As any serious seeker of self-improvement knows, being half-spiritual is like being half-pregnant. You either are spiritual – or are trying to be – or you are not. Half-way measures, such as leaving your soul at the door when you enter the workplace, undermine the benefits of meditation, journalling, and other spiritual exercises practiced at home. Personal Pilgrimage: One Day Soul Journeys for Busy People and Bring Your Soul to Work: An Everyday Practice address the futility of ignoring the many opportunities presented for spiritual work at the place where most of us spend at least 50% of our lives.

Both of these books are geared toward the busy professional with at least a beginner’s knowledge of spiritual and self-improvement techniques. Since most workplaces are associated with an overwhelming negativity, the books focus on eliminating such office toxins as resentment, fear, anxiety, transference, and projection. Acknowledging the spiritual principle of “like attracts like,” the authors ask: how does a person prevent their soul from resonating with the vile energies released every day by control-freaks, needy psychic vampires, and other depressing entities?

Bringing Your Soul to Work is the brainchild of business consultant Cheryl Peppers and self-help author Alan Briskin (Stirring the Soul in the Workplace). Meant to answer the “collective cry for something more,” this well-written, jargon-free book draws heavily on real life dilemmas faced in today’s workplaces. Many of the follow-up exercises ask the reader to take inventory of the feelings and motivations they experienced in a negative situation so that they can “clear” themself of future negative involvements.

The concept of the soul is defined in Jungian terms as being the product of many voices – critical, egotistical, needy, and otherwise – that must be harmonized to create a holistic personality. Chapters such as “Playing with Wild Cards,” “Shadow Sightings,” and “The Threads of Connection” teach the reader to observe and discern negative patterns in the workplace and eventually alter them by replacing them with practical non-aggressive behaviours such as silence, listening, reflection, creative visualization, and positive role-playing. Like the classic The Power of Positive Thinking, this book teaches readers to change their perspective of the workplace by keeping in mind that all reality is constructed initially with a single thought.

Personal Pilgrimage, by Viki Hurst, a student of leadership studies at the University of San Diego, also emphasizes the importance of “clearing” your personal space of toxic energies that may have been picked up in the workplace. More than just a book about creative visualization, this self-help guide urges readers to listen to messages from their soul about when it is time to take a break.

Part of this process asks the participant to actually appeal for guidance from long-dead spiritual celebrities, defining this book as a self-help guide for amateur trance channellers. This channelling process works best in a quiet, sacred space. As it is practically impossible for most of us to suddenly take off to a mountaintop in Tibet, the author suggests that readers pick a sacred spot nearby that fits one of various prescriptions such as “a place beside water,” “a place where you can watch the sunset,” or “a place where people go to worship.”

During this time alone, readers are instructed to select a spirit guide from the provided Index of Inspirational Guides – which includes such luminaries as Rumi, Harriet Tubman, St. Francis of Assisi, and Mother Theresa – and ask them for help with a dilemma. After receiving an answer, readers are to scribble down these illuminations in a journal, meditate, and then select several individuals in their life with which to share their newfound blessings – a nod to the notion that whatever you put out comes back to you times three.

Neither book offers a quick or magical fix to what can be perceived as a society-wide spiritual problem. Both are about coping with life’s spiritual challenges as opposed to using currently trendy forms of wishcraft, ritual, or other self-serving techniques to help you get what you want. Busy types might find the number of labour intensive exercises, particularly the in-depth writing assignments, a bit too much work to come home to after a long day at the office. At least this is a recognition of the fact that one does not develop the patience and the wisdom of an Ascended Master overnight.