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Book of the Vision Quest: Personal Transformation in the Wilderness
Blending numerous heritages, wisdoms, and teachings, this powerfully wrought book encourages people to take charge of their lives, heal themselves, and grow. Movingly rendered, The Book of the Vision Quest is for all who long for renewal and personal transformation. In this revised editionâ with two new chapters and added tales from vision questersâ Steven Foster recounts his experiences guiding contemporary seekers. He recreates an ancient rite of passageâ that of “dying,” “passing through,” and “being reborn”â known as a vision quest. A sacred ceremony that culminates in a three-day, three-night fast, alone, in a place of natural power, the vision quest is a mystical, practical, and intensely personal journey of self-knowledge.
160 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1980
31 people are currently reading
193 people want to read
About the author
Steven Foster
99 books21 followersBest-selling author, photographer, consultant, and herbalist, Steven Foster, has 39 years of comprehensive experience in the herbal field. He started his career at the Sabbathday Lake, Maine, Shaker’s Herb Department—America’s oldest herb business dating to 1799.
As an international consultant in medicinal and aromatic plant technical and marketing issues, Foster has served on projects in Argentina, Armenia, Belize, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, England, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Peru, the Republic of Georgia, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam and elsewhere.
Steven has 17 books published. He is senior author of three Peterson Field Guides, , including A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs (with Dr. James A. Duke), 2nd edition, 2000, A Field Guide to Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs with Christopher Hobbs, (2002), and A Field Guide to Venomous Animals and Poisonous Plants of North America (with Roger Caras, 1995 and many other books. Other titles include Tyler’s Honest Herbal 4th edtion (with Varro Tyler) and the 1999 Independent Publisher's Association's Best Title in Health and Medicine—101 Medicinal Herbs. Foster is senior author of National Geographic’s A Desk Reference to Nature’s Medicine (with Rebecca Johnson), a 2007 New York Public Library “Best of Reference.” He has also authored over 800 articles for numerous trade, popular and scientific periodicals. An acclaimed photographer with thousands ofimages in his stock photos files, Foster’s photographs appear in hundreds of publications. He is Associate Editor of HerbalGram, and Chairman of the Board Trustees of the American Botanical Council in Austin, Texas. Steven makes his home in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
As an international consultant in medicinal and aromatic plant technical and marketing issues, Foster has served on projects in Argentina, Armenia, Belize, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, England, Germany, Guatemala, Japan, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Peru, the Republic of Georgia, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, Vietnam and elsewhere.
Steven has 17 books published. He is senior author of three Peterson Field Guides, , including A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs (with Dr. James A. Duke), 2nd edition, 2000, A Field Guide to Western Medicinal Plants and Herbs with Christopher Hobbs, (2002), and A Field Guide to Venomous Animals and Poisonous Plants of North America (with Roger Caras, 1995 and many other books. Other titles include Tyler’s Honest Herbal 4th edtion (with Varro Tyler) and the 1999 Independent Publisher's Association's Best Title in Health and Medicine—101 Medicinal Herbs. Foster is senior author of National Geographic’s A Desk Reference to Nature’s Medicine (with Rebecca Johnson), a 2007 New York Public Library “Best of Reference.” He has also authored over 800 articles for numerous trade, popular and scientific periodicals. An acclaimed photographer with thousands ofimages in his stock photos files, Foster’s photographs appear in hundreds of publications. He is Associate Editor of HerbalGram, and Chairman of the Board Trustees of the American Botanical Council in Austin, Texas. Steven makes his home in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
April 1, 2016
This is a 'classic primer' for people interested in vision quests. It is written with a lot of soul, but lacks a bit of depth. Mercifully it is written with a certain poetic charm that flows well, making it an easy read. I am not sure that with this type of subject matter 'an easy read' is exactly what I am looking for, though. But, in fairness, Steven and Meredith are pioneers and this book was written a long time ago. Reading personal accounts of people's experiences does provide a very personal insight. Still, I feel there is a lot left to be said.
July 21, 2014
I wouldn't say that I found this book to be "moving" or "powerful." I did find it interesting to read some of the personal experiences. I found that gave me a more realistic idea of what I might encounter or experience in my own vision quest. When I purchased the book I assumed it would be a how-to or DIY guide for setting out on a quest, but I agree with the other reviewer here that says the book isn't really a replacement for working with an actual guide.
September 24, 2012
it was practical, useful. doesn't replace actual guidance, though.
August 18, 2020
This book put forth a lot of rawness and soulful outpouring in the excerpts of those undertaking the journey, my only qualm was that as an indigenous person myself, I just was saddened that there wasn’t much of an actual native presence in the book. It felt very lacking in that regard, but I applaud them for even exploring such an important healing method as this. Often times our medicines and practices are considered to be barbaric or uncivil in the eyes of “civilized” society. We still face a lot of that stigma now, even as they find more and more that these have actually helped people with huge life issues and ailments that would normally require prescription after prescription or thousands of dollars worth of therapy, in a much healthier way. Often though, many are afraid of our practices treating them like it’s a Halloween spookfest, calling them pagan, occult or dismissing them as being sudo-healing methods for hippies. Vision quests at their core are a pause in seeking of one’s self, it’s a moment of silence for us to stop and access the healing within our own minds and souls for direction and purpose, and then to move towards the things we discover in this process. My first vision quest helped me work through years of the side effects of my PTSD from sexual assault that I’d had since I was 7, and the effects of my fathers death. I’ve been training for several years now to be a medicine woman and continually find it deeply mournful and disturbing how much our culture has been ripped from us, our ability to access these ancient tried and true methods just completely wiped out in the name of vanity and greed. However, as more people seek to break free from these stigmas in search of healing, the more it’s found that our methods are not only sound but often times in a heart-breaking way profoundly simple.
June 19, 2023
AN ACCOUNT OF A MODERN REENACTMENT OF SUCH RITUALS
Authors Steven Foster wrote in the Second Preface to this 1980 book (revised edition, 1988), “Four years have elapsed since the first printing of [this book]. During this time the work has been blessed by the spirits of wind and rain, lightning and thunder. Individuals come from all over the country to participate and be trained. Many others are also doing the work. Today, there is hardly an isolated range of mountains in the American West that has not heard the voice of a modern vision quester crying for a vision. Meredith and I continue to go with people to the ‘sacred mountain.’ Faced by steadily increasing numbers of participants, however, we felt the necessity to go into semiretirement and to move our family to the Eastern Sierra where we currently operate a small school for individuals seeking to be trained in the ways of fasting, vision, and dream quests. Here, at the edge of the northern Mojave Desert, we keep close to our family and study at the feet of ‘las sierras desiertas.’ …
“The vision is not under our control---and never was. We are but two of its many earth-appointed custodians, as are Wabun, Sun Bear, Shawnodse, the Bear Tribe, and so many others. The spirit of Mother Earth is moving in our hearts and in the world at large to get her word out. The vision quest is good for all of us---as individuals, families, communities, culture, and land. This rite of passage must be set free. It has been trapped behind culturally conditioned fears for too long. Let the river flow freely through the thirsty canyons of the modern world. There is a way to heal ourselves and our land.”
The Preface explains, “This book is about the re-creation, in modern times, of an ancient rite of dying, passing through, and being reborn. It is also the story of the efforts of a small group of individuals to assist urban and suburban people to go into the wilderness to enact this ancient rite of passage---the vision quest… The experience of fasting alone in the wilderness of which these voices speak is the indirect outgrowth of teaching methods that I began to practice as an assistant professor in the School of Humanities at San Francisco State University during the tumultuous years of 1969-1971. Research into American mythology led me to the rites of passage of the first people of America. Other research into the roots of mythology led me to various other wilderness rites of initiation, some of them ancient, others not so ancient. Idealistically, I envisioned a school that would perform a … ‘midwifely’ function… The channels through which such concepts cold be taught, however, did not exist within the institutional framework… There was simply no place for the experimental study of the vision quest in the college curriculum… At that point, I went into the desert on my own search… We must all follow our Vision Quest to discover ourselves, to learn how we perceive of ourselves, and to find our relationship with the world around us… When I returned from the desert I was lost for a while…
“I found a man… His name was Edward L. Begg and he was the director of a federally funded adolescent drug abuse family service agency known as … Rites of Passage… It was at Rites of Passage that the vision quest, as we now conduct it, first began to take form… The more involved with the concept I became, the more convinced I was that the vision for my life lay in teaching rites of passage and reintroducing ancient birth was into the wastelands of American culture. But the ‘Feds’ said no… Rites of Passage ceased to be… I was in love with Meredith… As the vision grew again with a new urgency between us, we began to feel the increasing tension between our Greek home and our Marin County home. We made plans to return and take up the vision quest work.” (Pg. xv-xvii)
He recounts, “When I left everything behind and went into the wilderness, I did what people have done for generations in countless cultures… This vision is not Meredith’s and my vision. It is OUR (all Homo sapiens) vision. In a greater sense it is a vision from the heart of our Great Mother, the same heart that in ancient times spoke from human beings of many lands and origins, including the original Asian people of America… The vision has helped us to grow, to change ourselves, to transform our life stories. Above all, the vision helped us learn to love, respect, and cherish each other, to walk in balance between the two worlds, to give away, to worship the first in the heart of our Mother Earth who brought us not being.” (Pg. 15)
He explains, “The basic dynamics of a passage rite are described by a classic formula that underlies all initiatory ceremonies… Arnold van Gennep identified three phases: severance (separation), threshold (marge), and incorporation (agregation). These three phases can be likened to an opening of a door, a stepping across a threshold into a room, and a returning through a door on the other side of the room. The first door… [is] separation from parents, family, home, work, and the context of daily life… The room into which you step is the threshold. It is the actual experience of the ordeal of passage… [In] The final door… You will return from the sacred world of empowerment and be united with the corpus of a new growth stage.” (Pg. 29-30)
He states, “The vision quest takes life, concentrates it into a brief/eternal span of symbolic/real time, composes a story with a real/symbolic meaning whose mortal/immortal protagonist (you) undergoes a trial of ordeal in a bounded/limitless environment where ordinary/nonordinary exist simultaneously. The story is both the stuff of action (rite) and the stuff of contemplation (myth). As the protagonist moves through the plot of the story, he finds himself in a ‘double-meaninged’ universe. An animal is both animal and spirit.” (Pg. 115)
He adds later, “The return from the threshold is no less heroic than the act of severance. The hero must return to the same mother world, but no longer attached to it in the same way. The problem becomes the maintaining of the visionary standpoint in the face of immediate earthly pain or joy… To complete the heroic journey, the returning hero must survive the impact of the world… At the return threshold the transcendental power must be left behind. The gift that is given is the self, and active, mortal force applied among human beings of flesh and blood… If the hero must return a world of death, then the gift given is love, love that transcends death.” (Pg. 161)
While not an ‘authentic’ Native American rite, this book will still be of interest to those studying Vision Quests.”
Authors Steven Foster wrote in the Second Preface to this 1980 book (revised edition, 1988), “Four years have elapsed since the first printing of [this book]. During this time the work has been blessed by the spirits of wind and rain, lightning and thunder. Individuals come from all over the country to participate and be trained. Many others are also doing the work. Today, there is hardly an isolated range of mountains in the American West that has not heard the voice of a modern vision quester crying for a vision. Meredith and I continue to go with people to the ‘sacred mountain.’ Faced by steadily increasing numbers of participants, however, we felt the necessity to go into semiretirement and to move our family to the Eastern Sierra where we currently operate a small school for individuals seeking to be trained in the ways of fasting, vision, and dream quests. Here, at the edge of the northern Mojave Desert, we keep close to our family and study at the feet of ‘las sierras desiertas.’ …
“The vision is not under our control---and never was. We are but two of its many earth-appointed custodians, as are Wabun, Sun Bear, Shawnodse, the Bear Tribe, and so many others. The spirit of Mother Earth is moving in our hearts and in the world at large to get her word out. The vision quest is good for all of us---as individuals, families, communities, culture, and land. This rite of passage must be set free. It has been trapped behind culturally conditioned fears for too long. Let the river flow freely through the thirsty canyons of the modern world. There is a way to heal ourselves and our land.”
The Preface explains, “This book is about the re-creation, in modern times, of an ancient rite of dying, passing through, and being reborn. It is also the story of the efforts of a small group of individuals to assist urban and suburban people to go into the wilderness to enact this ancient rite of passage---the vision quest… The experience of fasting alone in the wilderness of which these voices speak is the indirect outgrowth of teaching methods that I began to practice as an assistant professor in the School of Humanities at San Francisco State University during the tumultuous years of 1969-1971. Research into American mythology led me to the rites of passage of the first people of America. Other research into the roots of mythology led me to various other wilderness rites of initiation, some of them ancient, others not so ancient. Idealistically, I envisioned a school that would perform a … ‘midwifely’ function… The channels through which such concepts cold be taught, however, did not exist within the institutional framework… There was simply no place for the experimental study of the vision quest in the college curriculum… At that point, I went into the desert on my own search… We must all follow our Vision Quest to discover ourselves, to learn how we perceive of ourselves, and to find our relationship with the world around us… When I returned from the desert I was lost for a while…
“I found a man… His name was Edward L. Begg and he was the director of a federally funded adolescent drug abuse family service agency known as … Rites of Passage… It was at Rites of Passage that the vision quest, as we now conduct it, first began to take form… The more involved with the concept I became, the more convinced I was that the vision for my life lay in teaching rites of passage and reintroducing ancient birth was into the wastelands of American culture. But the ‘Feds’ said no… Rites of Passage ceased to be… I was in love with Meredith… As the vision grew again with a new urgency between us, we began to feel the increasing tension between our Greek home and our Marin County home. We made plans to return and take up the vision quest work.” (Pg. xv-xvii)
He recounts, “When I left everything behind and went into the wilderness, I did what people have done for generations in countless cultures… This vision is not Meredith’s and my vision. It is OUR (all Homo sapiens) vision. In a greater sense it is a vision from the heart of our Great Mother, the same heart that in ancient times spoke from human beings of many lands and origins, including the original Asian people of America… The vision has helped us to grow, to change ourselves, to transform our life stories. Above all, the vision helped us learn to love, respect, and cherish each other, to walk in balance between the two worlds, to give away, to worship the first in the heart of our Mother Earth who brought us not being.” (Pg. 15)
He explains, “The basic dynamics of a passage rite are described by a classic formula that underlies all initiatory ceremonies… Arnold van Gennep identified three phases: severance (separation), threshold (marge), and incorporation (agregation). These three phases can be likened to an opening of a door, a stepping across a threshold into a room, and a returning through a door on the other side of the room. The first door… [is] separation from parents, family, home, work, and the context of daily life… The room into which you step is the threshold. It is the actual experience of the ordeal of passage… [In] The final door… You will return from the sacred world of empowerment and be united with the corpus of a new growth stage.” (Pg. 29-30)
He states, “The vision quest takes life, concentrates it into a brief/eternal span of symbolic/real time, composes a story with a real/symbolic meaning whose mortal/immortal protagonist (you) undergoes a trial of ordeal in a bounded/limitless environment where ordinary/nonordinary exist simultaneously. The story is both the stuff of action (rite) and the stuff of contemplation (myth). As the protagonist moves through the plot of the story, he finds himself in a ‘double-meaninged’ universe. An animal is both animal and spirit.” (Pg. 115)
He adds later, “The return from the threshold is no less heroic than the act of severance. The hero must return to the same mother world, but no longer attached to it in the same way. The problem becomes the maintaining of the visionary standpoint in the face of immediate earthly pain or joy… To complete the heroic journey, the returning hero must survive the impact of the world… At the return threshold the transcendental power must be left behind. The gift that is given is the self, and active, mortal force applied among human beings of flesh and blood… If the hero must return a world of death, then the gift given is love, love that transcends death.” (Pg. 161)
While not an ‘authentic’ Native American rite, this book will still be of interest to those studying Vision Quests.”
January 29, 2013
Really interesting. I'm sometimes turned off by what might be taken as "New Age," but this one feels more Old Age, and earned. Extra points for being well written...
April 3, 2018
Maybe it is just the space I am in, but I did not get as much out of this as I had hoped. I do think rite of passage is something we lack in American society, but alas I do not think it must be addressed through this model. There were some very inspiring sections and qoutes throughout though.
March 15, 2024
This book was okay. The first half of the book, was very good on setting up why people go on vision quests and what should be done during a vision quest. The second half were many personal stories. If the book ended half way through it may have received 4/5 stars.
March 1, 2021
Not a ton of practical info, but the stories were interesting.
March 19, 2015
A friend loaned me his book so I could read this because I am doing a fast later this year. Some good ideas on how to look at a vision quest and there were a variety of stories about real questers. It's hard to say in words the thoughts this book is giving me, but I can say that I enjoyed it and felt it was thoughtful. A word on the writing - the description would fail as a novel, being overblown at times. But as a non-fiction, it gives a lot of food for thought.
November 15, 2011
Great book explaining the purpose of a vision quest and how to properly go about doing one. Very insightful and more applicable to the average person than I originally thought it would be. There is a reason mankind has been going to the wilderness to find answers and this book does an excellent job of communicating why and how.
April 3, 2013
Steven Foster brings one closer to touching experience. A great meandering through what it is to be human, and be connected to greater consciousness.
Inspiring, confronting, enlivening.
A must for any quester-to-be or anyone with even the slightest stirring of curiosity in what it's all about. If your came across this book - read it with open mind.
Inspiring, confronting, enlivening.
A must for any quester-to-be or anyone with even the slightest stirring of curiosity in what it's all about. If your came across this book - read it with open mind.
January 13, 2008
Caution. Don't let this book take you too far over the edge.
August 18, 2009
One day.....
April 14, 2010
Wow! Powerful book, stirs the longing in my soul for wholeness, healing and an integrated life/nature/culture/community. Particularly helpful for me as I'm going on a vision quest soon.
June 27, 2013
Poses some good journaling questions.
March 9, 2016
Interesting topic and the introduction was absolutely stunning. The rest of the book, though, was repetitive and not terribly insightful.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews