Return with Elixir: Four Maps for the Soul's Pilgrimage through Death and Rebirth

by Miles Neale, Robert Thurman (foreword)

• Shares four maps for spiritual rebirth based on Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and the precession of the equinoxes

• Traces the author’s journey of rebirth, covering his transformation through a spiritual crisis and the creation of a more meaningful life

• Provides visualization practices based on ancient Tibetan wisdom to support you on the path of self-realization

Exploring wisdom from mystical traditions and perennial philosophy on "dying before you die," Buddhist psychotherapist Miles Neale shares his own hero’s journey of rebirth, providing a detailed roadmap for the pilgrimage through dissolution, into the great mystery, and back again to the world. He shares his transformation through a spiritual crisis and, ultimately, his creation of a more meaningful life. He provides four intersecting maps to help guide readers through the experiential process of metaphoric death, reclaiming the soul, and sharing one’s genius with others. These four maps—the cosmological map, psychological map, alchemical map, and mythopoetic map—draw on the mythological stages of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung’s process of individuation, the Tibetan Buddhist alchemy of conscious rebirth, and the astrological phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes, offering a detailed philosophical underpinning for the soul’s journey to immortality. He also provides in-depth visualization practices based on ancient Tibetan wisdom to support you on the path of self-realization.

Integrating Tibetan Buddhism with psychology, trauma healing, neuroscience, and mythology, along with profound personal experience, Neale provides a step-by-step manual for spiritual rebirth, revealing how to reframe life’s unrelenting challenges and transitions as opportunities for psychological growth.

440 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 1, 2025

About the author

Dr. Miles Neale is among the leading voices of the current generation of Buddhist teachers and a forerunner in the emerging field of contemplative psychotherapy. He is a contemplative psychotherapist in private practice, faculty member of Tibet House US and Weill Cornell Medical College and former Assistant Director of Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science.

Miles is author of Gradual Awakening: The Tibetan Buddhist Path of Becoming Fully Human along with it’s companion audio course The Gradual Path (Sounds True, 2018) and coeditor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy (Routledge, 2017). He is based in New York City.

For the last twenty years Miles has trained in an authentic lineage of Tibetan Buddhism transmitted from His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, to preeminent American Buddhist scholar Professor Robert Thurman to pioneering contemplative psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Loizzo.

Miles has studied with Tibetan masters the late Gelek Rinpoche, Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Geshe Tenzin Zopa. He earned a doctorate in clinical psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and a masters degree in meditation research from NYU’s Gallatin School.

Miles' teachings cover two broad areas: 1) Meditation training grounded in contemplative science and 2) Contemplative psychotherapy grounded in neuropsychology. He offers guest talks, workshops and retreats as well as longer intensives such as a 50-hour meditation module for yoga teacher trainings and the nine-month Mindfulness-based Contemplative Psychotherapy online program he co-developed for health-care professionals.