Well worth reading
Inspiration and insight also come to me through books, here are some of my favorite and most recent:
The Atman Project: A Transpersonal View of Human Development
Wilber traces human development from infancy into adulthood and beyond, into those states described by mystics and spiritual adepts. The spiritual evolution of such extraordinary individuals as the Buddha and Jesus hints at the direction human beings will take in their continuing growth toward transcendence.
The book is praised as the first psychology that comprehensively succeeds in uniting Eastern and Western, conventional and contemplative, orthodox and mystical thought in a coherent context. This important introduction to Ken Wilber’s thinking on the development of human consciousness has been supplemented by the author with a new preface in which he makes a connection between his relatively early book and the more current trends in his thinking.
Ken Wilber writes in his new preface:
“We look for the soul in the world of time – but the soul is timeless and not to be found in the world of time. We seek the soul in the world of space – but the soul is spaceless and not to be found in the world of space. We look for the soul in this or that object, sparkling and fascinating and full of glory and splendor – but the soul is not an object, and it cannot be seen or comprehended in the world of things.
So we search for the soul in ways that prevent us from reaching our goal, and so we have to make do with consolation prizes, which keep pushing us through and trapping us in the unfortunate world of time and terror, space and death, sin and separation, loneliness and comfort. This is the Atman project.”
KEN WILBER, b. 1949, American philosopher and foremost exponent of transpersonal psychology. Considered a brilliant interdisciplinary thinker of our time and a major theorist of an integral worldview. His numerous books have been translated into many languages. He lives and works in Boulder, Colorado.
Up from Eden: A Transpersonal View of Human Evolution
Published 16.05.2007
This book chronicles humanity’s cultural and psychospiritual evolutionary journey over some six million years from its primal past into its dazzling cosmic future.
Science and the Akashic Field
“This important work unifies the realms of science and consciousness in a truly integral ‘theory of everything.’”
–Ralph Abraham, Ph.D., professor of mathematics, University of California, and coauthor of Chaos, Creativity, and Cosmic Consciousness
“A seminal book from one of the best thinkers of our time. Ervin Laszlo charts the Âfrontiers to which science is inexorably headed. In years to come people will look back at the amazing foresight of this work.”
–Peter Russell, fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences and the Findhorn Foundation and author of From Science to God
“With extraordinary intellectual clarity, Laszlo provides a vision that links the best of modern science to the wisdom of the great spiritual traditions.”
–Stanislav Grof, M.D., Ph.D., president and founder of the International Transpersonal Association and author of The Holotropic Mind
Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in vacuum physics show that this Akashic Field is real and has its equivalent in science’s zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic Field is the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that has happened on Earth and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.
In Science and the Akashic Field, philosopher and scientist Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this information field in language that is accessible and clear. From the world of science he confirms our deepest intuitions of the oneness of creation in the Integral Theory of Everything. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
ERVIN LASZLO, holder of the highest degree of the Sorbonne (the State Doctorate), is recipient of four Honorary Ph.D.s and numerous awards and distinctions, including the 2001 Goi Award (the Japan Peace Prize) and nominations for the 2004 and 2005 Nobel Peace Prizes. He is a former professor of philosophy, systems theory, and futures studies in the U.S., Europe, and the Far East and founder and president of the international think-tank the Club of Budapest as well as of the General Evolution Research Group. The author of 75 books, translated into 20 languages, he lives in Italy.
Healing Collective Trauma
A Process for Integrating Our Intergenerational and Cultural Wounds
A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Healing Shared Trauma
What can you do when you carry scars not on your body, but within your soul? And what happens when those spiritual wounds exist not just in you, but in everyone in your family, community, and even beyond?
Spiritual teacher Thomas Hübl has spent years investigating why it is that old and seemingly disconnected traumas can seed their way through communities and across generations. His work culminates in Healing Collective Trauma, a new perspective on trauma that addresses both its visible effects and its most hidden roots. Thomas combines deep knowledge of mystical traditions with the latest scientific research. “In this way,” writes Thomas, “we are weaving a double helix between ancient wisdom and contemporary understanding.”
Thomas details the Collective Trauma Integration Process, a group-based modality for evoking and eventually dissolving stuck traumatic energies. Providing structured practices for both students and group facilitators, Healing Collective Trauma is intended to build a practical tool kit for integration.
Here, you will learn:
- The innumerable ways trauma shapes our world-from identity and health to economy, geopolitics, and the state of the environment
- The concept of “trauma loyalty”-unconscious group bonds based in a pain narrative
- How the climate crisis is both a manifestation of humanity’s collective trauma and an opportunity to heal
- “Retrocausality”-how the power of presence can reshape the past and make new futures possible
Including essays contributed by experts such as Dr. Gabor Maté, Dr. Otto Scharmer, Dr. Christina Bethell, and Ken Wilber, Healing Collective Trauma offers not just an advanced look at community trauma but also a hopeful glimpse of the future. As Thomas declares, “Together, I believe we can and must heal the ‘soul wound’ that marks us all. In so doing, we will awaken to the luminous possibility and profound potential of our true, mutual nature as humankind.”
Integral Spirituality
A Startling New Role for Religion in the Modern and Postmodern World
This cutting-edge theory of spirituality for today’s global society honors the truths of modern science and postmodern culture while incorporating the wisdom of the great world religions.
Applying his highly acclaimed integral approach, Ken Wilber formulates a theory of spirituality that honors the truths of modernity and postmodernity—including the revolutions in science and culture—while incorporating the essential insights of the great religions. He shows how spirituality today combines the enlightenment of the East, which excels at cultivating higher states of consciousness, with the enlightenment of the West, which offers developmental and psychodynamic psychology. Each contributes key components to a more integral spirituality.
On the basis of this integral framework, a radically new role for the world’s religions is proposed. Because these religions have such a tremendous influence on the worldview of the majority of the earth’s population, they are in a privileged position to address some of the biggest conflicts we face. By adopting a more integral view, the great religions can act as facilitators of human development: from magic to mythic to rational to pluralistic to integral and to a global society that honors and includes all the stations of life along the way.
Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges
Access the deepest source of inspiration and vision
We live in a time of massive institutional failure that manifests in the form of three major divides: the ecological, the social, and the spiritual. Addressing these challenges requires a new consciousness and collective leadership capacity. In this groundbreaking book, Otto Scharmer invites us to see the world in new ways and in so doing discover a revolutionary approach to learning and leadership.
In most large systems today, we collectively create results that no one wants. What keeps us stuck in such patterns of the past? It’s our blind spot, that is, our lack of awareness of the inner place from which our attention and intention originate. By moving through Scharmer’s U process, we consciously access the blind spot and learn to connect to our authentic Self—the deepest source of knowledge and inspiration. Theory U offers a rich diversity of compelling stories, examples, exercises, and practices that allow leaders, organizations, and larger systems to cosense and coshape the future that is wanting to emerge.
This second edition features a new preface in which Scharmer identifies five transformational trends and describes U process case stories around the world. There are also eight color drawings by Kelvy Bird that capture U journey applications and illustrate the concepts in the book, as well as new resources for applying the principles and practices.
