Guardians

An infograph and audio summary of the Guardians

The Guardians were a group dedicated to social transformation by reinvesting their professional talents back into the community. Originating in Chicago during the late 1960s, these individuals evolved from a small circle of supporters into a structured network of structural revolutionaries. Their mission involved fostering primal community, awakening deep consciousness, and providing the tools necessary for others to unleash their creativity. By acting as religious pioneers within secular environments, they served as models for nurturing societal growth and addressing systemic ills. Ultimately, the movement represented a collective commitment to global service and the responsible stewardship of human potential.

Historically the role of a Guardian was to be one who had decided to take the investment of their lives and return it to society. It is as if society invested in one’s becoming an engineer, and in return you invested in society by engineering a whole new society. If society invested in your becoming a doctor, you returned the investment by creating a whole new understanding of medicine in the local situation. Being a Guardian is simply returning the investment. Those who have decided to play the role of returning the investment are who we are – we are all paravocated. We are all in the same mission. We are all Guardians.

Guardians are religious guinea pigs on behalf of all. They are the presence of the religious to secular people, which gives others the opportunity to be the religious too.  The tasks of the Guardian include:

  •   Building primal community
  •   Awakening people to deeps of consciousness
  •   Giving methodological skills to enable to release creativity
  •   Pioneering with social demonstration.
  •   Finding ways of nurturing people.

CHICAGO BEGINNINGS

The Guardians were the persons in the established structures who lent their wisdom, time and financial support to the Spirit Movement.  Initially a group of people from the  North Shore area of Chicago supported Joe in ways too numerous to mention. They helped keep him in touch with how the structures of society operated and gave him insights into how effectively to operate as as “structural revolutionary”. In 2014 Priscilla Wilson recalls the journey of women from the North Chicago suburbs, who after the impact of the RS-I course, began working with the Ecumenical Institute one day a week in 1968.  Later involving their husbands, this group of women along with their husbands became the foundation of the Guardians. They developed the Global Odyssey, a “round the world” trip to explore the needs in other countries. The Guardian network was formalized in 1972 with a group of 33 and grew to 360 in 1978.

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