Healing This Wounded Earth

The world is seriously wounded threatened by violence egocentricity and mass consumerism. Government intervention alone will never solve society's problems. We need personal responsibility and healing on a global scale. This carefully researched book skillfully weaves science and spirituality with philosophy and ancient wisdom using potent imagery of the Wounded Healer embodied in the life of Jesus Christ the story of the healing centaur Chiron and the work of the indigenous shaman. Through suffering his own physical and mental wounds the Wounded Healer acquires a special empathy for recognizing and healing the wounds of others. This book is full of hope as it speaks to a palpable global shift towards holistic and spiritual values. Through the healing needs of relationship our economy our environment and the living Gaia and finally the curing professions of pastoral and medical care it shows how we may all become catalysts for social change for a happier and more peaceful world.

The world is seriously wounded threatened by violence egocentricity and mass consumerism. Government intervention alone will never solve society's problems. We need personal responsibility and healing on a global scale. This carefully researched book skillfully weaves science and spirituality with philosophy and ancient wisdom using potent imagery of the Wounded Healer embodied in the life of Jesus Christ the story of the healing centaur Chiron and the work of the indigenous shaman. Through suffering his own physical and mental wounds the Wounded Healer acquires a special empathy for recognizing and healing the wounds of others. This book is full of hope as it speaks to a palpable global shift towards holistic and spiritual values. Through the healing needs of relationship our economy our environment and the living Gaia and finally the curing professions of pastoral and medical care it shows how we may all become catalysts for social change for a happier and more peaceful world.

First published in 1989, Dan Allender's The Wounded Heart has helped hundreds of thousands of people come to terms with sexual abuse in their past. Now, more than twenty-five years later, Allender has written a brand-new book on the subject that takes into account recent discoveries about the lasting physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual ramifications of sexual abuse. With great compassion Allender offers hope for victims of rape, date rape, incest, molestation, sexting, sexual bullying, unwanted advances, pornography, and more, exposing the raw wounds that are left behind and clearing the path toward wholeness and healing. Never minimizing victims' pain or offering pat spiritual answers that don't truly address the problem, he instead calls evil evil and lights the way to renewed joy. Counselors, pastors, and friends of those who have suffered sexual harm will find in this book the deep spiritual guidance they need to effectively minister to the sexually broken around them. Victims themselves will find here a sympathetic friend to walk alongside them on the road to healing.

Healing a Wounded World is a study of world wisdom traditions in the context of the historical human problems they undertake to address and alleviate. This study takes its cues from the Sufi-inspired novel Shikasta by Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, illustrating and elucidating this modern example of the traditional practice of using fiction to convey social and spiritual lessons. In this sense, Healing a Wounded World might be described as an account of the facts behind the fiction, demonstrating commonalities of world religions in their function of diagnosing and remedying 'diseases' in the body of humanity. The immediate underlying inspiration of Healing a Wounded world, Lessing's masterwork Shikasta, presents a panoramic picture of the human condition and a dramatic description of the modern predicament. A major contribution of Lessing's work in Shikasta is in having brought to the public a wealth of spirituality and wisdom in a secular context and a nondogmatic manner relevant to everyday life, beyond the boundaries of formal religion and sectarian conventions. As a work of social criticism and a cautionary tale, the message of Shikasta is if anything more important now than ever; the current corona virus pandemic, and the rise of virulent nationalism, indeed, are dramatic reminders of the immense importance of what Doris Lessing refers to in Shikasta as 'Substance-of-We-Feeling,' essential to the survival of life on earth.

There is a mental malaise creeping through the collective human mindset. Mass psychosis is becoming normalized. It is time to break free... One of the key problems facing human beings today is that we do not look after our minds. As a consequence, we are unaware of the malicious impacts that infiltrate and influence us on a daily basis. This lack of awareness leaves people open and vulnerable. Many of us have actually become alienated from our own minds, argues Kingsley L. Dennis. This is how manipulations occur that result in phenomena such as crowd behaviour and susceptibility to political propaganda, consumerist advertising and social management. Mass psychosis is only possible because humanity has become alienated from its transcendental source. In this state, we are prisoners to the impulses that steer our unconscious. We may believe we have freedom, but we don’t. Healing the Wounded Mind discusses these external influences in terms of a collective mental disease – the wetiko virus (Forbes), ahrimanic forces (Steiner), the alien mind (Castaneda), and the collective unconscious shadow (Jung). The human mind has been targeted by corrupt forces that seek to exploit our thinking on a grand scale. This is the ‘magician’s trick’ that has kept us captive within the social systems that both distract and subdue us. In the first part of this transformative book, the author outlines how the Wounded Mind manifests in cultural conditioning, from childhood onwards. In the second part, he examines how ‘hypermodern’ cultures are being formed by this mental psychosis and shaping our brave new world. In an inspiring conclusion, we are shown the gnostic path to freedom through connecting with the transcendental source of life. ‘Recognizing the root causes of the malaise ... is a crucial step, and I hope that the readers of this brilliant and profound book will recognize the urgency of taking it. – Ervin Laszlo ‘Kingsley Dennis, with eloquence and erudition, knows how to enter a field that most people find daunting, by way of a relentless search for new ways of thinking. Dennis, like few others, exhibits a timeless enthusiasm for discovery.’ – James Cowan, author of A Mapmaker’s Dream ‘Again, Kingsley Dennis demonstrates that he is one of very few thinkers who seem to understand the scope and subtlety of the immense transition that humanity is experiencing...’ – John L. Petersen, founder of the Arlington Institute

A radically fresh interpretation of how we can best serve others from the bestselling author of The Return of the Prodigal Son, hailed as “one of the world’s greatest spiritual writers” by Christianity Today “In our own woundedness, we can become a source of life for others.” In this hope-filled and profoundly simple book, Henri Nouwen inspires devoted men and women who want to be of service in their church or community but who have found traditional outreach alienating and ineffective. Weaving keen cultural analysis with his psychological and religious insights, Nouwen presents a balanced and creative theology of service that begins with the realization of fundamental woundedness in human nature. According to Nouwen, ministers are called to identify the suffering in their own hearts and make that recognition the starting point of their service. Ministers must be willing to go beyond their professional, somewhat aloof roles and leave themselves open as fellow human beings with the same wounds and suffering as those they serve. In other words, we heal from our wounds. The Wounded Healer is a thoughtful and insightful guide that will be welcomed by anyone engaged in the service of others.

Using refreshingly unconventional prose, rising theologian Wendy Farley has written a theological account of the human condition that delves into the deepest dimensions of the soul. Considering human life from the perspective of the wounding and healing of desire, with desire being that within us which longs for connection, home, and beauty, Farley presents a passionate, moving account of the human condition that draws strongly upon the Christian meditative and mystical spiritual traditions. In doing so, Farley shifts the traditional images of sin and redemption into images of healing and power. The result is a theological memoir that reaches into the human depths and draws forth a response of the soul--in courage, compassion, and delight.

This scientifically rigorous and philosophically sophisticated defense of environmentalism is meant to excite, educate, and alarm the reader. There is a widespread scientific and public recognition that the world is facing an environmental crisis of vast proportions. What is the relationship between the growth of human population and industrial activity on one hand and the environmental crisis on the other? If this is not determined and dealt with, Earth's ecology may be expected to collapse.