy in Querétaro, Mexico. She is celebrated for her innovative exercises that awaken creativity in the people-helping professions, and conducts master classes in ecstatic sound movement — the core practice of Sacred Ecstatics. In addition to numerous books and academic papers, Hillary is the author and illustrator of a series of “little books” that include The Pinnacle Prayer Book, Catching a Numi: A Little Guide to the Pinnacle Spiritual Experience, Sister Gertrude Morgan: The Mystic of New Orleans, and The Practices of Sacred Ecstatics.

Paul Trachtman, former science editor of Smithsonian Magazine describes Hillary as “an authentic traditional healer with impeccable scholarship.” Her groundbreaking advancement of embodied cybernetics was critically acclaimed as “an amazing work that exceeds the promises in Gregory Bateson’s writing.” In the anthropology of healing, archaeologist Jeanette Deacon acknowledges that she “broke through the dusty curtain that often separates anthropologists from the people whose beliefs and practices they want to understand.” Finally, best-selling author and leading authority on integrative medicine, Carl Hammerschlag, M.D., concludes that Hillary is an “extraordinary guide for the healing journey to radical ecstasy . . . help[ing] you dance with the divine.”