Our greatest certainty and greatest mystery is our mortality. In this book, Steven M. Rosen explores the profound mystery of death and rebirth from psychological, philosophical, and alchemical perspectives. To model, embody, and contain the paradoxical transformations involved in the death-rebirth enigma, Rosen employs a paradoxical form of mathematics: the topology of the Moebius strip and Klein bottle. As we follow this alchemical odyssey, the author makes himself transparent through his dreams and brings himself tangibly into his text so as to enact a dialectic of ego and Self. "In tackling the subject of death and rebirth Steven Rosen writes about our modern state of mind, how we got like this and where we need to go from here. He does all this with a psychotherapeutic insight that begins with his own subjectivity-and his own dreams-and ends with the subjectivity of the modern world. Using myths, dreams, and alchemical symbolism as well as psychological research and Jungian insights, Rosen speaks to us all from the self and the Self. A book to be read immediately, and then read again." -Christopher Hauke, Jungian analyst and author of Jung and the Postmodern: The Interpretation of Realities "How does a mental-spiritual ego, the creation of our post-Renaissance world, embrace the body as a living partner? In Dreams, Death, Rebirth, Steven M. Rosen offers a topological analysis that meets the challenge of this daunting endeavor. It is a remarkable accomplishment, and vital for the advancement of psychotherapy." -Nathan Schwartz-Salant, Jungian analyst and author of The Black Nightgown: The Fusional Complex and the Unlived Life Steven M. Rosen is professor emeritus of psychology at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. After receiving his PhD in psychology in 1971, he began exploring the foundations, frontiers, and poetics of science, and his work became transdisciplinary and philosophical in nature. His essays have appeared in journals and collections spanning the fields of psychology, philosophy, theoretical physics, education, semiotics, and ecology. He is the author of Science, Paradox, and the Moebius Principle (1994), Dimensions of Apeiron (2004), Topologies of the Flesh (2006), and The Self-Evolving Cosmos (2008).

Our greatest certainty and greatest mystery is our mortality. In this book, Steven M. Rosen explores the profound mystery of death and rebirth from psychological, philosophical, and alchemical perspectives. To model, embody, and contain the paradoxical transformations involved in the death-rebirth enigma, Rosen employs a paradoxical form of mathematics: the topology of the Moebius strip and Klein bottle. As we follow this alchemical odyssey, the author makes himself transparent through his dreams and brings himself tangibly into his text so as to enact a dialectic of ego and Self. In tackling the subject of death and rebirth Steven Rosen writes about our modern state of mind, how we got like this and where we need to go from here. He does all this with a psychotherapeutic insight that begins with his own subjectivity and his own dreams and ends with the subjectivity of the modern world. Using myths, dreams, and alchemical symbolism as well as psychological research and Jungian insights, Rosen speaks to us all from the self and the Self. A book to be read immediately, and then read again. Christopher Hauke, Jungian analyst and author of Jung and the Postmodern: The Interpretation of Realities How does a mental-spiritual ego, the creation of our post-Renaissance world, embrace the body as a living partner? In Dreams, Death, Rebirth, Steven M. Rosen offers a topological analysis that meets the challenge of this daunting endeavor. It is a remarkable accomplishment, and vital for the advancement of psychotherapy. Nathan Schwartz-Salant, Jungian analyst and author of The Black Nightgown: The Fusional Complex and the Unlived Life Steven M. Rosen is professor emeritus of psychology at the College of Staten Island of the City University of New York. After receiving his PhD in psychology in 1971, he began exploring the foundations, frontiers, and poetics of science, and his work became transdisciplinary and philosophical in nature. His essays have appeared in journals and collections spanning the fields of psychology, philosophy, theoretical physics, education, semiotics, and ecology. He is the author of Science, Paradox, and the Moebius Principle (1994), Dimensions of Apeiron (2004), Topologies of the Flesh (2006), and The Self-Evolving Cosmos (2008). "

We all face death, but how many of us are actually ready for it? Whether our own death or that of a loved one comes first, how prepared are we, spiritually or practically? In Preparing to Die, Andrew Holecek presents a wide array of resources to help the reader address this unfinished business. Part One shows how to prepare one's mind and how to help others, before, during, and after death. The author explains how spiritual preparation for death can completely transform our relationship to the end of life, dissolving our fear and helping us to feel open and receptive to letting go in the dying process. Daily meditation practices, the stages of dying and how to work with them, and after-death experiences are all detailed in ways that will be particularly helpful for those with an interest in Tibetan Buddhism and in Tibetan approaches to conscious dying. Part Two addresses the practical issues that surround death. Experts in grief, hospice, the funeral business, and the medical and legal issues of death contribute chapters to prepare the reader for every practical concern, including advance directives, green funerals, the signs of death, warnings about the funeral industry, the stages of grief, and practical care for the dying. Part Three contains heart-advice from twenty of the best-known Tibetan Buddhist masters now teaching in the West. These brief interviews provide words of solace and wisdom to guide the dying and their caregivers during this challenging time. Preparing to Die is for anyone interested in learning how to prepare for death from a Buddhist perspective, both spiritually and practically. It is also for those who want to learn how to help someone else who is dying, both during the time of illness and death as well as after death.

The first book to validate the meaningful dreams and visions that bring comfort as death nears. Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are unseen processes that are remarkably life-affirming. These include dreams that are unlike any regular dream. Described as "more real than real," these end-of-life experiences resurrect past relationships, meaningful events and themes of love and forgiveness; they restore life's meaning and mark the transition from distress to comfort and acceptance. Drawing on interviews with over 1,400 patients and more than a decade of quantified data, Dr. Kerr reveals that pre-death dreams and visions are extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how his patients' stories point to death as not solely about the end of life, but as the final chapter of humanity's transcendence. Kerr's book also illuminates the benefits of these phenomena for the bereaved, who find solace in seeing their loved ones pass with a sense of calm closure. Beautifully written, with astonishing real-life characters and stories, this book is at its heart a celebration of our power to reclaim the dying process as a deeply meaningful one. Death Is But a Dream is an important contribution to our understanding of medicine's and humanity's greatest mystery.

The recent centennial of the original publication of Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams has generated a new wave of critical reappraisals of this monumental work. Considered one of the most important books in Western history, scholars from an astonishing variety of academic fields continue to wrestle with Freud's intricate theories and insights. Dreams is a long overdue collection of writing on dreams from many of the top scholars in religious studies, anthropology, and psychology departments. The volume is organized into three thematic sections: traditions, individuals and methods. The twenty-three articles highlight the most important theories, the most contentious debates, and the most far-reaching implications of this growing field of study.

Warm, wise, and magical—the latest novel by the bestselling author of THE LITTLE PARIS BOOKSHOP and THE LITTLE FRENCH BISTRO is an astonishing exploration of the thresholds between life and death Henri Skinner is a hardened ex-war reporter on the run from his past. On his way to see his son, Sam, for the first time in years, Henri steps into the road without looking and collides with oncoming traffic. He is rushed to a nearby hospital where he floats, comatose, between dreams, reliving the fairytales of his childhood and the secrets that made him run away in the first place. After the accident, Sam—a thirteen-year old synesthete with an IQ of 144 and an appetite for science fiction—waits by his father’s bedside every day. There he meets Eddie Tomlin, a woman forced to confront her love for Henri after all these years, and twelve-year old Madelyn Zeidler, a coma patient like Henri and the sole survivor of a traffic accident that killed her family. As these four very different individuals fight—for hope, for patience, for life—they are bound together inextricably, facing the ravages of loss and first love side by side. A revelatory, urgently human story that examines what we consider serious and painful alongside light and whimsy, THE BOOK OF DREAMS is a tender meditation on memory, liminality, and empathy, asking with grace and gravitas what we will truly find meaningful in our lives once we are gone.

Drawing from a rich understanding of dreaming in culture, history, psychology, and modern dream study, Kelly Bulkeley and Patricia Bulkley's Dreaming Beyond Death explicitly addresses three common aspects of pre-death dreams and offers interpretations that will aid both dying persons and their caregivers. Rev. Patricia Bulkley's experience with the transformative possibilities of pre-death dreams as a hospice counselor lend this book a deeply personal and human touch, while Kelly Bulkeley's insightful analysis and intellectual framework provide an understanding of the deeper meanings behind this type of dreaming. A final chapter provides resources and concrete methods for caregivers to respectfully guide a dying person through the dreaming process to a sense of peace.

All human relationships are containers of emotional life, but what are the structures underlying them? Nathan Schwartz-Salant looks at all kinds of relationships through an analyst's eye. By analogy with the ancient system of alchemy he shows how states of mind that can undermine our relationships - in marriage, in creative work, in the workplace - can become transformative when brought to consciousness. It is only by learning how to access the interactive field of our relationships that we can enter this transformative process and explore its mysterious potential for self-realization.

A guidebook for communicating with the departed and gaining first-hand knowledge of life beyond death • Reveals that the easiest way to communicate with the departed is through dreams • Offers methods for helpful and timely communication with deceased loved ones • Provides powerful Active Dreaming practices from ancient and indigenous cultures for journeying beyond the gates of death for wisdom and healing We yearn for contact with departed loved ones. We miss them, ache for forgiveness or closure, and long for confirmation that there is life beyond physical death. In The Dreamer’s Book of the Dead, Robert Moss explains that we have entirely natural contact with the departed in our dreams, when they come visiting and we may travel into their realms. As we become active dreamers, we can heal our relationship with the departed and move beyond the fear of death. We also can develop the skills to function as soul guides for others, helping the dying to approach the last stage of life with courage and grace, opening gates for their journeys beyond death, and even escorting them to the Other Side. Drawing on a wealth of personal experience as well as many ancient and indigenous traditions, Moss offers stories to inspire us and guide us. He shares his extraordinary visionary relationship with the poet W. B. Yeats, whose greatest ambition was to create a Western Book of the Dead, to feed the soul hunger of our times. Moss teaches us the truth of Chief Seattle’s statement that "there is no death; we just change worlds."

The primal role of art in awakening and liberating the soul of humanity • Presents a seven-stage journey of transformation moving from the darkened soul to the light of spiritual illumination • Provides a meditation practice to experience the spiritual energy embedded within art • Includes artists Alex Grey, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Walter Gaudnek, and others Art and Spiritual Transformation presents a seven-stage journey from the darkened soul to the light of spiritual illumination that is possible through the world of art. Finley Eversole introduces a meditation practice that moves beyond the visual content of an art form in order to connect with its embedded spiritual energy, allowing the viewer to tap in to the deeper consciousness inherent in the artwork and awaken dormant powers in the depths of the viewer’s soul. Examining modern and postmodern artwork from 1945 onward, Eversole reveals the influences of ancient Egypt, India, China, and alchemy on this art. He draws extensively on philosophy, myth and symbolism, literature, and metaphysics to explain the seven stages of spiritual death and rebirth of the soul possible through art: the experience of self-loss, the journey into the underworld, the experience of the dark night of the soul, the conflict with and triumph over evil, the awakening of new life in the depths of being, and the return and reintegration of consciousness on a higher plane of being, resulting finally in ecstasy, transfiguration, illumination, and liberation. To illustrate these stages, Eversole includes works by abstract expressionists Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko and modern visionary artists Alex Grey and Ernst Fuchs, among others, to reveal the powerful and liberating forces art contributes to the transformation and evolution of human consciousness.