Mystical Dogs: Animals as Guides to Our Inner Life - Softcover

Houston, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 193072232X ISBN 13: 9781930722323

Publisher: New World Library, 2004

Synopsis

Jean Houston, the celebrated bestselling author and wide-ranging scholar, shows us how animals, and dogs in particular, can help restore and revitalize our connection to the oneness with all life. Houston has spent a lifetime bridging the worlds of animals and humans, exploring a realm that pet owners have glimpsed and indigenous peoples have known for millennia. The author identifies dogs, with their deceptively uncomplicated, joyous, loving nature, as custodes animi, guardians of our souls. "She weaves a fascinating and provocative web of wonder, as she regales us with animal stories, like a 21st century Scheherazade." -- New Dimensions

About this title

About the Author:

Jean Houston is a scholar and researcher in latent human capacities, past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and the author of seventeen books including such best sellers as Search for the Beloved, The Possible Human, A Mythic Life, A Passion for the Possible, and, most recently, Jump Time. She lives in Ashland, Oregon.

From Publishers Weekly:

Houston, who has written widely in the field of New Age spirituality (Jump Time: Living in the Future Tense) and who once spiritually advised Hillary Clinton draws here on her relationship with dogs to advance a vision of mysticism. Citing the work of Evelyn Underhill, Houston sees the mystic path in eight stages: awakening, purification, illumination, voices and visions, contemplation and introversion, ecstasy and rapture, the dark night of the soul and union with what she calls the One Reality. She provides examples of how her experience of each stage was guided by a dog who lived with her. Chickie, a mix of Welsh Corgi and bearded collie, was Houston's first dog, and she credits Chickie with teaching her "to be alert to both the seen and unseen, the heard and unheard." She explains how the three Airedales she owned at various times all tried to overreach themselves-a quality that Houston believes guided their voices to her, as well as visions. During periods of depression, Houston's bond with her dogs helped her believe that she would recover and evolve. While some readers may prickle at Houston's effusive New Age talk, the author's fans, as well as dog lovers, will relate to and enjoy her descriptions of meditative and spiritual practices that are enhanced by a connection to animals. Color photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: New World Library
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 193072232X
• ISBN 13: 9781930722323
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208