Lee Van Ham’s From Egos to Eden is a big book about a very big topic: keeping earth livable for humanity. If that turns your mind to issues of cutting back, doing without and judgmentalism, put them aside. This book will guide you into another approach entirely. It is about growing into broader consciousness, growing from ego control to a larger sense of self, entering – or continuing – a journey toward what Van Ham calls One-earth Living.
This is not a how-to book. We each have our own journey to undertake. There is a bit of deception in the title. Absorbing the concepts in this book will set you on a rich journey toward Eden, but it can’t take you all the way. That is up to you.
The idea of an inward/outward journey is some decades old. I remember trying to lead a church peacemaking group in which I could not get others to understand why the program we were using called for ten minutes of silence before getting to the business of the meeting. It made sense to me. The idea that we must work on our own issues while we address those of the external world underlies From Egos to Eden. To address that Van Ham uses Jungian terminology, revises old mythologies, and offers a number of cognitive maps.
We humans have a choice of working with our earth to meet the needs of all or destroying it to supply our wants. The topic is urgent because the current state of society is leaning strongly toward the latter.
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