Powerful ancient and leading edge visions and teachings for healing ourselves and our world through meditation prayer and sacred plant practices.

Explains our spiritual predicament in this time of crisis and transformation and offers extensively field tested teachings and tools for awakening including meditation, prayer and sacred plant medicines.

Anyone seeking a deeper understanding of human spirituality will find something of value in Michael Washburn's new book. Drawing on a rich variety of psychoanalytic, Jungian, and existential-phenomenological sources and on both Western and Asian spiritual texts, Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World provides a theoretical foundation for the idea that human development follows a spiral path. Washburn shows that ego development early in life requires us to turn our backs on original sources of our existence and, therefore, that spiritual development later in life requires us to spiral back to these sources on the way to whole-psyche integration. He elucidates the underlying causes and pivotal events that set development on its spiral course and traces six major dimensions of experience as they unfold along the spiral path: the unconscious, the energy system, the ego system, the perceived other, the experiential body, and the life-world. In providing a theoretical foundation for the idea of the spiral path, Washburn defends the idea against its critics and helps explain why the idea has been compelling to so many people in diverse traditions.

World travelers and armchair tourists who want to explore the mythology and archaeology of the ruins, sanctuaries, mountains, lost cities, and temples of ancient civilizations will find this guide ideal. Detailed here are the monuments and sites where ancient peoples once gathered to perform sacred rituals and ceremonies to worship various gods and to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Important archaeological, historical, and geological destinations worldwide are profiled, from the Great Pyramid in Egypt and the Forbidden City in China to the Temples of Angkor in Cambodia and Mount Shasta in California. Sites are described in historical and cultural context, and practical contemporary travel information is provided, including detailed maps, drawings, photographs, and travel directions.

Are you looking for inner peace? Do you seek a deeper understanding of yourself and the spiritual world? Have you followed the popular prescriptions for enlightenment and still found yourself unsatisfied? Return to The Sacred is a fascinating guide that will help you understand the importance of spiritual practice and the great diversity of paths that are available to you. This is a book that does more than provide philosophy and inspiration; it gives you the freedom to find a path that works for you and the knowledge to experience the answers for yourself. You’ll learn about the time-tested tools of spiritual growth that will help you discover extraordinary depths of wisdom, power, and peace. Return to The Sacred will introduce you to the 12 Master Paths and Practices that have transformed the lives of countless saints, mystics, masters, and sages since the beginning of history. In this book, you’ll find what you need to discover your spiritual personality and choose the path that will lead you toward the realization of boundless joy and a lifelong journey of meaning. Jonathan Ellerby, Ph.D., weaves threads of personal growth and comparative religion into captivating true tales of spiritual adventures with teachers and healers around the world. Through colorful stories and clear reflections, he presents a perspective that reveals the rewards of spiritual practice, and a realistic understanding of the deep commitments and challenging steps along the way. Return to The Sacred is an inspiring journey around the globe and into the furthest reaches of Spirit.

A listing of five hundred sites new and old, famous and unknown, that have been used to connect humanity with its gods.

Are you looking for inner peace? Do you seek a deeper understanding of yourself and the spiritual world? Have you followed the popular prescriptions for enlightenment and still found yourself unsatisfied? Return to The Sacred is a fascinating guide that will help you understand the importance of spiritual practice and the great diversity of paths that are available to you. This is a book that does more than provide philosophy and inspiration; it gives you the freedom to find a path that works for you and the knowledge to experience the answers for yourself. You’ll learn about the time-tested tools of spiritual growth that will help you discover extraordinary depths of wisdom, power, and peace. Return to The Sacred will introduce you to the 12 Master Paths and Practices that have transformed the lives of countless saints, mystics, masters, and sages since the beginning of history. In this book, you’ll find what you need to discover your spiritual personality and choose the path that will lead you toward the realization of boundless joy and a lifelong journey of meaning. Jonathan Ellerby, Ph.D., weaves threads of personal growth and comparative religion into captivating true tales of spiritual adventures with teachers and healers around the world. Through colorful stories and clear reflections, he presents a perspective that reveals the rewards of spiritual practice, and a realistic understanding of the deep commitments and challenging steps along the way. Return to The Sacred is an inspiring journey around the globe and into the furthest reaches of Spirit.