One of “the most comprehensive, erudite, and timely” explorations of power dynamics and authoritarianism in religions, institutions, relationships and even personal struggles (San Francisco Chronicle Book Review) Authoritarian control, which once held societies together, is now at the core of personal, social, and planetary problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. Authoritarianism is embedded in the way people think—hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very morality people try to live by. In The Guru Papers, authors Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad unmask authoritarianism in areas such as relationships, cults, 12-step groups, religion, and contemporary morality. Chapters on addiction and love show the insidious nature of authoritarian values and ideologies in the most intimate corners of life, offering new frameworks for understanding why people get addicted and why intimacy is laden with conflict. By exposing the inner authoritarian that people use to control themselves and others, the authors show why people give up their power, and how others get and maintain it.

Coercive Control provides a beacon for survivors of partner abuse. Parker's nonjudgmental, empathic voice offers knowledge gleaned from years of experience. Survivors gain answers to frequently asked questions: • Am I being abused? • Why do they hurt me? • Why do I feel so crazy? • What can I change? • Why do they believe they should control us? • How do I recognize abuse of power? • How do I heal? Each chapter contains illustrative vignettes and suggestions for reflection to assist readers in discovering what they want. Coercive Relationships lifts the private shame survivors feel by connecting their abusers' actions to societal values and beliefs that permit all forms of violence.

Originally presented as the author's dissertation (Ph. D.--University of Chicago, 2010).

Psychoanalysts have traditionally been expert at uncovering what afflicts and damages people, argues Jeffrey B. Rubin, but by focusing on narcissism and perversions, depression and sadism, psychoanalysis has all too often disregarded what nourishes and sustains us. In The Good Life, he demonstrates how psychoanalysis can make a profound contribution to the well-lived life by drawing on a neglected but potent aspect of psychoanalysis—its capacity to illuminate a psychology of health as well as illness. Rubin shows that, at its best, psychoanalysis can highlight both the ingredients of love, ethics, creativity, and spirituality, as well as the obstacles to experiencing them. Exploring the good life from this dual perspective provides an indispensable resource for helping us live with greater meaning and vitality.

This lively, passionate approach to moving meditation offers a fresh way to embrace mindfulness. It weaves together personal stories, therapeutic insights, practical skills and opportunities for reflection and practice to provide a gateway to spiritual growth, a path to more balanced living, a healing experience and ignition for your creativity.

Explains how to successfully navigate the process of initiation, instruction, testing, and self-transformation under the guidance of a spiritual teacher • Explores how to approach a teacher for initiation and the importance of gauging your inner response and feeling of trust and resonance with the teacher • Discusses the process of separating from a spiritual teacher and how to negotiate the emotional conflicts that can arise at this stage • Shares the author's experiences with several remarkable teachers and details lessons learned through testing and confronting doubts and fears In the search for inner awakening and self-realization, a spiritual mentor can be key to advancement. Yet the process of finding an authentic spiritual teacher who resonates with you can be daunting, especially for anyone who has had a negative experience with a guide. Exploring the emotional nuances of mentoring relationships, Greg Bogart details the path of spiritual apprenticeship: the process of aligning with a teacher, establishing a dynamic spiritual practice, and the later stages of separation and finding the teacher within. The author explores the importance of gauging your inner response and feeling of trust and resonance with a teacher and your readiness to receive initiation. He explains how the teacher-student relationship affects the student’s state of consciousness over time and how most students eventually need to become independent from their spiritual guides. Describing emotional conflicts that can arise at this stage, he shows how wise teachers accept our need to separate and graduate while immature teachers try to thwart and control us. Openly sharing his own personal journey, the author illustrates the lasting resonance of his encounters with several provocative spiritual mentors, including Swami Muktananda and Dane Rudhyar. He discusses how some fierce teachers practice "crazy wisdom" to confront our doubts, fears, and fixations and to activate our dormant potentials. Examining practices in Hindu and Tibetan Buddhist Yoga, Sufism, and Jewish and Christian mysticism, he also explores the deeper mystical aspects of the guru-student relationship. The author shows how, ultimately, initiation leads the spiritual seeker to find the teacher within and how this can naturally lead to teaching others. Describing nine stages of the spiritual seeker’s journey, the author affirms that a direct path to self-liberation is still attainable through initiation and instruction in the company of sages.

Three issues of paramount importance -- namely, fundamentalism, spiritual abuse, and terrorism -- are brought together in one volume in a way that delineates the interconnected dynamics of these topics. Moreover, these central themes are engaged from a variety of perspectives ranging from, on the one hand, psychology, sociology and philosophy, to, on the other hand, history, political science, and religion. The author draws upon more than forty-five years of experience on the Sufi path to lend a unique perspective to the manner in which terrorism, fundamentalism, and spiritual abuse are explored and analyzed throughout the book.

No religious or mystical tradition is immune from the presence of spiritual abuse, for wherever there are people who are seeking to become closer to essential truths, purpose, and meaning, there will be individuals seeking to generate counterfeit currency to offer to those who are unaware, or incautious toward the dangers which lie in wait along the spiritual path. Fraudulent teachers might call themselves a guru, shaykh, rimpoche, monk, priest, imam, apostle, avatar, or minister. They might also call themselves educators, revolutionaries, political leaders, and freedom fighters. Whatever they might call themselves, if they seek to gain control over others through techniques of undue influence, then, they are propagators of spiritual abuse. This book is relevant to individuals from all spiritual traditions, but often focuses on the Sufi spiritual tradition.

Climate change negotiations have failed the world. Despite more than thirty years of high-level, global talks on climate change, we are still seeing carbon emissions rise dramatically. This edited volume, comprising leading and emerging scholars and climate activists from around the world, takes a critical look at what has gone wrong and what is to be done to create more decisive action. Composed of twenty-eight essays—a combination of new and republished texts—the anthology is organised around seven main themes: paradigms; what counts?; extraction; dispatches from a climate change frontline country; governance; finance; and action(s). Through this multifaceted approach, the contributors ask pressing questions about how we conceptualise and respond to the climate crisis, providing both ‘big picture’ perspectives and more focussed case studies. This unique and extensive collection will be of great value to environmental and social scientists alike, as well as to the general reader interested in understanding current views on the climate crisis.

The decline of the Christian churches in the West is undeniable but commentators differ in their understanding of what this represents. For some it shows a decline in interest in religion as such; for others, religion has not declined, it has only changed its shape. Possible candidates for Christianity's replacement are the new religious movements of the late 1960s and what is variously called New Age, alternative or contemporary spirituality. Secular Beats Spiritual offers a detailed study of the religious and spiritual innovations of the last 50 years. It assesses their popularity in the UK and concludes that the 'not decline-just change' view cannot be sustained. Serious interest in spirituality has grown far less quickly than has the number of us who have no religious or spiritual interest. The most popular and enduring movements have been the least religious ones and those that have survived have done so by becoming more 'this-worldly' and less patently religious or spiritual. Yoga is popular but as a secular exercise programme; Transcendental Meditation now markets its meditational technique as a purely secular therapy; British Buddhists now offer the secular Mindfulness; and the Findhorn Foundation (Europe's oldest New Age centre) is no longer the germ of a counter-cultural communalism but sells its expertise to major corporations. Steve Bruce also demonstrates that, although eastern religious themes (such as reincarnation and karma) have become more popular as the power of the Christian churches to stigmatise them has declined, such themes have also been significantly altered so that what superficially looks like the easternization of the West might better be described as the westernization of the easternization of the West.