Return with Elixir

A step-by-step guide to reclaiming the soul

• Shares four maps for spiritual rebirth based on Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and the precession of the equinoxes

• Traces the author’s journey of rebirth, covering his transformation through a spiritual crisis and the creation of a more meaningful life

• Provides visualization practices based on ancient Tibetan wisdom to support you on the path of self-realization

Exploring wisdom from mystical traditions and perennial philosophy on “dying before you die,” Buddhist psychotherapist Miles Neale shares his own hero’s journey of rebirth, providing a detailed roadmap for the pilgrimage through dissolution, into the great mystery, and back again to the world. He shares his transformation through a spiritual crisis and, ultimately, his creation of a more meaningful life. He provides four intersecting maps to help guide readers through the experiential process of metaphoric death, reclaiming the soul, and sharing one’s genius with others. These four maps—the cosmological map, psychological map, alchemical map, and mythopoetic map—draw on the mythological stages of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung’s process of individuation, the Tibetan Buddhist alchemy of conscious rebirth, and the astrological phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes, offering a detailed philosophical underpinning for the soul’s journey to immortality. He also provides in-depth visualization practices based on ancient Tibetan wisdom to support you on the path of self-realization.

Integrating Tibetan Buddhism with psychology, trauma healing, neuroscience, and mythology, along with profound personal experience, Neale provides a step-by-step manual for spiritual rebirth, revealing how to reframe life’s unrelenting challenges and transitions as opportunities for psychological growth.

Miles Neale, Psy.D., is a psychotherapist, psychology instructor at Weill Cornell Medical College, and founder of the Gradual Path, where he leads pilgrimages of spiritual transformation. The author of Gradual Awakening and co-editor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy, he lives in Bali, Indonesia.

Foreword Ambrosia: Elixir of Immortality
By Robert A. F. Thurman, Ph.D.

Acknowledgments

PART I

Ground

1 Visions: Third Eye Intuitions

2 Panorama: As Above, So Below

3 Soul: Imbibing the Elixir

4 Solve et Coagula: Dying to be Reborn

PART I I

Path

5 Pilgrimage: There and Back Again

6 Departure: Fall from Grace

7 Initiation: Rite of Passage

8 Ordeal: Taming the Dragon

PART I I I

Fruition

9 Treasure: Claiming the Sword

10 Return: Bestowing the Boon

11 Therapeia: Pilgrimage & Psychedelics

12 Reunion: End of Separation

Afterword Nostos: The Return of Longing
By Phil Cousineau

Notes

Bibliography

Index