About the Founder

Douglas R. Kelley, PhD, CH, CSL

Dr. Kelley has spent nearly four decades learning, developing, and teaching metaphysical concepts that can be applied to one's life whether secular or spiritual.  He is a Certified Seminar Leader (CSL), an accomplished professional speaker, trainer, life coach, and author of many published books and courses in the fields of human development, metaphysics, leadership, relationships, and anomalous research.

His ministerial career began when he was first baptized and ordained as a Christian lay minister in 1974 at the young age of 15 years old. At the age of 21, he was appointed as an associate minister. A few years later, he was appointed to the position of full pastor.

During this time, he also earned a degree in electronics, started a family, and started a business. After seven years as a full pastor, he had a crisis of conscience regarding the religion of his birth (Jehovah's Witnesses), and the Christian faith in general. This also came at a time in his life where his wife's alcoholism was destroying both the relationship and the family's soul. After 18 years of marriage and one son, he could no longer justify remaining in a toxic alcoholic relationship. He divorced his wife and gained immediate custody of his son. He also left the Christian faith spending a short time as a Deist, then finally transitioning into atheistic agnosticism and pantheism.

He next focused his energy on developing Empowered Recovery, a powerful and comprehensive recovery program based on metaphysical concepts for non-alcoholics enmeshed in abusive alcoholic relationships. His work in this area has helped thousands of people including children, and even earned him the affectionate nickname, "St. Doug" among some that he helped.

Over the next few years, Dr. Kelley was finally in a position to pursue his life-long dream of becoming a professional speaker, author, and coach/counselor. He earned his certification as a hypnotist (CH) and operated a hypnosis and coaching practice before spending the next several years on the road teaching management, leadership, and communications seminars with a metaphysical twist to business leaders. This allowed him to develop and hone several proprietary metaphysical concepts including the Life Leadership Paragon^TM, which aided him in earning a non-academic doctoral degree (PhD) in metaphysical science. He has authored numerous courses on a variety of topics combining metaphysical concepts with practical life-skills. His courses are available at the Metaphysics Institute and Thomas Francis University.

In 2005, he was finally able to pursue another life-long dream not allowed by his former Christian faith: that of anomalous research. He founded a local group to research and investigate hauntings, UFOs, and other types of paranormal phenomena before founding ParaNexus, a resource website for anomalous researchers, in 2008. Dr. Kelley has authored several certification courses for paranormal investigators all of which include his metaphysical concepts, and all of which are designed to enhance and empower the human condition.

Dr. Kelley's mission is to empower the human spirit by helping people get past the things that hold them back. While he has certainly seen his share of tragedy and defeat like most people, he refuses to allow this to kill his spirit. Dr. Kelley is a leader, a doer, and a make-it-happen kind of person. He takes an open-minded, yet grounded, approach on all things, and has an insatiable thirst for knowledge and growth. This is why he was as shocked as those who know him when he decided to come full-circle (kind of) and start the International Church of Metaphysical Humanism under the original corporate name of the Metaphysical Church of Humanistic Science in the spring of 2010. After over 40 years involved in religion, metaphysics, and the ministry, he felt a profound universal calling to establish an organization that would offer a healthier alternative to organized religion and allow people to come together to explore, research, and study the full spectrum of metaphysical  and metapsychological concepts for the potential benefit of all humanity.