Everything we produce-art, entertainment, political events, books, movies, religion, economics, institutions, and money, etc.-is cultural, i.e. formed from within our minds, or more poetically, soul. Cultural productions find their origin in the form-making soul, as it undergoes its mysterious self-transformations. Dreams are also cultural forms and soul productions. So we can say that cultural productions constitute the dreams of a culture. They may become soul phenomena opening up to give us glimpses of possible futures flowing towards us "long before they happen", as Rilke says. Some of these essays focus on the loss of love in the world, others on the abandonment of any connection with something greater than us. Still others speak of chaos and fear, disintegration. Some address the hint of a possible future rooted in love. Finally, we cannot ignore the direst hint of all as one dark possible future gathers behind our current cultural productions-the withdrawal of the light that bestows meaning on our world: the death of psyche! Only the soul perspective can apprehend these possible futures bearing down on us at this time, looming behind our current cultural productions or dreams. These essays attempt to make these possible futures explicit from a soul perspective-glimpses appearing for a moment within the chaos that so marks the character of our modern times!
About the Author: I hold a doctorate in Consciousness Studies (1999). My thesis concerns the theme of "the end of the world", based on my own extreme experiences lasting many years. At first it seemed to me that I was undergoing a purely personal psychological/spiritual crisis but over time I discovered that I was also participating in the historical process of a transformation of the soul, as reflected in the enormous, even apocalyptic, changes occurring in our culture. During this difficult period of my life, I wrote two books: Living in Uncertainty, Living with Spirit and Poems of Making. My next three books, Mouthpiece, The Imperative, and Hearing Voices, explore the meaning of "the end of the world" more fully, while subsequent books, including Animal Soul and Manifesting Possible Futures, establish a firm theoretical ground for the claim that the soul is urging us towards the development of new inner capacities that can help us face the uncertainty of modern life and, as well, address the unknown future. Making New Worlds begins the work of articulating an art form emerging in response to the soul's movement of "incarnation in the real world". I develop this theme more fully in The Coming Guest and the New Art Form. I have also written an unusual book, UR-image, which tells a story of four friends whose lives are interrupted by an intrusion of four possible futures, while its companion piece, Oblivion of Being, is a story of three friends caught up in our epochal transformation of being. I currently live with my wife Anita in Sydney, where I teach, write, and consult with others concerning their own journey through the present "apocalypse of the interior", as it has been called, in my capacity as a practicing Jungian psychotherapist. Anita and I also work with couples in a therapeutic setting. My books may be found at: amazon.com/author/johncwoodcock/