Alice McDowell, Ph.D., is an author, spiritual director, workshop leader, retreat guide, and founder of the Hidden Treasure Program—a three-year training in personal growth. She co-founded Light on the Hill Retreat Center in 1991 where she continues to guide people

on their spiritual journeys. She is author of Hidden Treasure: How to Break Free of Five Patterns that Hide Your True Self (She Writes Press, 2017) and Dance of Light: Christian, Sufi and Zen Wisdom for Today's Spiritual Seeker (Wisdom Editions, 2022). As a professor of religious studies at Ithaca College for eighteen years, she taught courses in mysticism, world religions, depths psychology, and women’s studies, and received the Dana Fellow for Excellence in College Teaching. McDowell has a doctorate in theology from Fordham University and has trained with Sufi and Buddhist teachers, Christian contemplatives and transpersonal psychologists.