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John Selby

Goodreads Author

Born

in Ventura, The United States

Website

http://www.johnselby.com

Twitter

john2424

Genre

Fiction, Psychology, Self Help

Influences

My main personal influences were my grandfather John Selby, Alan Watts ...more

Member Since

June 2018

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I was lucky enough to grow up on a cattle ranch in Ojai California, and I still feel deeply grounded in country life. Then at 16 I spent a remarkable exchange-student year living in the bustling city of Durban, South Africa. Ever since, I've felt an integral part of the world community.

Then I went off to Princeton , mostly to satisfy my mother and grandparents. I received a great education, especially in English literature and history - but majored in Psychology, and ended up doing early EEG brain research for NIH studying the cognitive dynamics of meditation and psychedelics. I was my eating club's token cowboy, and fenced on Princeton's varsity team.

Rather than going to Vietnam, an unjust war which I opposed strongly, I went to the San F I was lucky enough to grow up on a cattle ranch in Ojai California, and I still feel deeply grounded in country life. Then at 16 I spent a remarkable exchange-student year living in the bustling city of Durban, South Africa. Ever since, I've felt an integral part of the world community.

Then I went off to Princeton , mostly to satisfy my mother and grandparents. I received a great education, especially in English literature and history - but majored in Psychology, and ended up doing early EEG brain research for NIH studying the cognitive dynamics of meditation and psychedelics. I was my eating club's token cowboy, and fenced on Princeton's varsity team.

Rather than going to Vietnam, an unjust war which I opposed strongly, I went to the San Francisco Theological Seminary and became a Presbyterian minister (my family's faith) and a spiritual therapist. But my driving interest in Buddhist meditation, and my budding friendship with the philosopher Alan Watts, led me away from church work.

Instead I went to L.A. and participated in the American Film Institute's early internship program, studying screenwriting for several years, getting a film agent (Reese Halsey) and working in Hollywood. But there was little interest in my spiritually-grounded screenplays, so I attended the Radix Institute for Integral Therapy, finished my grad work and then worked as a therapist in San Luis Obispo.

All along, I was also developing a cowboy/jazz band with my brother, and working on my fiction and song-writing, A bit bored with the life of a therapist, I headed way down to Guatemala to spend a year at Lago Atitlan, writing songs, researching shamanic practices, and writing my first published book, Powerpoint (Warner). Barely escaping death in Guatemala, I spent almost a year up on my parents' new ranch in Idaho. On a whim I accepted a lecture/seminar tour in Europe - I went for 3 weeks and stayed for 7 remarkable years.

They loved me in West Berlin in the mid-eighties, and I set up a thriving therapy practice, wrote 2 dozen self-help books for the German market - and met my wife Birgitta, who I've been together with ever since. Moving to Switzerland, Birgitta and I developed a new idea (for then) called the self-help cassettebook (100 pages of text leading to an embedded cassette with audio guidance). We sold the concept to a major publisher there, and spent the next 4 years producing 24 cassettebooks. During that time we moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, then Santa Barbara, then over to Kauai - where we raised our two sons. After the hurricane, we hand-built a sugar shack and lived a quiet country life, writing more books, producing self-help audio and video content, and briefly heading an early online therapy company called BrightMind.

But Kauai was a hard place to advance a writing career, even though we made lots of breakthroughs guiding people in meditation and emotional growth via audio/video support.
In 2010 we moved to our current home in Santa Cruz, where we attempted to interject short-form mindfulness meditation into the Microsoft community, then shifted to Plantronics where we co-produced several at-work mindfulness apps. Realizing the need for professional guidance in the rapidly-expanding cannabis community, we then raised capital and developed the Mindfully High program which includes the Cannabis For Couples book and audiobook, and the High Together App.

I've spent most of my adult life developing a fiction style and genre that's only now matured into serious English literature - it's just taken me that long to realize my deeper vision in fiction. I'm blessed with a great film agent who's shopping the miniseries in Hollywood, so I seem to have come full circle. Right now I' m also helping authors to manifest and publish their books, while continuing to develop new audio and video programs to expand the High Together App. I look forward to your perspective on both my fiction and nonfiction writing! ...more

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John Selby's Blog

Consciousness Expansion / Cannabis for Couples

I'm still often criticized for openly advocating the use of marijuana to enhance compassion, bonding and sharing in deep relationships. But I must stand my professional ground, because this is as very important theme for all of us to openly discuss. Cannabis is growing rapidly in popularity - it's here whether we like it or not. And if we respond positively to its presence in our society, we can m Read more of this blog post »

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Published on June 02, 2020 18:57 • Tags: cannabis, high-together, marijuana, mindfulness, relationships

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John Selby’s books

Average rating: 3.88 · 850 ratings · 84 reviews · 148 distinct works • Similar authors

	Seven Masters, One Path: Meditation Secrets from the World's Greatest Teachers 4.03 avg rating — 188 ratings — published 2003 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Quiet Your Mind: An Easy-to-Use Guide to Ending Chronic Worry and Negative Thoughts and Living a Calmer Life 3.85 avg rating — 136 ratings — published 2004 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Kundalini Awakening: A Gentle Guide to Chakra Activation and Spiritual Growth by John Selby (Goodreads Author), Zachary Selig 4.02 avg rating — 124 ratings — published 1992 — 11 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Expand This Moment: Focused Meditations to Quiet Your Mind, Brighten Your Mood, and Set Yourself Free 4.18 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 2011 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Listening With Empathy: Creating Genuine Connections With Customers and Colleagues 4.30 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 2007 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Blowing America's Mind: A True Story of Princeton, CIA Mind Control, LSD and Zen by John Selby (Goodreads Author), Paul Davids 3.63 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 2017 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Let Love Find You: Seven Steps to Open Your Heart to Love 4.40 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2006 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Solitude: The Art of Living With Yourself 2.73 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 1981 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Jesus for the Rest of Us 4.13 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 2006 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Conscious Healing: Tapping the Power of Human Intent by John Selby (Goodreads Author), John Selby (Goodreads Author) 3.71 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1991 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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John Selby is currently reading

A Rare Benedictine: The Advent of Brother Cadfael (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #0.5)

by Ellis Peters

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Oct 26, 2020 06:47PM

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Loving Murrieta

by John Selby (Goodreads Author)

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Nov 23, 2018 12:46AM

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Power To Bloom

by Nassrine Reza

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Nov 23, 2018 12:43AM

Quotes by John Selby (?)

“A man who can do everything fully consciously becomes a luminous phenomenon.”
― John Selby, Seven Masters, One Path: Meditation Secrets from the World's Greatest Teachers

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“our spiritual aim is not to retreat once or twice a day for meditation, but to learn how to live every moment of our lives in touch with our spiritual core.”
― John Selby, Seven Masters, One Path: Meditation Secrets from the World's Greatest Teachers

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“Thus arises suffering—from our ignorance of the truth of life and our refusal to accept that truth. Our”
― John Selby, Seven Masters, One Path: Meditation Secrets from the World's Greatest Teachers

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