Metzner - Ecology of Consciousness

A comprehensive synthesis from the life work of one of our true explorers of consciousness. There is theory, visionary understanding, and skillful practice to discover here.

JackKornfield, author of APathwithHeart

EcologyofConsciousness is an inspiring display of enormous erudition, by one of our cultures keenest observers of how our consciousness is integrated with our world and universe. This superb book is an antidote for the alienation, distrust, and fear that threaten our future existence as a viable species on Earth. This book is not only about healing, it is healing. For all our sakes and that of our descendants, it deserves universal readership.

LarryDossey, MD, author of OneMind

Ralph Metzner has been thinking creatively about the mysteries of human consciousness since the dawn of the psychedelic sixties. This thought-provoking, cross-cultural anthology covers half a century of exploration into the human potential and political ramifications of what can happen when we radically change our minds.

DonLattin, author of TheHarvardPsychedelicClub

This work is a masterful presentation of the awareness and attention necessary to move humanity out of its anthropocentric, subject-object orientation, toward a holomorphic, embodied way of knowing. Holomorphic wisdom is embedded in our evolutionary soul, and with it arises a new consciousness able to create a new humanEco sapiens. The book is a primer for inner as well as group leadership.

PhilipSnowGang, PhD, author of RethinkingEducation, historian, and founder of The Institute for Educational Studies

Ralph Metzner, in EcologyofConsciousness, opens up the pathways to expanded individual and collective awareness. His amazing work represents over a half century of sensitivity, practice, and deep understanding of what it means to be fully human. Metzner explores the unlimited possibilities of life-path self-actualization and metaphysical maturity without imposing prescriptions. His work gives empowerment to individual freedom of choice for personal consciousness, social justice, and connection with the divine.

PeterPhillips, PhD, professor of sociology at Sonoma State University, and coauthor/editor of many of the ProjectCensored yearbooks

EcologyofConsciousness is a fascinating compilation of Ralph Metzners seminal writings exploring the inner and outer realms of human experience. Through his comprehensive and vibrant contributions, Metzner illuminates with vital insight and meticulous clarity the myriad paths and implications gleaned from the worlds great myths, spiritual traditions, and contemporary psychedelic research. It is a uniquely personal expression from one of the modern eras most gifted and prolific pioneers of human consciousness, an offering of inestimable value to a time and culture challenged with survival and struggling to achieve its personal and collective destiny.

CharlesS. Grob, MD, professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles; director of the division of child and adolescent psychiatry at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center; founding board member of the Heffter Research Institute; editor of Hallucinogens; and coeditor of HigherWisdom

How we choose to conceptualize consciousness impacts everything about who we believe we are and how we act in the world. Embracing a radically empirical perspective, Ralph Metzner guides us through the distilled wisdom and practice of a lifetime spent in the deep study of consciousness, articulating ways to work with consciousness that have profound positive potential at both the individual and societal levels. As a neuroscientist interested in the study of consciousness, I find this book to be a deep breath of fresh air!

David Presti,PhD, teaching professor in the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of FoundationalConceptsinNeuroscience

EcologyofConsciousness is a remarkable anthology revealing Ralph Metzners undeniable genius as he portrays the changing states of awareness, perception, and consciousness through cultural perspectives, politics, technology, psychedelics, and more. He illustrates a pathway to develop inner awakening through spiritual practices and mythological teachings, but most importantly by illuminating the journey of the human soul. Metzner stands as one of the great thought leaders of our time. This compendium will be a treasure for consciousness-seeking generations to come.

Jamy Faust, MA, and PeterFaust, MAc, coauthors of TheConstellationApproach

Not since Virgil showed Dante around Hell and Purgatory have we had as gifted a guide as Ralph Metzner help us comprehend and appreciate the major realms of consciousness. His blend of erudition, wisdom, common sense, and personal experience makes each approach he describes (from Alchemy to Buddhism, Agni Yoga through psychedelics, and more) inviting, understandable, and enlightening. In addition, the practices he presents to open these many gates make this not only an illuminating book, but give each of us a way to investigate, experience, and ultimately decide for ourselves our own best path or paths. The book fulfills Metzners intention, to awaken spiritual intelligence and bring about a deeper connection with our essential nature.

James Fadiman, author of ThePsychedelicExplorers Guide

Ralph Metzners EcologyofConsciousness marries the scientific and the spiritual in a mutually beneficial relationship that gives birth to an expansion of human consciousness and inspires us to restore, preserve, and protect life on Earth. He recognizes the Earth as the Black Goddess, the Generative Mother, who provides the material substances of science, and the spiritual inspiration at the heart of mythology, divination, shamanism, and the ritual arts, present in all cultures since the beginning of time. He applies a medicine to the Great Wound of Western Civilizationthat is, Post-Inquisition Spiritual Trauma that has stripped us of our divinity, polluted our imagination, and threatens to lead us down a path to annihilation. He rescues Nordic mythology from the ravishments of Nazi interpretation and perversion, makes it embraceable, and recovers its shamanic origins and natural uses.

Luisah Teish, author of Jambalaya, and coauthor of OnHolyGround

A masterful work, integrating years of valuable research, brave exploration, and unusually creative speculation by one of the great minds of our time. An interdisciplinary treasure trove, overflowing with rare information and powerful insights, Ralph Metzner dispels common misconceptions and offers jewels of wisdom. I couldnt possibly recommend this important book more highly.

David Jay Brown, author of DreamingWideAwake and TheNewScienceofPsychedelics

In EcologyofConsciousness, Ralph Metzner, a true Argonaut of the soul, leads us on an amazing quest through the myriad of ecosystems that reside within the wonderlands of our own undiscovered selves. On our way, we encounter myths, scientific discoveries, intuitions, dreams, legends, art, the cycles of life, visitations, visions, quests, healing rituals, spirit, psyche, and much more. This is a book to be kept next to a hikers field guide to flora and fauna; the one volume to express the miraculous diversity of the outer natural world, and the other to take the happy camper into the boundless depths of his own inner being.