The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology

Rating:
Summary: Elegant exploration of contempory potential for eco-sanity
Review: I re-read this book every few years, but it's only recently that I've come to appreciate Roszak's "exploration of ecopsychology" as a profound assessment of our "biospheric emergency" and a sure prescription for deep healing. In particular, his discussion of "plenitude" (evoking Mumford here), Roszak provides an elegant alternative to our current fascination with mindless surfeit.

The Principles of Ecospychology are sketched in an Epilogue, rooted in the assertion that "the person is anchored within a greater, universal identity" than that which has been presented in earlier psychologies. Here the goal is to "awaken the sense of environmental reciprocity that lies within the ecological unconscious. Other therapies seek to heal the alienation between person and person, person and family, person and society. Ecopsycholgy seeks to heal the more fundamental alienation between the person and the natural environment."

A very useful appendix, "God and Modern Cosmology," provides an annotated bibliography for continued study of the growing convergence between science and religion.

Rating:
Summary: Elegant exploration of contempory potential for eco-sanity
Review: I re-read this book every few years, but it's only recently that I've come to appreciate Roszak's "exploration of ecopsychology" as a profound assessment of our "biospheric emergency" and a sure prescription for deep healing. In particular, his discussion of "plenitude" (evoking Mumford here), Roszak provides an elegant alternative to our current fascination with mindless surfeit.

The Principles of Ecospychology are sketched in an Epilogue, rooted in the assertion that "the person is anchored within a greater, universal identity" than that which has been presented in earlier psychologies. Here the goal is to "awaken the sense of environmental reciprocity that lies within the ecological unconscious. Other therapies seek to heal the alienation between person and person, person and family, person and society. Ecopsycholgy seeks to heal the more fundamental alienation between the person and the natural environment."

A very useful appendix, "God and Modern Cosmology," provides an annotated bibliography for continued study of the growing convergence between science and religion.

Rating:
Summary: A very hopeful and exciting book
Review: In its first edition this was one of the best books of the decade, for me. One of his main arguments is that for about three hundred years the main political agenda in the West was the struggle for democracy, freedoms, political equality. That struggle continues in the rest of the world, but in the West a new struggle is emerging, which will dominate society and politics for the coming centuries. This is the struggle for personal meaning: now that we have affluence and rights, we are turning to what makes our lives worth living.

He quotes an early and halting expression of the struggle for political rights from the Putney Debates, in the English Civil War (mid 1600s) - he has beautiful quotes from this. This somewhat incoherent desire for democracy, expressed by lower class people, was reviled by many educated people; but 100 years later the intelligentsia adopted its agenda in the American, French Revolutions etc. Now, he says, the Recovery Movement and similar expressions of desire for personal growth are reviled by many educated people as vulgar 'me first' or 'I'm a victim' self obsessions. But he says this longing for personal growth is a powerful force that will change our societies.

There is much more - his argument that psychotherapy is an urban movement, but that we can never heal ourselves until we reconnect with nature. Or his explanation of the anthropic principle - and his scepticism about the role of random factors in evolution - both of which suggest at least that we should feel more at home in our universe, and not imagine we humans are merely insignificant, randomly generated accidents. Whether he's right about the this I don't know, but it's sure encouraging to read it. There's plenty of food for thought and hope in this book. A good book to read with it is Robert Wright's Non Zero.

Rating:
Summary: A serious transcendental address of clashing ideologies
Review: The Voice Of The Earth: An Exploration Of Ecopsychology by Theodore Roszak is a compelling and thoughtful exploration of the interconnection between psychology, ecology, science, and nature. Individual chapters address such issues as the true essence of mother earth/Gaia, Psychology vs. Cosmology vs. Ecology, and much more in this serious transcendental address of clashing ideologies of the planet we know best. The Voice Of The Earth is strongly recommended for readers with an interest in the philosophy of nature and the impact of human psychology upon the ecological environmental.