A trend beginning in academic literature that takes its cue from popular literature is the turn toward an examination of "spirit." The authors who are doing this are selling books "literally by the millions" (45) and are feeding what Paul Heilker calls a "collective hunger" (107). This need is not only felt outside of the academy but within it, although the idea of including "spirit" in the academy is highly controversial. I will not offer a broad argument for including spirituality in academic endeavors -this has been done elsewhere (see Foehr and Schiller or O'Reilley). Instead I will provide a synthesis of what some of the popular and scholarly literature says about spirit, and then narrate a writing center story in which the writer's text served as a vehicle for a transformation of the people involved. 1*11 follow this with an analysis of the experience grounded in the literature on writing and spirit.