Breaking Open: Finding a Way Through Spiritual Emergency

Front Cover
Jules Evans, Tim Read
Aeon Books Limited, Apr 26, 2020 - Health & Fitness - 236 pages
Personal accounts exploring the shift from mental illness to spiritual awakening.

The first book in which people discuss their own spiritual emergencies and share what helped them through. Our authors are the experts of their own experience, and they share their wild journeys with courage, insight and poetry.

There are fascinating parallels in their experiences, suggesting minds in extremis go to similar places. These are beautiful postcards from the edge of human consciousness, testaments to the soul's natural resilience. Our authors have returned from their descent with valuable insights for our culture, as we go through a collective spiritual emergency, with old myths and structures breaking down, and new possibilities breaking open.

What is there beyond our present egocentric model of reality? What tools can help us navigate the emergence?

"This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the connection between spiritual awakening and what we normally term 'mental illness.' It is full of inspirational and moving stories that show that psychological disturbances often lead to significant personal growth, if supported properly. As a culture, we urgently need a new paradigm of mental illness and treatment, and this and this book makes an important contribution to that shift.' Steve Taylor PhD, author of The Leap and Spiritual Science

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About the author (2020)

Jules Evans is an author, broadcaster and academic philosopher. He is a research fellow at the Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary, University of London, where he researches the history and philosophy of flourishing. He was a BBC New Generation Thinker and a Times book of the year author. He is the author of 'Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations' (2012) and 'The Art of Losing Control' (2017). He blogs at www.philosophyforlife.org Tim Read is a medical doctor, psychiatrist and psychotherapist based in London. He was Consultant Psychiatrist at the Royal London Hospital for 20 years leading the Emergency Liaison service and the Crisis Intervention Service. He has trained in psychoanalytic therapy (IGA) and in transpersonal therapy (GTT). He is a certified facilitator of Holotropic Breathwork and has a special interest in working with expanded states of consciousness. His book 'Walking Shadows: Archetype and Psyche in Crisis and Growth' was published in 2015.