Mystical Dogs: Animals as Guides to Our Inner Life

by Jean Houston

Jean Houston, the celebrated bestselling author and wide-ranging scholar, shows us how animals, and dogs in particular, can help restore and revitalize our connection to the oneness with all life. Houston has spent a lifetime bridging the worlds of animals and humans, exploring a realm that pet owners have glimpsed and indigenous peoples have known for millennia. The author identifies dogs, with their deceptively uncomplicated, joyous, loving nature, as custodes animi, guardians of our souls. "She weaves a fascinating and provocative web of wonder, as she regales us with animal stories, like a 21st century Scheherazade." -- New Dimensions

Genres: Animals, Dogs, Nonfiction, Spirituality

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2002

About the author

Jean Houston, PhD, is a renowned teacher, philosopher, and scholar and was one of the creators of the human potential movement. With a remarkable list of colleagues and mentors that includes Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, Helen Keller, and Buckmister Fuller, Houston shares her profound wisdom through engaging, firsthand accounts. With PhDs in both psychology and spirituality, Houston has worked in the field of social artistry and in over 100 countries and 40 cultures. As a consultant to the United Nations and other international agencies, she has created many programs offering training and solutions to cultural and social problems. She has written several dozen books, won numerous awards, and has been a professor at universities in the United States.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only a few times in my life have I had the pleasure of reading a truly life changing book. This is one of those times. Houston shares her deep wisdom of the spirit in an almost folksy way as she shares story after story about the dogs in her life and what these dogs have taught her about spirituality, especially mysticism. Using Evelyn Underhill's eight organic stages of the mystic path to organize her book, Houston teaches deep and inspiring truths that I have heard hinted at in other books but have never experienced so clearly and eloquently as expressed here by Houston and her dogs. I know I will be re-reading this book as I let its power sink into me day by day.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Threw me for a loop by blasting off into the universe halfway through each story about each dog. I enjoyed the personification of each pet, and the segment at the end about Saint Francis of Assisi. Would gladly read again!

[rebecca jeffs · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you

A wonderfully illustrated review of the inner journey that is a part of all our lives and reminder that helpers come in all forms.