There is the physical level, called hylic. The companions of this level are in the soma, the body.

Then the psychological level, with its psychic tip of the soul. The support staff at this level come from the world of therapy and the majority of life coaches.

And then there is the spiritual and impersonal level, also called pneumatic. This is the perspective of the Spirit.

This theory of the three classes of beings dates back to the mythical ancestors of Adam, his second son Abel and his third son Seth. These three levels are found in each of us, but always with the predominance of one.

A so-called spiritual coach is necessarily more oriented towards the pneumatic level, while taking into account the other two. There is often confusion between the psychic and the astral world of the soul on the one hand, and the pneuma and its invisible creative principles on the other. The psychological and the pneumatic are different planes by nature and not by degrees. A spiritual coach is in the pneuma, and therefore does not have the vocation to provide support mainly on a psycho/psychic level.

The overall approach is therefore more metaphysical than psychological, but it remains no less concrete.

When a person discovers their depth dimension, which reveals itself to be the inner reflection of the Spirit, a total reversal takes place. This is equivalent to taking one’s first steps into a new world whose existence was certainly previously known, but which nevertheless requires questioning and metamorphoses. There is always a gap between theory and practice.

Because exploring a new dimension of oneself and reality requires new points of support and new sources of light. A so-called spiritual coach can be part of this. Its support will not be the equivalent of a crutch, which implies dependence and disability; but rather the equivalent of matches, that is to say occasional aids which illuminate for a time, can generate much more light, initiate and give impulses.

There have been spiritual guides since the dawn of time: the shamans of pagan societies, the gurus of the Hindu tradition, the starets of Orthodox monasteries, the priests of Catholicism… All these guides live in institutionalized spaces away from the world, where they can devote themselves entirely to their devotion and studies in silence. Their approaches can sometimes come up against the limits of their traditions and theological frameworks. But a new paradigm seems to be dawning and all these age-old traditions also seem to be going through existential crises.

The relationship between the earthly and the heavenly will be established in a more direct way. Intermediaries of spiritual and religious traditions become both rarer and less relevant: this is an important marker. The new Master will be above all interior, opening to an unprecedented freedom and personal sovereignty. But also to all these corollaries of insecurity, responsibility and individuality.

The coaching, for its part, is a modern phenomenon focusing more on the coach-coachee relationship and the latter’s projects. The coach lives fully in the world. Although they can follow a spiritual tradition and spend more or less long periods of life cut off from the world in monasteries or ashrams for example, they share the same concerns and the same environments (administrative, fiscal, family, societal, social, cultural, media, technological, economic, financial, etc.) than the coachee. The logic of relationships and transmission are totally different.

Spiritual coaching is in its infancy. Freeing itself from the psychic with which it nevertheless maintains solid foundations, it can respond to a new context of human consciousness. It can establish relationships of equals, while opening a new spiritual paradigm modernized and amplified by new access to all the teachings and traditions of the world. The notions of freedom and individuality become major.

The current challenges are above all to adapt to a time of great change, to be able to prosper consciously and prepare the new foundations for the cycle to come. So-called spiritual coaching seems to respond to the challenges and opportunities of our time.