2 0 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 2 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 1 6 Acknowledgement: AWay Toward Spiritual Communication Received July 1, 2016 Revised July 25, 2016 Accepted August 3, 2016 Acknowledgement is a communicative act through which we confirm, affirm, or validate another (Hyde 2006). This paper is an autoethnographic account of my experiences in conducting a personal experiment in which I wrote letters to students, friends, colleagues, family, and even strangers in order to acknowledge them for the difference that they make to me and to others. I suggest, based on published literature and my own experiences, that acknowledgement is a spiritual act, and that by acknowledging others, we recognize the interconnectedness of our lives to those of others. I also argue that acknowledgement is an evolved form of gratitude, and offers a more sophisticated means of communication which focuses on equality and wholeness rather than hierarchy and ranking. The paper concludes with the experienced benefits of an acknowledgement practice, together with how future iterations of the project will be changed. Key words Acknowledgement, gratitude, teaching, spiritual communication Sharon Lauricella
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