PORTLAND (AP) – From Baha’is to Zen, Maine has a diverse collection of little-known religious sites, says the author of a guidebook.

“When I started looking around, I was amazed at what I was finding in Maine,” said Karen Wentworth Batignani of Kennebunk. “I think people have a notion of Maine being a spiritual place. I think there are a lot of seekers here.”

While many Mainers may know something about the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake in New Gloucester or have heard of the Franciscan Friars in Kennebunk, probably few are aware of a Zen meditation hall in the Down East community of Surry.

Batignani, author of the book, “Exploring the Spirit of Maine: A Seeker’s Guide,” has also found a Hindu community and healing retreat deep in the woods of Industry, two schools for shamanism, and one that ordains high priestesses.

A former inn on the Piscataqua River in Eliot is regarded as a sacred place by Baha’is from all over the world. The book also includes the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception in Portland, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church in Maine, and the Iseum Musicum and the Temple of the Feminine Divine in Bangor.

Spirit Passages teaches shamanism in Yarmouth, and The Standing Bear Center for Shamanic Studies is in Surry. The book tells the story of each of those, plus dozens of other offerings around the state.

Batignani said she doesn’t have a strong religious identity of her own and wondered whether she was the right person to put together such a guidebook. But she found new spirituality following an illness that resulted in the removal of a tumor from her brain.

The 49-year-old former schoolteacher also found that “the more I wrote, I realized that’s a good thing because I could be open-minded.”

Batignani is also author of “Maine’s Coastal Cemeteries – A Historic Tour.”

Both books are published by Down East Books.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, https://www.pressherald.com

AP-ES-01-28-06 1032EST