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| Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche | 
 enlarge | Authors: Bill Plotkin, Thomas Berry
Publisher: New World Library
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $6.96 (41%)
New (29) Used (11) from $9.79
Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 24565
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.7 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 1577314220
Dewey Decimal Number: 158.1
EAN: 9781577314226
ASIN: 1577314220
Publication Date: August 29, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Charting a course through the underworld pathways with the heart of a shaman, mapping the powers of myth and psyche with all the soul and interpretive skill of Jung or Campbell, Plotkin's guide to the journey of initiation is to nature-based soulwork what Huxley's Doors of Perception was to consciousness studies. This book is an immense treasure that will provide wisdomseekers, psychologists, shamanic practitioners, and seasoned wilderness guides alike with a fresh heart-opening soul language, a new mythos for fathoming the depths of change, as well as time-tested practical methods for navigating the landscape of authentic transformation. In essence, Soulcraft is Plotkin's "soul gift," a user's manual for the journey of the human soul, as well as a guide to the futurescape of why we are all really here. It is required reading for anyone guiding other people in soulwork, or delving deep into their own. As philosopher Parker Palmer has said, "The way to God is down." Plotkin shows the way.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
The blueprint for my coaching practice October 5, 2008
I carry this book with me as often as I can (when I'm not hauling around books for class) and reference it often. Working toward a degree in Ecopsychology, I am certain that this book will be the main reference book for the work I will be doing with clients. Bill Plotkin clarifies the importance of rites of passage journeys, journeying into the shadow or dark side to fully realize your personal calling and the light that lives within you. This is an amazing book, very well written and is already a beloved classic for me.
Deep yet easy to read September 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is one of those rare books that's very wise and deep, yet also highly accessible. No daunting technical language, just practical advice spiced with true stories about real people's experiences. Reading this wonderful book was a transformational experience for me. I highly recommend it for anyone who's looking for a path to a more authentic life, especially if you are drawn to the world of nature.
Insightful and Honest June 20, 2008
Last year I met, quite out of the blue, a gifted shamanic practitioner in my own locale who has taken me under her wing (and has not requested a single penny from me for doing so). This was a catalyst event which has prompted my own "second cocooning," a concept explained in "Soulcraft" that I now understand. So much about this book has provided me vital context for understanding my current stage of life and showed me the next couple of steps that I need to take from here.
Some might be tempted to dismiss Soulcraft as "fluffy New Age tripe," but I hope you won't make that mistake. Plotkin doesn't blow sweetness and light up anyone's butt. The journey to soul is not an easy one, and no one--no teacher, no seer, no guru--can make the journey for you. This book encourages you to do the *necessary and difficult* work of finding your own soul, your own vision, your own task--it's important not only for you, but for the way we all live on this earth. Not only that, this book gives you some real-world strategies and activities for how to actually do that.
I am reminded of Jesus saying in the gospels, "what does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?" This book provides some context for understanding what's happening as you lose the world in order to gain your soul. While we ultimately make this inward and downward journey alone, on another level we're not really alone--others have gone before us (and some examples are given in the book), and the presence of Spirit is in all and around all.
My thanks are given gratefully to Bill Plotkin for birthing this book into the world.
One thing, though: I appreciated Plotkin's brief statement in the book that we should not be appropriating culturally from native peoples--but then he quoted Harley Swift Deer in the book, someone who is reputedly/reportedly a "plastic shaman." That was a disappointment, but overall the book is still worth five stars.
Amazing psychological vision quest January 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book as part of a course in personality. This book gives you the definitions and differences between spirit and soul, and how a journey to know the soul can be a road less travelled. It is an amazing insight into the state of coming to know one's soul and the difficult road that must be taken to get there. The author also gives many examples of his participants vision quests and how they can relate to psychological issues in one's life. This book should be read by all humans. We have all lost our connection with nature and through this book we might be able to regain that relationship
THE Transcendent "Self-Help" Book-and a Sequel Available Now Too! December 22, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
The inhabitants of our alienated modern society--and those suffering globally from its negative influences--are desperate for meaning. Self-Help books abound beyond belief. People of all ages, especially in the workplace and corporate world, live lives of such "quiet desperation," as Thoreau wrote, that they can barely discern even the surface they're skating on, much less the depths that lay beneath. Young people worldwide fall into depression, crime, or the false promise of fundamentalism and fanaticism, sacrificing themselves for--what? Surely not our shared humanity.
Bill Plotkin's SOULCRAFT is, I believe, at last, the "definitive" self-help guide, one so profound that it has the capacity, for those open to it, to help reshape our entire vision of the world--and restore to ourselves a fulfilling home within it.
I write this as a cultural anthropologist, author and lecturer who has himself sorted his way through any number of methods to a more balanced, centered life. Plotkin draws from traditional and Jungian psychology, the deep wisdom of the natural world (one of the richest sources of meaning which we have almost succeeded in destroying), and from a wealth of knowledge about traditional cultural practices the world over that provide ancient keys to holistic living. Plotkin draws out the essence of all this and spins it into a welcoming web, each strand another guiding rope hung with tools to empower one on a perilous and promising journey to center.
Make no mistake--this book is not psycho-babble and or self-help pablum. It is not an instant solution; it is a challenging way to open yourself up to an ever-widening world through which, with courage and commitment, you will continue to journey the rest of your life.
There may be some who think the notion of "soul-crafting" is uncomfortably "New Age" (I feared so at first). If so then this is a work that synthesizes everything good and wise that emerged from the wild and ecstatic upheavals of the late `60s, filtered over decades through Plotkin's formal social-psychological training, shaped by his rigorous, wide-ranging scholarship, and brought finally to fruition through the power of his personal experience and heartfelt vision.
And now his newest book has appeared: "Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World." I just ordered mine from Amazon and got it immediately. After what Plotkin has just given me in the earlier book, I can only imagine what this book, described as a culminating life's work, can offer me. I can't wait to read it. --Jud Newborn, Ph.D., author, "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose."
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