Michael Mirdad, the American spiritual teacher, healer and author, is often cited as the person who first coined the term lightwork in respect of spirituality related activities. His works often deal with intuitive healing and, in particular, obtaining a higher level of consciousness through the life and example of Jesus. Mirdad used the term lightworker as far back as the 1980s when he was writing about encouraging light and love to enter people's spirits. His early work is generally based on the 1976 book, A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman, but it is Mirdad who first coalesced many of the themes in her book into the wider concept of lightwork. In the late 1990s, Doreen Virtue, another American healer who specialises in chakras, published the book, The Lightworker's Way, which helped to popularise the term still further. Focussing on New Age ideas, Lightworker: Understand Your Sacred Role as Healer, Guide, and Being of Light by Sahvanna Arienta was published in 2011.