A comprehensive summary of the author's revolutionary approach to psychosis.

This book is for anyone experiencing acute depression, anxiety, or emotional turmoil which doesn?t necessarily need to be medicalised. It offers holistic information that is not readily available within mainstream mental healthcare, encompassing the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual. Topics include: · Why it?s vital to get the right support · Revisioning mental health · Working with soul · Healing approaches · Taking responsibility for our healing · Reaching out for support · Finding the right health care professionals · Focussing on success stories · Getting rid of the toxic · Making lifestyle changes · Seeing illness as a gift

Personal stories of spiritual crises are presented alongside practical and effective guidance in this exploration of a fascinating phenomenon. When spiritual emergencies, such as mystical psychosis and dark nights of the soul, are understood, managed, and integrated, they can offer enormous potential for growth and fulfillment, and this book offers three key phases for successful navigation. Encouraging, supportive, and life-saving, this resource is essential for avoiding the mental, emotional, or spiritual paralysis or exhaustion that can result from underestimating the current age of increased individual and global emergencies.

A bold call for the “insane” to reclaim their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural transformation • Explains how many of those diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other forms of “madness” are not ill but experiencing a spiritual awakening • Explores the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement • Reveals how those seen as “mad” must embrace their spiritual gifts to help the coming global spiritual transition Many of the great prophets of the past experienced madness--a breakdown followed by a breakthrough, spiritual death followed by rebirth. With the advent of modern psychiatry, the budding prophets of today are captured and transformed into chronic mental patients before they can flower into the visionaries and mystics they were intended to become. As we approach the tipping point between extinction and global spiritual awakening, there is a deep need for these prophets to embrace their spiritual gifts. To make this happen, we must learn to respect the sanctity of madness. We need to cultivate Mad Pride. Exploring the rise of Mad Pride and the mental patients’ liberation movement as well as building upon psychiatrist R. D. Laing’s revolutionary theories, Seth Farber, Ph.D., explains that diagnosing people as mad has more to do with social control than therapy. Many of those labeled as schizophrenic, bipolar, and other kinds of “mad” are not ill but simply experiencing different forms of spiritual awakening: they are seeing and feeling what is wrong with society and what needs to be done to change it. Farber shares his interviews with former schizophrenics who now lead successful and inspiring lives. He shows that it is impossible for society to change as long as the mad are suppressed because they are our catalysts of social change. By reclaiming their rightful role as prophets of spiritual and cultural revitalization, the mad--by seeding new visions for our future--can help humanity overcome the spiritual crisis that endangers our survival and lead us to a higher and long-awaited stage of spiritual development.

In this compelling book, C. Shakti Marquis explores not only the latest health research about animal products, but also looks at the latest ethical, environmental, psychological and ecospiritual reasons people are choosing veganism. She relates the philosophical shift in our dietary choices to the larger paradigm shift necessarily underway in our society to deal with the current ethical, economic, psychospiritual and health crises. Psychologically we were designed to want to live in harmony with, and care for, animals (here termed faunaphilia). She shows how our minds, our bodies and our natural food system were logically and beautifully designed to work together to create a lifestlye in which plants, animals, and people live harmoniously. The book discusses this new philosophy, which she terms the Vegan Paradise Paradigm. It also includes questions and activities, vegan deep ecology exercises, starter recipes and information on converting to the vegan lifestyle.

“Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly.” So begins La Marr Jurelle Bruce's urgent provocation and poignant meditation on madness in black radical art. Bruce theorizes four overlapping meanings of madness: the lived experience of an unruly mind, the psychiatric category of serious mental illness, the emotional state also known as “rage,” and any drastic deviation from psychosocial norms. With care and verve, he explores the mad in the literature of Amiri Baraka, Gayl Jones, and Ntozake Shange; in the jazz repertoires of Buddy Bolden, Sun Ra, and Charles Mingus; in the comedic performances of Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle; in the protest music of Nina Simone, Lauryn Hill, and Kendrick Lamar, and beyond. These artists activate madness as content, form, aesthetic, strategy, philosophy, and energy in an enduring black radical tradition. Joining this tradition, Bruce mobilizes a set of interpretive practices, affective dispositions, political principles, and existential orientations that he calls “mad methodology.” Ultimately, How to Go Mad without Losing Your Mind is both a study and an act of critical, ethical, radical madness.

This authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of altered states of consciousness (ASC) shows how their study is necessary to gain a fundamental understanding of human culture, history, and biology. Altered consciousness is one of humanity's most mystical and life-altering aspects. These remarkable changes in mental state have understandably been a topic of general interest and scientific inquiry across time. Beyond simply satisfying our curiosity, however, studies focused upon altered consciousness can also bring valuable insights into our experience, biology, and culture. This unprecedented two-volume set will intrigue anyone interested in psychology, biology and neurology, science, history, arts and the humanities, and literature on consciousness, from general readers to scholars and researchers. An impressive collection of international contributors address altered states of consciousness from the perspectives of history, evolution, psychology, culture, literature, human biology, contemporary science, and society, seeking to illuminate the causes, effects, and meanings of altered consciousness. The first volume provides an introduction and centers on the importance of altered states in history, culture, and the humanities, while the second volume presents biological and psychological perspectives on altered consciousness and examines their potential for healing and pathology.