Fear comes at us from politics, war, work, relationships, strangers, movies, and television. It keeps us from behaving intelligently, since the mind's first reaction to fear is to ignore danger, hoping it will go away. When fear takes over, it drives us to extremes of manic happiness or fits of rage; it pushes us to destroy relationships instead of letting relationships help us defeat it. When fear wins the battle, viciousness sets in, and we have miserable lives in a miserable world. Most important, fear keeps us from the one thing that could stop its taking over: becoming present.

Robert Sardello argues that the soul's greatest enemy is fear. It is only when we can look every fear—from insecurity at work to existential angst—fulfill its potential for kindness, love, and compassion.

This book is a call to arms to change our situation and thereby change the world. It is a rich combination of theory, anecdote, exercises for strengthening the soul, and the wisdom of a great student of the soul.

Beginning with the myth of Sophia, the Soul of the World, Sardello evokes a sense of the world as filled with her presence. He goes on to suggest that the soul's primary parts--its arts of concentration, meditation, imagination, contemplation--rather than belonging to individual consciousness, constitute a giving over of subjective, personal states to the consciousness that is the soul of the world. He shows how, practicing these arts, we can begin to approach daily life in a new way. The chapters that follow build up a psychology of the world--of architecture, money, the city, medicine, food and technology.

In these introductions, Robert Sardello introduces us to many people we may not otherwise have met and introduces us to many ways of being and thinking that we didn't know before. The range of those we meet in these pages is staggering. At the same time, there is a sweet harmony and ever-unfolding deepening of a single theme. Miraculously, it pervades and shapes the entire sequence of those whom he presents, even though he often wrote in response to a request, and not initially on his own initiative. He writes of matters with which he has made a deep friendship, and out of that friendship he has received and participated in a communion of ideas. He is able to do this because he has entered the aspiration of those he is introducing at the deepest level, making their insights his own, and deepening them in his own way. An introduction conveys a particular soul capacity. For Robert Sardello, "soul capacities" are of the essence of what he calls Spiritual Psychology. Together with the worlds and beings to which they correspond, it is such capacities that make us human and enable us to fulfill our human tasks. Reading these introductions is an astonishing experience. Within their short, individual compasses, they allow us to participate in Robert's own journey: to catch, as it were, the bird in flight and fly with it.

Investigates the spiritual anatomy and evolution of animals. Where do the spirits of animals go after they die? Do animals have chakras or auras? Why were animals worshipped in ancient religions? Exploring these questions and more, David Barreto presents a deep investigation into the spiritual evolution of the animal kingdom, from ants and cockroaches to cats, dogs, owls, pigeons, dolphins, and whales. He examines the spiritual anatomy of animals, including their aura, etheric fields, chakras, and mental, astral, and buddhic bodies. Detailing how reincarnation works among various species, Barreto explores their experiences between physical lives, how they accrue karma, and how the way that animals die can have different effects on their spiritual bodies in the astral realms. Drawing on both modern physics and metaphysics, he reveals, for example, how dogs can love unconditionally because of their large electromagnetic field, which nourishes the etheric bodies of those around them, and how cats can detect subtle energy shifts and disharmonies and conduct etheric filtration while they sleep. Examining esoteric schools as well as ancient spiritual traditions around the world, the author explores how animals are viewed and worshipped in different religions and how animal adoration and animal-connected gods arose in ancient Egypt, India, and China. He looks at animal totems, animal archetypes, animals in alchemy, and the astral connections between animals and elementals. The author also examines the spiritual and energetic repercussions of meat consumption and animal sacrifice, revealing the astral and etheric components of slaughterhouses. Detailing the role of the animal kingdom in the Age of Aquarius, the author shows how, with the awakening of this new astrological era, animals will have their earthly lives elevated with lasting worth and dignity, equal to the love and respect they have been transmitting for millennia.

An introduction to the nature and benefits of silence as a new spiritual reality that can lead to self-awareness and healing in our chaotic, fast-paced world.

With its beautifully rich prose, Robert Sardello's newest book invites us to experience silence as a companion presence—a creative heart-felt experience that renews, restores, and deepens the body's response to the internal and external world. Drawing on images and ideas from the Trials of St. Anthony, anthroposophy, depth psychology, and phenomenology, the book delves deeply into the subtleties of silence, exploring the phenomenon as a source of wholeness and revitalization.

Sharing his own insights from years of experience in spiritual psychology, Sardello takes us on an inner journey beyond the chaotic noise of the ego to a place of inner communion and self-healing. Silence opens our eyes to the importance of cultivating the nurturing aspects of silence in our personal relationships and enables us to awaken the inner currents of spirituality that ultimately lead to a path of universal compassion, service, and healing.

It is now part of our culture to imagine dreams as messages from the "unconscious." The prevailing notion is that dreams must be interpreted- that is, put into our present ways of understanding. What is rarely noticed is that this move toward interpretation takes dreams out of their own way of presenting themselves. In Icons of a Dreaming Heart, Renee Coleman explodes the very notion of dream interpretation. Dreaming, she convincingly shows, presents the action of imaginally real companions. The manner in which Dr. Coleman lets the worlds of dreaming reveal themselves constitutes the essence of this writing. There is no theory here. We are taken into a new kind of attentiveness, available to everyone. We come to experience the dream presences as quite autonomous from us-visitors, not from "elsewhere," but ever-present visitors asking to be noticed. The great secret, now revealed in this remarkable book, is that in saying "yes" to the beckoning of dream presences, we are changed, down to the very core of our being.

From the Introduction by Robert Sardello: 'Spiritual psychology is an active practice. It develops embodied, conscious soul life to make that life open and receptive to the spiritual realms. This is done as an act of loving ourselves, others, and the world. 'Psychology, I want to claim, is more than the study of the human soul. It is not possible to make such a study without the student undergoing inner changes in the process. Psychology, since it is we who study it, necessarily requires that the psyche be utilized to study the psyche. It therefore belongs inherently to the realm of practice. It is not a theory wandering around seeking application. We must do our psychology rather than theorize about the soul. And the doing of psychology is the doing of love-consciously, actively, and for the sake of others and the world. If you enter into the interior of these words, your soul will awaken, and begin to move in this direction. It follows, too, that this is not only a book about psychology, it is also the very speech of psyche itself.'