Helping you find the way, maybe

Explore dozens of faith-based topics -- meditation, tribal beliefs, prophecies, etc. -- on the ambitious All Things Spiritual. The 25 main categories on the homepage index the usual world religions, plus a few surprises: Enlightenment, Mind-Body beliefs, even Sikh, Confucian and Zoroastrian groups. But those are just the start.

Click "More" and you'll definitely get it: angels, ghosts, Nordic gods, Rosicrucians, African myths, benevolent "cosmic people." There's a collection of prophecies -- biblical, Mayan, Hopi, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, Our Lady of Fatima. There's some nice poetry from a variety of people, from William Blake to Omar Khayyam to Thich Nhat Hanh.

One site tries to show how England's Rosslyn Chapel -- featured in the movie The Da Vinci Code -- links the Masons with the Knights Templar. Another link offers a book titled Am I Crazy or Just Haunted? The free, downloadable book offers guidance on living with the paranormal.

As with any superdirectory, some of the classifications are up for debate. Yes, it's smart to put meditation and shamanism in their own categories; they bridge many faith traditions. But why is there a separate link for Sufism, a branch of Sunni Islam? Or for Veda, one of the Hindu scriptures? And why is native European spirituality separate from paganism?

It's also not great to see a lot of links that aren't so much resources as online catalogs. Sites like Cross Pendants Online, or the Bodyelement Yoga Studio, or the Eye of Horus Myth & Ritual Store.

Finally, although it may not need saying, "Buyer Beware." Just because it's on a Web site, doesn't mean it's accurate. An example: messianic groups -- i.e., Jews who became Christians -- are grouped under Judaism. Jewish communities object strongly to such mixing. The folks at All Things Spiritual should have known that.

A mis-directory?

All Things Spiritual shows both the beauties and pitfalls of creating a religious supersite. Meant to fill "the need of the time for greater connection to God," the site is easy to understand. It's also not well maintained -- and, in places, a little misleading.

First, the good. The unadorned design has fast-loading links. And you can hardly ask for more variety: Christian mysticism, Bible-themed museums, Hinduism-related toys, Tibetan singing bowls, Celtic flutes, a Virtual I Ching, Feng Shui tips, prophecies from Nostradamus and a host of others.

There's also meaty material like ancient Chinese texts, and historic Christian leaders like Francis Asbury. You can learn Carl Jung's beliefs on how personality affects spirituality. You can check out an intriguing mix of Judaic art and philosophy called Decoupage for the Soul.

The bad? Well, for one, many of the links are broken. Worse, some are misclassified. A site on yoga is grouped under Taoism. Soka Gakkai, a form of Japanese Buddhism, is under Shintoism. Sufism, a branch of Sunni Islam, is listed separately from that faith. And there's a link under Christianity to A Course in Miracles -- a metaphysical book supposedly dictated by Jesus.

The site's unnamed founders clearly take an interest in the stew of therapy, mysticism and esoterica that is often called the New Age. There's a subhead by that name here. But there are also several others -- Enlightenment, Mind-Body, Meditation, Shamanism, Spiritualism, Psychism, the Paranormal, Out-of-Body Experiences -- that are synonyms or subgroups.

Is that good or bad? Welllllll, I guess it depends on your own tastes.