My recent post about Mark Twain’s precognitive dream of his brother Henry’s tragic death has triggered a stream of questions, including this one: “What’s the use of dreaming the future if you can’t do anything about it?” My response: any future we can foresee, whether in dreams or though intuition or careful analysis, is a…

Great humor often sparkles on the surface of a dark tide of challenge or tragedy. Mark Twain, still America’s most beloved humorist, was stricken by many terrible events in his life and that of his family – the loss of a beloved brother and later his favorite daughter, the loss of all his money late…

At a benefit dinner, the wife of a bank president asked me, “What exactly is it that you do?” I told her, “I’m a paleolithic psychologist.” She nodded respectfully, possibly associating me with the clinical psychiatrist seated above the salt. I had stolen the phrase from Frederic Myers, the great Victorian psychic researcher. Myers coined…

Shamans understand that soul loss is the root of much illness and confusion in our lives. It may be caused by pain or trauma or heartbreak, by wrenching life choices, or by wimping out on our best and bravest dreams. It can reduce us to the condition of the walking dead, passionless and dreary, forever trying…

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