Michael Lerner - Spirit Matters

The twenty-first century will be spiritual, Malraux said, or it will not be at all. Spirit Matters is a blueprint for the return of spiritual meaning to contemporary life, which may well save us. That is why the importance this book's message cannot be overestimated. In a sweeping and compelling vision, Michael Lerner shows how spirituality can be not only felt but lived, transforming us and our world in the process. In areas such as healing, law, and education, Lerner takes us step by step to show how spiritual meaning can actually be woven into the fabric of our society.

This book is a cure for the curse of our agethe tendency to fragment our lives by divorcing intellect and spirit, reason and intuition. We cannot long survive the destructive force of this split, and Spirit Matters shows a way out.

Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Reinventing Medicine and
editor of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine

I believe that successful political action to end corporate rule and achieve a human balance with the planet must be built on the kind of profound and widely shared spiritual awakening that Michael Lerner describes in Spirit Matters. When our political actions flow from a sense of spiritual connection to the whole of life we become relatively immune to the self-defeating frustration, disillusionment, and power struggles that otherwise undermine our commitment and blind us to opportunity. Lerner shows us how by living fully in the spirit we can achieve both personal fulfillment and political effectiveness. Spirit Matters is an essential spiritual guide for the mindful progressive activist.

David C. Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World and
The Post-Corporate World, and board chair of The Positive Futures Network,
publishers of YES! A Journal of Positive Futures

Michael Lerner challenges us to let down our cynical guard and contemplate radical new ways of educating our children, providing health care for all, reorienting our legal system and promoting corporate responsibility. But Lerner breaks out of the narrow economic vision, insisting that a commitment to social justice be grounded in spiritual consciousness. Spirit Matters is certainly a provocative and visionary call to replace corporate globalization with globalization of the spirit.

Medea Benjamin, founding director, Global Exchange

This book is a rare synthesis of contemplative practices and social activism, a compassionate yet provocative vision of how we can work both on the inner and the outer, uniting personal transformation and societal healing.

Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and A Heart As Wide As the
World; a founder of the Insight Meditation Center at Barre, MA

In a time when spirituality is all too often no more than an empty slogan or even an incitement to hate and violence, Spirit Matters offers a solid alternative informed by a keen sense of justice and a call to put spirit into action. The visionary mind that provided an inspiring new perspective on politics is again at work doing the same for spirituality, and it works!

Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade, Sacred Pleasure,
and Tomorrow's Children

Spirit Matters offers the clearest, most helpful, and most passionate statement on the new spirituality that I know. Michael Lerner's genuine compassion and his active engagement in our communal life shine through and give this important book its power. There are hundreds of books on spirituality you can safely avoid. Don't overlook this one.

Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and Original Self

Michael Lerner's newest book is an exuberant and revolutionary examination of the uprising of spirit in our culture today. Introducing his idea of an Emancipatory Spirituality, one that unites all aspects of the self, society, and world, as opposed to a reactionary spirituality that excludes, denies, and dominates, Lerner is at once a probing historical thinker, a hard-hitting critic of corporate culture, and a hopeful, wise, and delightful spiritual teacher. There's a sense of joy pervading a book that dares to dig into some of the darker aspects of life in the modern world. It's this balance between a tough assessment of life in the real world and a liberating cosmic worldview that makes Spirit Matters a breath of fresh air in spiritual literature.

Elizabeth Lesser, co-founder, Omega Institute
and author of The New American Spirituality

Many of us know Michael Lerner for his passionate and honest political commitments, but what makes him a unique figure in contemporary life is his insistence that the political and the spiritual are deeply married, are deeply one. His insight grows out of Jewish theology but has implications for us all. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to reconnect with spirit and how spirit matters in how we live, how we work and how we love.

Rodger Kamenetz, author of Stalking Elijah and The Jew in the Lotus

Spirit Matters transcends the old left-right distinctions and takes us to a different plane where the quest for social justice converges with a biblical admonition that we shall be judged by what we do for the least among us. Michael Lerner is particularly compelling when he challenges the narcissism of spiritual searching that begins and ends with one's self. Spirit Matters calls on us to transform ourselves and at the same time become engaged in the painstaking work of social transformation.

Arianna Huffington, syndicated columnist
and author of How to Overthrow the Government

Michael Lerner brilliantly and beautifully defines how spirituality can infuse our efforts to create a world marked by social justice and personal ecstasy. For those of us who have experienced burnout in our striving for social change, this book is great medicine.

Tony Campolo, Eastern College, St. Davids, PA

This book is a miracle and a treasure. Please read it! It's a miracle because it can open the heart of the most cynical person who denies spirit and thinks it's all newagey flakiness. And at the same time it deepens the understanding and spiritual depth of those of us who have thought we already read all the books on spirituality we need and have already been involved in our own spiritual practice.

It's a treasure because you will not only grow personally by reading this book, you will also be given a unique gift: a detailed vision of the world that we can create together as we deepen our trust, our joy and our hope. Powerfully unveiling how the deprivation of Spirit is the root of our deepest personal, societal and ecological problems, Lerner points the way for an Emancipatory Spirituality capable of making real our highest ideas. He provides powerful descriptions of what a spiritually-oriented school system, medical system, and legal system could be like, and a path for how we could change our work world and our personal relationships. Lerner gives us the nits-and-grits of a world based on love and caring, awe and wonder.

Marianne Williamson, author of The Healing of America

BOOKS BY MICHAEL LERNER

Surplus Powerlessness:

The Psychodynamics of Everyday Life and
The Psychology of Individual and Social Transformation

Tikkun: To Heal, Repair, and Transform the World:
An Anthology

Jewish Renewal:

A Path to Healing and Transformation

The Politics of Meaning:

Restoring Hope and Possibility in an Age of Cynicism

The Socialism of Fools:

Anti-Semitism on the Left

Healing Israel/Palestine:

A Path to Peace and Reconciliation

The Left Hand of God