President of the Board Marc Applebaum, Ph.D. is a fully authorized Murshid of the Nuriyya-Malamiyya, as well as a scholar, counselor, and organizational consultant. In addition to his nonprofit work with people in Itlaq Foundation, he teaches qualitative research to doctoral students of psychology and mind-body medicine, and consults with business leaders and teams to foster ethical, collaborative work environments. A published researcher in qualitative methods specializing in the phenomenology and hermeneutics of religious experience, he presents at psychology and philosophy conferences, and serves on the boards of journals including The Humanistic Psychologist and the Journal of Phenomenological Psychology. His doctoral dissertation was a phenomenological study of authorized Sufi guides' experiences of felt connection with the Prophet Muhammad. He has been a traditionally authorized representative of the Nuriyya-Malamiyya working with practitioners since 1999, and has been a fully authorized guide of that tradition since 2017 |
Spiritual Advisor Yannis Toussulis, Ph.D. is a fully authorized Murshid of the Nuriyya-Malamiyya, as well as being a lineage-holder of several Sufi orders. He is the author of the award-winning book Sufism and the Way of Blame: Hidden Sources of a Sacred Psychology and formerly served as a professor of psychology for over thirty-five years on the graduate and undergraduate levels. His past teaching appointments included serving as the Director of the Consciousness Studies Program at Antioch University West and teaching the psychology of intercultural conflict at the Graduate School of Policy Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies from1996-2008. Yannis has published articles in journals and magazines as diverse as The Therapist, Gnosis Magazine and the Journal of Policy Studies (Open Society). He has also presented his work in inter-cultural psychology through the United Nations Development Project and The Global Majority at conferences in Monterey. In 2008 he presented a seminar on Islam and democratization to visiting Indonesian Muslim scholars, co-sponsored by the Department of State and Legacy International. In 2021 he offered a similar lecture to attendees of The Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State dedicated to assessing various facets of political Islam. Before entering into semi-retirement, Yannis also conducted a private practice in family psychotherapy for over forty years (1977-2018). |