Ebook: Six Steps Back to the Land

Activism and spirituality: What is an activist? -- Activism and community -- Activism and leadership -- Activism with a spiritual basis -- CASE STUDY: Mahatma Gandhi: the power of simple service -- Spirituality justified: A contested concept -- Spiritual but not religious? -- What is spirituality? -- Spirituality under intellectual fire -- A philosophical defence of spirituality -- Rediscovering pre-modernism -- CASE STUDY: Julia Butterfly Hill: breakdown to breakthough -- Higher consciousness: Side -effect or reality? -- States of consciousness -- Mystical experience and brain function -- Are higher states "abnormal"? -- Automization of the mind -- CASE STUDY: Gerard Winstanley: the spirit that made the globe -- The stucture of the psyche: Psychology colonized -- The rise of transpersonal psychology -- Psychohistory, feudalism and rationalism -- Sigmund Freud -- Carl Gustav Jung -- Key Jungian concepts -- Abraham Maslow and Manfred Max-Neef -- Roberto Assagioli -- Wilhelm Reich -- Alice Miller -- Lessons from social psychology -- Activism, identity and psychotherapy -- CASE STUDY: Basava: the moving ever shall stay -- Movements and their movers: Leadership and conscientisation -- Masters and emissaries -- Fire in the bones -- Prophetic justice -- Shamanic calling -- Shamanic elements -- Bardic calling -- CASE STUDY: Anne Hope & Sally Timmel: training for transformation -- Understanding cults and charisma: Why study spiritual failure? -- What is a cult? -- Cognitive dissonance and cults -- Peudoscience -- Secular cults -- Authority and charisma's downside -- Love's charisma can go right -- CASE STUDY: Mama Efua: shifting religion's shadow side -- Nonviolence and the powers that be: Pussy Riot and liberation theology -- Naming, unmasking and engaging the powers -- Breaking the spiral of violence -- Nonviolence in action -- Peace and Judeo-Christianity -- Peace and Islam -- Pashtum resistance to the British Raj -- Redeeming leadership -- CASE STUDY: Muhammad (pbuh): spiritual revolution -- The psychodynamics of campaigning: Waking up -- Ego inflation versus karma yoga -- False selves, inversion and shadowstrike -- Madness versus craziness -- Transference and countertransference -- Compartmentalization, splitting and projection -- Love and anger -- A family affair -- CASE STUDY: Sojourner Truth: ain't I a woman? -- Tools for discernment: Truth and opening of the way -- Discernment and humility -- Working under concern -- Meetings for clearness -- Support groups and avoiding burnout -- Mentoring and eldership -- CASE STUDY: Desmond Tutu: truth and reconciliation -- Into the deeper magic: Magic and redemption -- To bless, to curse or to withhold? -- Psychological honesty -- Meditation and mindful presence -- Prayer on the interior battlefield -- Of runes and dreams -- Living with a prophet -- Erotic activism -- The quickening -- CASE STUDY: Gehan Macleod: urban poverty and rural vision -- Afterword -- Glossary.;"Provides a clear look at spiritual activism and the ways it can help us to be better activists, better leaders, and more comfortable with our own spirituality Over the past half century, our understanding and awareness of spirituality has changed in nature, as have the issues facing activists. Spirituality is rising up the agenda for activists because it offers distinct, tried and tested approaches to deep questions such as Where did it all go wrong? What does it mean to be human? What is the place of leadership? What is the nature of power? This book starts from scratch, defining spirituality for a generation sometimes dazzled by the claims of materialism. Where others attempt to distinguish science and religion, Spiritual Activism instead contrasts spirituality and materialism. The text is peppered with tales from the authors' activist experience and includes case studies of inspirational spiritual activists that demonstrate the transformative power of spiritual principles in action"--Publisher's description.