Books

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Sightings: Extraordinary Encounters with Ordinary Birds

Our most intimate revelations of the sacred happen in unexpected moments in unlikely places. Walking under a forest canopy in search of an elusive Indigo Bunting may evoke a hushed reverence and a sense of gratitude. In these twelve interwoven essays Sam Keen invites us to turn our eyes skyward and see what we discover. ” Reading this book is like walking down a winding path; one never knows what’s around the bend…Be prepared for continual surprises, wisdom, beauty, sometimes a burst of mirth…” Huston Smith $14.95

2004 Enlarged edition includes a new chapter “The New Enemy” with 32 pages of color illustrations This enlarged edition is available only from Sam Keen. The combination of the book Faces of the Enemy and the PBS documentary “The Faces of the Enemy: and the 3 lectures — The Art of Enemy Making; The New Enemy; Beyond Enmity — provide all of the essentials for a high school or college course on prejudice, propaganda and the language of warfare. Examines the techniques of propaganda used to teach us “to hate all the people our relatives hate.” Some 400 posters and cartoons show how enemies are dehumanized by portraying them as enemies of god, barbarians, terrorists, sadists and aggressors so that we will be able to kill without remorse or pity. “An essential document of our time.” Joseph Campbell “Vivid and jolting, this book is a major new contribution to the literature of the psychology of war and hence to the prevention of the final epidemic..While Keen writes with a disarmingly calm grace, both the pictures and his verbal images arrest us so that we are forced to explore more deeply the ugliest of human attributes.” Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr Neil Elgee “An eloquent meditation on the nature of hatred–how we degrade the hated person, nation, or race into an ugly symbol; how we therefore can annihilate the symbol as an act of erasure without considering that we are, in fact, killing the children of mothers and fathers…Sam Keen deserves the qualifying adjective, philosopher. His book is an eloquent act.” Herbert Gold $29.95

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To Love and Be Loved

“To Love and Be Loved is a spirited challenge to a culture obsessed with romance and intimacy but dangerously ignorant of the full range and richness of human love. Love is not something we “fall” into, claims Keen, but a complex art combining many skills and talents that take a lifetime to learn. Like a fresh wind, Sam Keen sweeps away tired self-help nostrums and reams of “bad advice from Dr. Lonelyhearts” to reveal a stunningly new map of love in all its forms.$13.00

Hymns to an Unknown God

Cutting through the deceptive and unrealistic aspects of popular spirituality, this guide for common-sense individuals demonstrates how awareness and spirituality can be effectively combined and applied to all aspects of life. “ Fire in the Belly is that rare thing: a literate and lyrical self-help book” Time. Richard Stengel “Keen provides a wonderfully celebratory guide to spiritual growth. He charts the spiritual path as beginning with psychological cleansing, “peeling away the myths and illusions that have misinformed us,” a phase wherein “men and women follow opposite and complementary paths to recover what was denied in their adolescent sundering into gender.” Next there is a journey common to both genders toward “the Unknown God to whom we may surrender,” a journey increasingly outward from self to God, to other people, to the ecological commonwealth, to global community, to the terror and trust of death. His final chapter provides rituals for consecrating our days so that they become hymns to the mysterious God. Highly recommended for public and seminary libraries.” Library Journal “Sam Keen is one of our liveliest minds. It’s a joy to go with him as a guide to the byways of the soul in the search for greater meaning in life.” — Daniel Goleman, author of The Meditative Mind “Sam Keen breathes pure life into the spiritual void we all may feel at times. . . his hymns and philosophical groundnotes contain the power to help heal the split — that nameless separation — that divides us from our world and from ourselves.” — Clarissa Pinkola Estes, bestselling author of Women Who Run With the Wolves. $12.95

Audiotapes available of Hymns To An Unknown God

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Fire in the Belly: On Being A Man

This book, along with Robert Bly’s Iron John, was credited by the popular press with initiating the “men’s movement”. Although I have never beat on drums or passed a talking stick, I do plead guilty to some in depth explorations of what it means to be a man in this troubled time. And, I am gratified to know that this book was helpful to many men and women. Tom Peters “I did a lot of reading at Canyon Ranch, nothing more important than Sam Keen’s Fire in the Belly.” Reviewer: Kelly. Not your typical self-help book. I felt a little weird going through the check-out line with a book “on being a man” when I am a female, but I am certainly glad I did. this book will not only help you know yourself more if you are a man- it will help woman to understand men better so they can understand and empathize better. Reviewer: K William. This book is for men who have experienced their emptiness, loneliness, and longing for connection, but whose ways of dealing with these issues are limited by old paradigms and beliefs which could change if exposed to new information. This book, a real treasure, contains much of this new information. I highly, highly recommend it. $12.95

Audiotapes available of Fire In The Belly

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Inward Bound: Exploring the Geography of Your Emotions

“Here, rescued from out-of-print limbo in an apparent attempt to capitalize on the success of Keen’s bestselling A Fire in the Belly, comes a 1980 Keen work, slightly revised and given a new introduction–and a new name, so much more 90’s-style than the original: What to Do When You’re Bored and Blue. Well, as we pointed out 12 years ago, one thing you should not do is to read this book, which is, as we said then, full of “bubble-headed mystical insights” in which Keen takes boredom as a synonym for practically every lifestyle malady, from simply monotony to full- fledged depression,” and recommends, among other tactics, that you replace the TV set with your own imagination. On my channel 1 this morning, Sophia Loren and I are shipwrecked….’ Flotsam.” — Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates. ( S.K. Anything that reduces the curmudgeons at Kirkus to such inane sputtering can’t be all wrong. Read it and judge for yourself.) $11.00

Your Mythic Journey (with A.V. Fox)

This book will help you discover the story of your life and understand it mythologically as well as practically. This is done through a series of writing and drawing exercises that use probing questions designed to challenge your beliefs, your values and your identity as you explore your past, present and future. Reviewer: Mar Calpena. A gem of a book, deep but compassionate This is a brilliant book for those who believe in journaling as a therapeutic path. The authors address life’s main conflicts, and structures the basic questions to be answered by the reader in terms of Joseph Campbell’s work. This book combines intellectual rigor with heartfelt warmth, in a combination so rarely seen in similar books. $13.95

Audiotapes available of Your Mythic Journey
VHS available of Your Mythic Journey, A conversation with Bill Moyers