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Introducing

Nearvana: A User's Guide to the End of the World:

In our times with Earth feverish and diseased by her burden of human folly, more and more of us are searching the horizon for insights and options. In the words of Ray Bradbury, we sense that "something wicked this way comes". We sense that we have arrived at a time of choosing and that a new kind of human play must be cast. We must depart from the tyrannical directives of ancient gods, gods of guilt, sin, thunder, and plunder that wear three leering masks -- patriarchy, hierarchy. and misogyny.

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Patriarchy is male dominance within communal, economic, and governing institutions. While, in Western cutlures, the prerogatives of the the phallus and of cold rationality have oft been questioned, their shadows remain. Women are yet devalued and women who rise to power often serve the shades of the ancient patriarchal credo.

Hierarchy, sired by patriarchy, is theorganization of social institutionsinto pyramids of power and privilege, thus assuring that conformity shall remain the currency of survival.Independent thought is strongly discouraged and often punished.

Misogyny, typically defined as thehatred of women, is an ambilvalent current in social worlds. For both men and women seek love and redemption through the feminine complement of cold rationality.

This is so even as all of us are encouraged to devalue and suppress the feminine virtues of cooperation, compassion, non-judgment and forgiveness.

COMMENTS ON THE PREQUEL

The prequel to Nearvana was my book, The Fire and the Rose (HarperCollins, 1996). Here are some comments on that book.

I am constantly looking for new wayas to help individuals to understand the cause and effect of their actions . . . The Fire and the Rose gives a totally different perspective on relating to the world around us. -- D. Dale Archer, Jr., MD, Institute for Neuropsychiatry, Lake Charles, Louisiana.

. . . the best synethesis of sociology, psychology, and spirituality to appear since the sixties . . . Turner is a brilliant, compassionate, and transformative writer. -- Maurice Stein, Ph.D., Jacob S. Potofsky Professor of Sociology, Brandeis University.