Posted on 3 Comments

The Seat of the Soul: 25th Anniversary Edition with a Study Guide

With the same extraordinary skill that he used to demystify scientific abstraction and the new physics, Gary Zukay, the award-winning author of The Dancing Wu Li Masters, here takes us on a brilliant and penetrating exploration of the new phase of evolution we have now entered.
With lucidity and elegance, Zukav explains that we are evolving from a species that pursues power based upon the perceptions of the five senses — external power — into a species that pursues authentic power — power that is based upon the perceptions and values of the spirit. He shows how the pursuit of external power has produced our survival-of-the-fittest understanding of evolution, generated conflict between lovers, communities, and superpowers, and brought us to the edge of destruction.
Using his scientist’s eye and philosopher’s heart, Zukav shows how infusing the activities of life with reverence, compassion, and trust makes them come alive with meaning and purpose. He illustrates how the emerging values of the spirit are changing marriages into spiritual partnerships, psychology into spiritual psychology, and transforming our everyday lives. The Seat of the Soul describes the remarkable journey to the spirit that each of us is on.Ready to attain a higher level of understanding? Author Gary Zukav can help you evolve into a multisensory being, one who “values love more than the physical world.” As shown in The Dancing Wu Li Masters, his bestselling exploration of physics, Zukav has a gift for presenting complex, even mind-boggling concepts in clearly worded and reasoned logic. In Seat of the Soul, he leads you on an inspirational and potentially life-changing journey into the seemingly intangible realm of the spirit. Reading in a calm, soothing voice he explains why increased sensory perception will mark the next phase of human evolution, how the power of choice can change your existence, and what you can do to infuse your life with more compassion, trust, and understanding. (Running time: 3 hours, 2 cassettes) –George Laney

Posted on 3 Comments

Vital Information and Review Questions for the NCE, CPCE and State Counseling Exams: Special 15th Anniversary Edition

This new edition of Vital Information and Review Questions for the NCE, CPCE and State Counseling Exams sticks to the successful structure of the previous versions, each of which has demonstrated to be a valuable resource for anyone preparing for these difficult exams. Two new Discs have been added to this new edition, bringing the total to 20 audio CDs and over 20 hours of programming.

The material covered on the CDs is arranged into nine major areas, containing explanations of terms, concepts, and inter-relationships between subjects. Key definitions, theories and techniques are discussed, and appraisal, research, and evaluation methods are presented in an easily-understood format. The set also includes 325 tutorial questions, supplemented with additional information on all nine major areas of the National Counselor Examination. Two new CDs present “Cutting Edge Ethics,” an illumination of the huge changes from the past that were set forth by the ACA’s 2005 Code of Ethics, and “Ask Dr. Rosenthal, ” in which Dr. Rosenthal shares correspondence he has received from listeners who have contacted him with specific questions or asked for additional explanations of material.

Posted on 3 Comments

On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft

“Long live the King” hailed Entertainment Weekly upon publication of Stephen King’s On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer’s craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King’s advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a writer, from his struggling early career to his widely reported, near-fatal accident in 1999—and how the inextricable link between writing and living spurred his recovery. Brilliantly structured, friendly and inspiring, On Writing will empower and entertain everyone who reads it—fans, writers, and anyone who loves a great story well told.Short and snappy as it is, Stephen King’s On Writing really contains two books: a fondly sardonic autobiography and a tough-love lesson for aspiring novelists. The memoir is terrific stuff, a vivid description of how a writer grew out of a misbehaving kid. You’re right there with the young author as he’s tormented by poison ivy, gas-passing babysitters, uptight schoolmarms, and a laundry job nastier than Jack London’s. It’s a ripping yarn that casts a sharp light on his fiction. This was a child who dug Yvette Vickers from Attack of the Giant Leeches, not Sandra Dee. “I wanted monsters that ate whole cities, radioactive corpses that came out of the ocean and ate surfers, and girls in black bras who looked like trailer trash.” But massive reading on all literary levels was a craving just as crucial, and soon King was the published author of “I Was a Teen-Age Graverobber.” As a young adult raising a family in a trailer, King started a story inspired by his stint as a janitor cleaning a high-school girls locker room. He crumpled it up, but his writer wife retrieved it from the trash, and using her advice about the girl milieu and his own memories of two reviled teenage classmates who died young, he came up with Carrie. King gives us lots of revelations about his life and work. The kidnapper character in Misery, the mind-possessing monsters in The Tommyknockers, and the haunting of the blocked writer in The Shining symbolized his cocaine and booze addiction (overcome thanks to his wife’s intervention, which he describes). “There’s one novel, Cujo, that I barely remember writing.”

King also evokes his college days and his recovery from the van crash that nearly killed him, but the focus is always on what it all means to the craft. He gives you a whole writer’s “tool kit”: a reading list, writing assignments, a corrected story, and nuts-and-bolts advice on dollars and cents, plot and character, the basic building block of the paragraph, and literary models. He shows what you can learn from H.P. Lovecraft’s arcane vocabulary, Hemingway’s leanness, Grisham’s authenticity, Richard Dooling’s artful obscenity, Jonathan Kellerman’s sentence fragments. He explains why Hart’s War is a great story marred by a tin ear for dialogue, and how Elmore Leonard’s Be Cool could be the antidote.

King isn’t just a writer, he’s a true teacher. –Tim Appelo

Posted on 2 Comments

Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing, 10th Anniversary Edition with a New CD of Meditations and Exercises

Mandala will guide readers of all levels through simple mandala exercises and easy-to-follow drawing techniques, incorporating meditation and guided visualization with lavish illustrations. By exploring the tradition of the sacred circle, readers will learn how to create their own unique and powerful works of sacred art and use the mandala symbol as a self-transformative tool that manifests and enhances their own spiritual consciousness. The new edition also includes a CD with meditations set to music and guided exercises.