Book Description:

Our culture is psychotic in its rift between the personal and the planetary, maintains Roszak ( The Making of a Counterculture ). Drawing freely on Jung, Freud and the Gaia hypothesis, the California State University historian posits an "ecological unconscious" in each person, a living record of cosmic evolution capable of linking us synergistically to the natural environment. But this awareness has been repressed, he contends in a bold, ambitious philosophical essay. His sketchy outline of a new discipline and therapy, "ecopsychology," is built around a dense critique of tribal animism, systems theory, Teilhard de Chardin, humanistic psychology, ecofeminism and "deep ecology," the mystical-feminist wing of environmentalism. The tools of Roszak's therapy include communion with wilderness, nature mysticism and traditional healing techniques, coupled with a sizing down of large cities, which he condemns for their inhuman scale.

Book Description:

Michael Cohen's Reconnecting With Nature is about finding wellness through restoring our bond with the Earth. Most of us have been conditioned to ignore nearly fifty sensitivities that connect us to the natural world. This separation stress contributes to many of our environmental and personal problems. Through the chapters and activities of Reconnecting With Nature, Dr. Cohen suggests ways to use nature's wisdom to re-awaken dormant sensitivities, rebuild our spiritual connection with the Earth and enhance our personal well-being. Reconnecting With Nature is highly rewarding reading for anyone with an interest in nature and how nature can inspire us and heal us, trapped as we most often are, in the spiritual desert of an urban wilderness with its steel canyons, glass walls, asphalt roads, concrete sidewalks, every present noise, invasive crowds, and the multiple pollutions of mind and body.

Book Description:

When we think of environmentalism, we call to mind a vast, worldwide movement that deals in imponderably complex social and economic issues on the largest conceivable scale. This is truly a breakthrough book. It makes crystal clear that the natural world is not just an `environment' around us, but it is us, existing inside our souls and minds. This is a very exciting book of enormous interest for everyone concerned with the future of our species--environmentalists and legislators, industrialists and educators, you and me. Its message should become part of Western thought.

Book Description:

Metzner, who worked at Harvard in the 1960s with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert (they co-wrote The Psychedelic Experience), is currently a psychotherapist in California and the author of several books, including Maps of Consciousness. At once visionary and down-to-earth, his latest is an often profound exploration of the deeply disturbed relationship between humanity and nature, which, in his diagnosis, is leading to worldwide ecological destruction. Building on the work of Mircea Eliade, Marija Gimbutas and others, Metzner traces our dissociation from Mother Earth some 6000 years back, when invading Indo-European tribes conquered the relatively peaceful, matriarchal cultures of Old Europe, replacing Earth Goddess worship with sky-and-war-god religions and patriarchy.

Book Description:

Charting a course through the underworld pathways with the heart of a shaman, mapping the powers of myth and psyche with all the soul and interpretive skill of Jung or Campbell, Plotkin's guide to the journey of initiation is to nature-based soulwork what Huxley's Doors of Perception was to consciousness studies. This book is an immense treasure that will provide wisdomseekers, psychologists, shamanic practitioners, and seasoned wilderness guides alike with a fresh heart-opening soul language, a new mythos for fathoming the depths of change, as well as time-tested practical methods for navigating the landscape of authentic transformation. In essence, Soulcraft is Plotkin's "soul gift," a user's manual for the journey of the human soul, as well as a guide to the futurescape of why we are all really here. It is required reading for anyone guiding other people in soulwork, or delving deep into their own. As philosopher Parker Palmer has said, "The way to God is down." Plotkin shows the way.