The environmentalist author of Desert Solitaire presents an autobiographical novel of an aging man’s anarchic journey across America in search of home. The Fool’s Progress, the “fat masterpiece” as Edward Abbey labeled it, is his most important piece of writing: it reveals the complete Ed Abbey, from the green grass of his memory as a child in Appalachia to his approaching death in Tucson at age sixty two. When his third wife abandons him in Tucson, boozing, misanthropic anarchist Henry Holyoak Lightcap shoots his refrigerator and sets off in a battered pick-up truck for his ancestral home in West Virginia. Accompanied only by his dying dog and his memories, the irascible warhorse (a stand-in for the “real” Abbey) begins a bizarre cross-country odyssey—determined to make peace with his past—and to wage one last war against the ravages of “progress.” “A profane, wildly funny, brash, overbearing, exquisite tour de force.” —The Chicago Tribune

harbinger is the third and final book in the fools progress collection, containing harbinger, the stage as well as the playing fields of eto

Of all the oracle systems in use today, Tarot is arguably one of the better known. 78 Cards - 22 images which could be said to describe a journey through life and a further 56 which add people and textures to the main chapters of that adventure. As someone who has been exploring the Tarot for several decades, I can honestly say that it one of the most visually poetic embodiments of esoteric teachings available to the student of the arcane. It is frequently misrepresented as simply an oracle and given an esoteric history which is firmly in the realms of the fairy tale but when understood it is a symbolic initiatory system which opens a doorway to spiritual exploration. This book represents a way of taking a journey of self-discovery and in the process developing intuition and genuine insight.

Archetypes in various guises can be found among the twenty-two Tarot trumps. Above them stands the Fool as the archetype of an eternal pilgrim, who in this fantasy novel threads his way through the labyrinth of the world.

The Kanwar is India's largest annual religious pilgrimage. Millions of participants gather sacred water from the Ganga and carry it across hundreds of miles to dispense as offerings in Śiva shrines. These devotees—called bhola, gullible or fools, and seen as miscreants by many Indians—are mostly young, destitute men, who have been left behind in the globalizing economy. But for these young men, the ordeal of the pilgrimage is no foolish pursuit, but a means to master their anxieties and attest their good faith in unfavorable social conditions. Vikash Singh walked with the pilgrims of the Kanwar procession, and with this book, he highlights how the procession offers a social space where participants can prove their talents, resolve, and moral worth. Working across social theory, phenomenology, Indian metaphysics, and psychoanalysis, Singh shows that the pilgrimage provides a place in which participants can simultaneously recreate and prepare for the poor, informal economy and inevitable social uncertainties. In identifying with Śiva, who is both Master of the World and yet a pathetic drunkard, participants demonstrate their own sovereignty and desirability despite their stigmatized status. Uprising of the Fools shows how religion today is not a retreat into tradition, but an alternative forum for recognition and resistance within a rampant global neoliberalism.

A memoir written by one of Edward Abbey's closest friends explores the life of the influential author and environmental activist.