Michael A. Singer

Michael A. Singer is an American spiritual author and entrepreneur whose The Untethered Soul offers a guide to inner freedom through mindfulness and releasing psychological resistance.

Michael A. Singer is a spiritual teacher and software developer who built a meditation community in rural Florida and founded a technology company before becoming widely known through his books. The Untethered Soul, published in 2007, spent years on bestseller lists — including a significant period after Oprah Winfrey featured it — and has continued to find new readers through word of mouth. The book addresses the experience of inner psychological commentary — the constant stream of self-narration, judgment, and anxiety that most people take to be identical with themselves — and argues that this “voice in the head” is something one can observe and eventually release, rather than a fixed identity.

The Untethered Soul draws on insights from multiple contemplative traditions, including Yoga, Buddhism, and Christian mysticism, without being doctrinally committed to any of them. Its central teaching — that inner freedom comes from allowing experiences to pass through rather than resisting or suppressing them — is expressed in plain, accessible language and illustrated with recognisable everyday examples. For readers new to contemplative practice, it serves as a genuinely useful introduction to ideas that are easy to encounter in more technical or tradition-specific forms. The Surrender Experiment (2015), Singer’s memoir, provides context for the philosophy by describing how he applied it in his own life.

A significant note for readers: Singer was indicted in 2023 on federal charges related to the business operations of his company, Medical Manager Health Systems. The legal proceedings are ongoing. Readers who separate an author’s biography from their work will find the philosophical content of The Untethered Soul independently evaluable; others may reasonably find the context relevant. The core teachings about psychological awareness draw on traditions with deep roots that stand independent of their most recent populariser.