"...her encouragement to allow for the authenticity of mystical experience in the therapeutic process opens up a powerful route toward healing to those whose souls yearn beyond the material world."—Publisher's Weekly
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING, which is so crucial for psychological health, has lost its traditional anchors. As a result, millions of individuals are creating their own belief systems. This shift began back in the Sixties, as people left traditional religion and began exploring other forms of spirituality.
Social contradictions demonstrate the complex factors around the topic of the spiritual life in the West. We have reached a pivotal moment where many negative forces seem to be pulling us apart, even while powerful forces for the good, especially seen through rapidly growing global communication, are bringing people around the world ever closer together. Today’s meaning will be found through reclaiming and transforming our traditional spiritual anchors.
“Judith Miller is uniquely placed to advance our grasp of the issues raised in this book…. She has a wealth of personal experience through which she has developed a refined sense of what spirituality means for the ‘Western soul;’ and she is able to draw on the experiences of those whom she has sensitively guided through psychological and spiritual growth….” —Brian L. Lancaster Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Transpersonal Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK; Academic Dean for Transpersonal Psychology at the Professional Foundation, UK.
“She has simply looked into the faces of many people who have had Western grounded spiritual experiences and who have had them rejected by both peers and helpers. When those same people had the same experiences subsequently affirmed and explored, they were healed and liberated. Her conclusions are grounded in massive amount of clinical experience. This is the daring counter-cultural revelation that many of our ‘helpers’ neglect and even disdain the Judeo-Christian mystical experiences of those who come to them, in spite of the fact that many of our authentic mystical experiences in the West are expressed in those very images and language. I found myself wanting to send a copy of this book to every postmodern person I know with a note saying ‘Hey, how about this!’” —Paul R. Smith, author of Integral Christianity: The Spirit’s Call to Evolve
“Sage wisdom to share about the spiritual journey and how we can often find in our own backyards what we have set out to discover by pursuing dusty trails leading to exotic places that don’t speak to us nearly as clearly.” —David Lukoff Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Sofia University in Palo Alto, CA, Co-president of Association of Transpersonal Psychology
“Dr. Miller takes us to a fascinating spiritual and intellectual journey as a compassionate guide, a brilliant cartographer, and a kind bridge builder between many valleys and hills of psychology and spirituality…. The ‘must read’ for all people, from the East and West, who want to heal wounds from traditional religions and to find their spiritual home in relation to deep insights from psychology. A great achievement!” —Dr. Chung Hyun Kyung Ph.D., Professor of Interfaith Engagement, Union Theological Seminary, New York City
“At a time of global cultural fusion, Judith Miller calls us back to attend to the spiritual forms that we took on consciously and unconsciously in the early years of our development. She insists that our healing has to take place in the tradition we were first at home in, not in traditions and languages that remain exotic to us and consequently lose their power to articulate precisely and to evoke experience with profundity—just as poetry does—in translation.” —Dr. Melvyn Hill is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago, he studied with the distinguished historian of religions, Mircea Eliade.
“In our common work, which is experiential and scientific, she dares more than other psychotherapists and spiritual leaders to help people to heal their deepest wounds and find their authentic spiritual grounding. I appreciate Judith’s scientific competence and reliability. And she has a bigger knowledge which is beyond the brain, unspeakable, comes directly from the heart.” —Ingo Jahrsetz, Wittnau, Germany, Dr. Phil. President of European Transpersonal Association 2009-2013; Founder and Director of Institute of Consciousness Exploration and Psychotherapy; Honorary Chairman of the Spiritual Emergence Network, e.V. (SEN) Germany; Holotropic Breathwork practitioner and trainer.
“…a milestone and a ‘must have’ for every spiritual seeker and professional working in the field of Psychology, and Psychotherapy who aims to integrate the spiritual dimension in a profound and trustworthy way.” —Stefan Dressler, M.D., is a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Freiburg, Germany, who combines psychodynamic psychotherapy with holotropic breathwork™. He has a special interest in integrating the transpersonal and spiritual level into the work with clients suffering psychotic episodes.
“The reader will find the clarity of a top-class teacher along with the large vision of the mystic and the sound reasoning of the scholar. Authentic life experience dilemmas, research, and breakthroughs presented in a very positive, loving and constructive way.” —Vitor Rodrigues, Ph.D., Psychotherapist, past President of the European Transpersonal Association and author of books on Social Criticism, Science-Fiction, Self-Help Manuals, Psychic Defense, and Regression Therapy.
“Dr. Miller offers the wisdom and the means for reclaiming our Western spiritual heritage. She also points to the universality of true mystical experiences and insights that, when properly understood, unite East and West.” —Lawrence Edwards, Ph.D., Founder and Director of Anam Cara, President of the Kundalini Research Network, the integrative care clinical manager at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, on the faculty of New York Medical College, and author of The Soul’s Journey: Guidance From The Divine Within.
“Healing the Western Soul is a pioneering breakthrough for personal and cultural healing in our unprecedented global age. Dr. Miller brings to integral focus her remarkable spiritual intelligence, wealth of psychotherapeutic experience and unique skills in assisting many who face spiritual emergencies to a creative frontier. Her central teaching is that we need to go deeper into our home culture, religion, or tradition to tap our spiritual roots, for without claiming the past, it is impossible to move forward. This vital insight is supported by the consensus of our collective endowment of global wisdom and spiritual enlightenment when seen in a dilated global light. For when we dilate our hearts and minds and gain access to the Source of our great spiritual and awakening teachers—Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, Socrates, Lao Tzu, to name a few, there is a striking consensus that there is an Infinite Force, Infinite Presence, by whatever Name, that sources all our great religious, philosophical, and spiritual traditions.” —Ashok Gangadean Ph.D., Margaret Gest Professor of Global Philosophy, Haverford College, USA and author of Meditations of Global First Philosophy; Quest for the Missing Grammar of Logos and Awakening of the Global Mind; A New Philosophy for Healing Ourselves and Our World. www.awakeningmind.org