Chris Griscom was born Christina Johnston on 3 June 1942 in Los Angeles, California, United States of America. As a child, she traveled extensively with her father, an agricultural entomologist. This early immersion in nature is credited with awakening in her a deeper awareness of the interconnectedness of life and setting the stage for her life’s work .

In 1962, Ms. Griscom volunteered for the Peace Corps and spent the following nine years working as a Peace Corps representative throughout South America. During this time, she began to experience the various spiritual beliefs that characterized the native cultures with which she was involved.

In El Salvador, through the direct experience of the monumental mortality rate around her, Chris awakened to an amplified awareness of life and death . Dealing with death on a daily basis, she began to see that life does not end with death, nor does the spirit die with the body. These realizations laid the foundation for her now internationally recognized spiritual work at The Light Institute and The Nizhoni School for Global Consciousness.

She returned to the United States of America in the early 1970s, married Richard Griscom and settled in Galisteo, New Mexico. She soon began studying massage and acupuncture. Through this, she came upon what she calls the ‘Windows to the Sky’, what she describes as “a powerful, ancient form of acupuncture which precipitates awareness of the higher octaves or dimensions of experience.” This led her to work with many, including Shirley MacLaine. Like thousands of others, Shirley credits her work with Chris as enabling her to connect with her deepest and richest abilities and knowledge.

Building on this work, Griscom founded The Light Institute in 1985, a spiritual center for multi-incarnational exploration and light healing. Seeing a need for soul-centered education, she founded the Nizhoni School in 1988. The school offered a standard academic curriculum combined with applied spirituality. Through this unique curriculum individuals of all ages from all over the world were taught to 'discover and access their inner wisdom and strength' . In 2004, the Nizhoni School moved from on-site education to education through the media. It is now focused on the development of media programs with the purpose of reaching a greater global audience. While her reach has become global, Griscom continues to appear regularly on public access television in northern New Mexico, broadcasting her 'Knowings' talks that are open to the general public.

Griscom’s humanitarian services and contributions in holistic health and education have been twice recognized by The Indian Board of Alternative Medicines. In 1996, the Board awarded Ms. Griscom the Sewa Chakra Award for her work with AIDS patients. Ms. Griscom again traveled to Calcutta in 1999 to receive the Board’s Lifetime Achievement award and to form the International Board of Alternative Medicines .

Ms. Griscom is a resident of New Mexico and a mother of six. She continues her work at The Light Institute and in giving international talks and seminars. Her published works include Psychogenetics: The Force of Heredity, Nizhoni: The Higher Self in Education and Quickenings: Meditations For The Millennium. Her recorded works include Knowings, The Creative Self, The Gift of Peace, Transcending Adversity, Parent/Child Relationships, and The Dance of Relationships.

A key aspect of Chris Griscom’s teachings is the Higher Self. She describes it as “the spiritual vehicle, the power that changes and awakens the emotions. It is the megaphone of the soul.” Through the Higher Self one comes to realize one is brilliant, essential and possesses abilities one never imagined. One begins to use these talents not only to make life more fulfilling, she says, but to create a way of living and relating that is open and inclusive. This happens automatically, for, she teaches, as the individual starts to discover her or his true self, she or he begins to comprehend the powerful forces that not only effect oneself but all of humankind; one discovers how multi-faceted, rich and wondrous are oneself, the world and every being.

Griscom goes on to say that out of this larger way of seeing and being, one comes to experience ecstasy, “that exploding creative force when consciousness coalesces itself, the marriage of bliss and rapture. This is the sourcing, creative force of the universe, the Higher Self in action.”

Another important element of Chris Griscom’s work is accelerating the downfall of "you". “This is a magnificent conscious expansion of the human race as a whole,“ she writes. “We, as a species, are making a pivotal leap of consciousness into oneness, a consciousness in which we dissolve the illusion of separation from the Divine.”

Griscom teaches that, according to cosmic law, we must continually expand the expression of the Divine. This is why we have come into body. That we now have the great opportunity in our bodies to be the expression of Divinity, to further the expression of the Divine; and that we, as human beings, have the unique opportunity to do so from the position of the heart chakra.

“The human heart and the capacity to hold a sense of being, a point of light in the universe, expands in quantum leaps[,sic] the divine expression.”

Griscom teaches that we can learn to use our creative energy to activate the "heart chakra". We can shift our consciousness from the lower chakras, which are solely concerned with survival and procreation, to the "heart chakra". Once we learn this, we will move on to “the ever radiant (dimension) of life, where the heart is activated, where there is no separation, where there is a true merger with the Divine.” We will, she says, become the embodiment of the Divine force.

Quotes of Chris Griscom

• "You will always be attracted to something that is going to create change within you." - Ecstasy is a New Frequency pp. 41

• "We have come to the edge of the world. We are standing right there on the precipice waiting for the whisper of courage to give us the strength to jump. If we align ourselves to the power of change, we will leave the limitations that beset our forefathers and soar freely into a New World." - Psychogenetics pp. 61

• "As we take up the power to look on the world and see it as a mirror of ourselves, we begin to find the strength to pass through fear to the other side.to the shore of Knowing." - Healing of Emotion pp. 57

• "Where there is no resistance, there is no harm." - Ecstasy is a New Frequency pp. 108

• "We are in tandem with all human cultures and will always be interdependent. What they felt or do now creates a sounding board from which we hear and see our own lives. We may not feel that we care, but we must, because the flicker of their experiences has become the flame of our potential." - Psychogenetics pp. 92

• "That we might transcend the limitations of our present lives is a probable reality we are fast approaching. If we are going to alter our genes, extend our physical horizons, seek and embrace the secrets of the gods, we must give ourselves permission to be who we truly are The “adventure” is staring us in the face. Let us step forward as fearless beings. There is nothing unknown, unwhispered, unforeseen. We can never lose life; we can only be foolish enough to deny it." - Healing of Emotion pp. 137