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The Journey of Soul Initiation: A Field Guide for Visionaries, Evolutionaries, and Revolutionaries
Soul initiation is an essential spiritual adventure that most of the world has forgotten — or not yet discovered. Here, visionary ecopsychologist Bill Plotkin maps this journey, one that has not been previously illuminated in the contemporary Western world and yet is vital for the future of our species and our planet. Based on the experiences of thousands of people, this book provides phase-by-phase guidance for the descent to soul — the dissolution of current identity; the encounter with the mythopoetic mysteries of soul; and the metamorphosis of the ego into a cocreator of life-enhancing culture. Plotkin illustrates each phase of this riveting and sometimes hazardous odyssey with fascinating stories from many people, including those he has guided. Throughout he weaves an in-depth exploration of Carl Jung’s Red Book — and an innovative framework for understanding it.
520 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
179 people are currently reading
699 people want to read
About the author
Bill Plotkin
8 books115 followersBill Plotkin, Ph.D., is a depth psychologist, wilderness guide, and agent of cultural evolution. As founder of southwest Colorado's Animas Valley Institute, he has, since 1980, guided thousands of women and men through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision fast. He's also been a research psychologist (studying nonordinary states of consciousness), professor of psychology, rock musician, and whitewater river guide. In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack mountain, Bill experienced a "call to spiritual adventure," leading him to abandon academia in search of his true calling. Bill is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche (an experiential guidebook), Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World (a nature-based stage model of human development), and Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche (an ecocentric map of the psyche -- for healing, growing whole, and cultural transformation). His doctorate in psychology is from the University of Colorado at Boulder. To learn more about Bill Plotkin and Animas Valley Institute, visit http://www.animas.org
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 22, 2021
THERE BE DRAGONS
Somewhere out beyond the seemingly calm and sedate shores of the rational, the day-to-day scramble, the press of the banal, lies an ocean so deep and grand that most peoples in modern culture have forgotten it ever existed. Most of our maps fade out 15 miles offshore ending with dreams most people choose to forget in the morning. And beyond that, it is said dismissively and with a touch of fear by those who have never chosen to explore, “there be dragons”. Bill Plotkin has devoted a lifetime as explorer of the imaginal ocean and cartographer of the realm that lies beyond the shallows of our contemporary culture.
At its heart, “The Journey of Soul Initiation” is a method of wayfinding in the mythopoetic deep. However, unlike most maps, this is not one for helping one find one’s way “back” to the familiar comforts of our modern lives, but a way to lose our old way of being, and those “too small shoes” that have begun to cramp our feet and impede our movement. Instead, we are shown in Plotkin’s own journey, and those of several modern-day wanderers, how one can be called, how one can step towards or fall—or both—into the sacred search for our unique and essential mythopoetic identity, our special way of being and contributing to this world.
Bill Plotkin calls this a “field guide” which is significant because it comes from the field, from his being out there, in the wild, leading groups into intensive experiences with dreams, places, other-than-human beings as a guide—and subsequently, a teacher of guides—and as founder of the Animas Valley Institute. As with his earlier works, some of the most compelling passages are words from the mouths of those who have direct experience of being broken open to the possibility of a larger life and, disturbingly for some, dying to old, worn-out, and yet familiar identities.
Other works of Plotkin’s look at different facets of this journey:
Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented WorldN—focuses on a model for the human life span rooted in cycles and qualities of the natural world. A human developmental lifecycle that is soul-centered.
Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and PsycheS—a book of practices that facilitate the descent to soul, including dream work, vision fasts, shadow work, and ceremony.
Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche—a wonderful book that lays out the four facets of human wholeness as well as the contravening four sets of fragmented or wounded subpersonalities. Cultivates a model of wholeness that meets woundedness where it lives and meets it with acceptance, dialog, and eventually reclamation into our original multifaceted wild mind.
Journey of Soul Initiation is a close examination of a specific stage in Plotkin’s developmental model—“Wanderer in the Cocoon.” It is surprisingly detailed about what kind of travails await anyone who finds their way into soul canyon. And suggestive of how beautiful, expansive and resonant life can become when one gives oneself to their own mythopoetic journey wholeheartedly.
The book is worth its weight for the way Plotkin meticulously maps Jung’s journey, as detailed in Jung's Red Book and elsewhere, against the five phases of soul initiation. But more than anything, this latest book has the heft and grace of a life’s work and is a life’s journey all its own. It is a lovingly detailed map of places seldom traveled and seldom spoken of. It is a compendium of prodding poetry as stars to guide you in dark places. It is the fire around which some harrowing and ultimately life-affirming stories are told. It is a key to a door beyond which undoubtedly lies heartache, loss, dragon teeth.
If your life is fine as it is, don’t waste your time with this book. It will only upset you.
But should you be dragon-drawn and wistfully looking offshore already, this may be the first step towards the wild life that has been dreaming you along all the while.
Somewhere out beyond the seemingly calm and sedate shores of the rational, the day-to-day scramble, the press of the banal, lies an ocean so deep and grand that most peoples in modern culture have forgotten it ever existed. Most of our maps fade out 15 miles offshore ending with dreams most people choose to forget in the morning. And beyond that, it is said dismissively and with a touch of fear by those who have never chosen to explore, “there be dragons”. Bill Plotkin has devoted a lifetime as explorer of the imaginal ocean and cartographer of the realm that lies beyond the shallows of our contemporary culture.
At its heart, “The Journey of Soul Initiation” is a method of wayfinding in the mythopoetic deep. However, unlike most maps, this is not one for helping one find one’s way “back” to the familiar comforts of our modern lives, but a way to lose our old way of being, and those “too small shoes” that have begun to cramp our feet and impede our movement. Instead, we are shown in Plotkin’s own journey, and those of several modern-day wanderers, how one can be called, how one can step towards or fall—or both—into the sacred search for our unique and essential mythopoetic identity, our special way of being and contributing to this world.
Bill Plotkin calls this a “field guide” which is significant because it comes from the field, from his being out there, in the wild, leading groups into intensive experiences with dreams, places, other-than-human beings as a guide—and subsequently, a teacher of guides—and as founder of the Animas Valley Institute. As with his earlier works, some of the most compelling passages are words from the mouths of those who have direct experience of being broken open to the possibility of a larger life and, disturbingly for some, dying to old, worn-out, and yet familiar identities.
Other works of Plotkin’s look at different facets of this journey:
Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented WorldN—focuses on a model for the human life span rooted in cycles and qualities of the natural world. A human developmental lifecycle that is soul-centered.
Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and PsycheS—a book of practices that facilitate the descent to soul, including dream work, vision fasts, shadow work, and ceremony.
Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche—a wonderful book that lays out the four facets of human wholeness as well as the contravening four sets of fragmented or wounded subpersonalities. Cultivates a model of wholeness that meets woundedness where it lives and meets it with acceptance, dialog, and eventually reclamation into our original multifaceted wild mind.
Journey of Soul Initiation is a close examination of a specific stage in Plotkin’s developmental model—“Wanderer in the Cocoon.” It is surprisingly detailed about what kind of travails await anyone who finds their way into soul canyon. And suggestive of how beautiful, expansive and resonant life can become when one gives oneself to their own mythopoetic journey wholeheartedly.
The book is worth its weight for the way Plotkin meticulously maps Jung’s journey, as detailed in Jung's Red Book and elsewhere, against the five phases of soul initiation. But more than anything, this latest book has the heft and grace of a life’s work and is a life’s journey all its own. It is a lovingly detailed map of places seldom traveled and seldom spoken of. It is a compendium of prodding poetry as stars to guide you in dark places. It is the fire around which some harrowing and ultimately life-affirming stories are told. It is a key to a door beyond which undoubtedly lies heartache, loss, dragon teeth.
If your life is fine as it is, don’t waste your time with this book. It will only upset you.
But should you be dragon-drawn and wistfully looking offshore already, this may be the first step towards the wild life that has been dreaming you along all the while.
January 20, 2021
Life altering is too humble a phrase for the scope and impact of this amazing work. In this 4th book of Bill’s lifework of creating a new pathway to soul, we are invited into the cocoon and through the steps of the soul initiation journey: taking leave of the suffocating life of our soul and earth destroying culture, descending to soul initiation, the discovery of our mythopoetic identity, and finally, emergence as evolutionary revolutionaries.
Bill’s work helps us discover our true home as members of the earth community not just the human one, so that we can serve the greater well-being of our earth family. Our newly discovered ecological service becomes a gateway to change and renewal for both our damaged and dying earth and traumatized spirits. Bill’s work restores the sacred at the heart of connection by showing us a pathway for reclaiming our nature-based selves. It invites us back into sacred partnership with all of life by offering us glimpses into the real journeys of many soul pioneers. Bill reminds us that we are lucky to be able to love this earth and each other, not just ourselves. I am immensely grateful for this book.
Bill’s work helps us discover our true home as members of the earth community not just the human one, so that we can serve the greater well-being of our earth family. Our newly discovered ecological service becomes a gateway to change and renewal for both our damaged and dying earth and traumatized spirits. Bill’s work restores the sacred at the heart of connection by showing us a pathway for reclaiming our nature-based selves. It invites us back into sacred partnership with all of life by offering us glimpses into the real journeys of many soul pioneers. Bill reminds us that we are lucky to be able to love this earth and each other, not just ourselves. I am immensely grateful for this book.
January 15, 2021
As we plunge into the cataclysm of climate crisis, global pandemic, racial injustice and attacks on democracy, Bill Plotkin offers us a portal and a trail to find our niches as ecocentric, soulcentric humans. In The Journey of Soul Initiation, through story and myth, Plotkin integrates his previous three books into a field guide inviting us to descend into the canyons of Soul as individuals, as communities and as Earth. The sections on Carl Jung’s descent and encounter with Soul are deeply insightful and personally helpful. Plotkin’s use of imagery and metaphor is inspired! In this Great Work, as we stand on the edge of chaos and emergence, listening and marinating in the Mystery, we can sense the Dream of Earth arising.
March 25, 2022
If you are doing a soul retrieval you must read this. Incredible guide.
September 18, 2021
We are going through an environmental and cultural crisis where our human and natural systems are collapsing. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑱𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒍 𝑰𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 by Bill Plotkin, helps us connect with our outer and inner Nature. This book is a map that helps us go through the five phases of the 𝐷𝑒𝑠𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑙, a psychospiritual expedition into 𝑆𝑜𝑢𝑙 𝐶𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑜𝑛, and which also corresponds to the five developmental phases of the butterfly. These five phases are called: Preparation, Dissolution, Soul Encounter, Metamorphosis and, Enactment.
Once you get into Soul Canyon, everything you knew and understood how the world and who you believed you were is going to disintegrate, the Ego needs to be reshaped, re-membered, so you can learn and deliver your gift of love-service to the world.
Every chapter begins with a poem from different authors like Rainer Maria Rilke, Goethe, Yeats, David Whyte, Mary Oliver… where they represent in their text the phase we are in the Descent.
The book is also full of fascinating stories from many people that went through this journey.
One of the main chapters I loved the most is the one about Carl Jung’s, Descent to Soul. It helped me understand more about 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑑 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝑘, where he wrote about his deep imagination journeys and encounter with Soul between 1915 and 1930.
A very enlightening and fascinating work to help us re-member who we truly are.
Once you get into Soul Canyon, everything you knew and understood how the world and who you believed you were is going to disintegrate, the Ego needs to be reshaped, re-membered, so you can learn and deliver your gift of love-service to the world.
Every chapter begins with a poem from different authors like Rainer Maria Rilke, Goethe, Yeats, David Whyte, Mary Oliver… where they represent in their text the phase we are in the Descent.
The book is also full of fascinating stories from many people that went through this journey.
One of the main chapters I loved the most is the one about Carl Jung’s, Descent to Soul. It helped me understand more about 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑒𝑑 𝐵𝑜𝑜𝑘, where he wrote about his deep imagination journeys and encounter with Soul between 1915 and 1930.
A very enlightening and fascinating work to help us re-member who we truly are.
February 14, 2022
Will you risk your current life and identity for the possibility of uncovering your most sacred of tasks, your unique Soul-infused service to the world?
If the answer is YES ~ read this book.
It took me a year (slowly, thoughtfully) to digest and make my way through this tome showing the way for psychospiritual awakening and how we might begin to lead an ecocentric (note: not ego) life. The lessons in this book are timeless and timely. I know the idea of a lifechanging mythopoetic call is so great and terrifying; but we all are born to answer it, if we will.
A reason it also took me so long to read this book, was because a third of the way through I stopped to read The Red Book by Carl Jung as Bill Plotkin makes frequent references to it and it sounded intriguing. It is a beast of a book in its own right and a deep vortex into the underworld of Jung’s psyche and own soul unraveling.
If the answer is YES ~ read this book.
It took me a year (slowly, thoughtfully) to digest and make my way through this tome showing the way for psychospiritual awakening and how we might begin to lead an ecocentric (note: not ego) life. The lessons in this book are timeless and timely. I know the idea of a lifechanging mythopoetic call is so great and terrifying; but we all are born to answer it, if we will.
A reason it also took me so long to read this book, was because a third of the way through I stopped to read The Red Book by Carl Jung as Bill Plotkin makes frequent references to it and it sounded intriguing. It is a beast of a book in its own right and a deep vortex into the underworld of Jung’s psyche and own soul unraveling.
January 26, 2021
This book has collected wisdom from decades of experience, gathering the roots of knowledge and transformation and feeding it back graciously to the human soul. It serves as a deep catalyst; a true testament to the potential of these changing times to "BE the change", and most importantly, to WANT it. I was elated to find that the integration of this material is a lifelong process and am so grateful to have teachers within this space to assist in the guiding back home. This book is a safe place.
I recommend readers begin with Plotkin's earlier books for a better, almost essential need for preparation for this material. Blessings and gratitude for all the souls involved in this creation. May it serve as a vessel of transformation for many years to come.
I recommend readers begin with Plotkin's earlier books for a better, almost essential need for preparation for this material. Blessings and gratitude for all the souls involved in this creation. May it serve as a vessel of transformation for many years to come.
January 22, 2021
Incredible body of wisdom and art. An apotheosis of Bill Plotkin's previous works (Nature and the Human Soul, Soulcraft, Wildmind) with some extra depth and richness. I wish we were taught these things along early in our life journeys and I feel privileged to be have been beckoned by this dark life-changing portal.
Enjoyed every bit of it. One of those books you'd return again and again to take some new delicious and frightful revelations back each and every time.
Highly recommended.
Enjoyed every bit of it. One of those books you'd return again and again to take some new delicious and frightful revelations back each and every time.
Highly recommended.
October 27, 2021
I believe I've just finished reading the most important book I've ever read. The metamorphosis work continues...
March 1, 2022
WOW! I am humbled by this book by Bill Plotkin and the work it took to put this one together... A treasured and "sacred" text for me.. Highlighted and tabbed in countless various colors and notes, in the margins with “her” name as well as others… this book is worth EVERY PENNY I paid for it... Wish I had this when I was going to therapy years ago… It has single handedly clarified my sense of self and 1.) I have withdrawn the "authority" that I pasted on individuals outside of myself as "people that know??" and 2.) Grounded myself a deep sense of reverence and gratitude in my experience of my life... as I have lived and experienced it... (A change in the deep center of Gravity I experience as ME)... I have always known in a small subtle deep very youthful part of me that there was something else to recognize and acknowledge as real in living my life... and yet I was not accessing that tether in a cognitive manner as I have grown in this culture and world... rather than life on the surface… Like little light bulbs on a Christmas tree string of lights – these deeply personal events / moments – not known by others... line up and light up as connected and validated as REAL and UNIQUE to ME - In my exploration and unfoldment as a human being... There seems to be a mantra arising inside from this read… “Let them go play with their tinker-toys” as the richness of the archetypal depths that I have lived in the alienation of the “wasteland” since the Hag initiation at age 13 is validated and honored in these pages.. Plotkin has mapped out a landscape for the individual becoming an initiated adult to not only see a picture that is “eagle-eyed” in its presentation but to acknowledge a “place to stand” organically as the being I was created to be... self-generating my gift as only I can do it.. I do not need therapy, I do not need secular priests as they don’t even know or the POO-BAHS in programs running their dogmas… The internal gyroscope is running as it always was… And today I KNOW IT... I embrace it, and I am learning to express and live it... as the I AM-NESS of me… I gifted this to another person I have known for 30+ years who is a wanderer of sorts too who appreciated this book as a validation of their own depth - remarking – “You seem to have this knack for discovering books and other resources that have something I need”. The bits and pieces of Jung, Hero’s Journey, Archetypes, etc. are but pieces and signposts of a larger picture. Plotkin is explicit in mapping this out... What a gift…. To any Journeyer in “The Wasteland” this read may change your life!!
January 25, 2021
The Journey of Soul Initiation is a work of deep integrity as Bill Plotkin remains true to his own Soul calling. This artfully crafted, Muse inspired guide is a synthesis of Plotkin’s life work, seamlessly integrating his previous writings (books) while simultaneously transcending them. Plotkin’s exploration and illumination of the five phases of Soul Initiation offers guiding cairns to help those courageous enough to embark on this journey, uncharted and mysterious as each path will be. Using multiple accounts of initiates he has witnessed/guided directly and weaving in Carl Jung’s own precarious and unguided soul descent as examples, both the perils and exhilarations of such a journey are vividly and honestly offered. We do not enter this realm without fair warning! Plotkin’s profound conclusion is that we are called to Love this world and by living into our Soul essence each of us can embody this Love. Surely this work itself is a contribution of such Love as it guides us into fulfilling Earth’s dream of humanity.
February 10, 2021
In his book, The Journey of Soul Initiation, Bill Plotkin manages to further deepen and clarify his message from his earlier offerings--Soulcraft, Nature and the Human Soul, Wild Mind--with greater skill, conviction, heart, and urgency. His language continues to be skillful, articulate, and pwoerful and he manages to convey depth of meaning and purpose while maintaining a light touch around heavy content. I strongly recommend this book to anyone curious about Soul, Self, and Service.
October 16, 2021
This was an awesome book for understanding human development, especially a key phase of our personal evolution. I do think that it reflects an idea that in order for our cultures to flourish we must “go back” to a time when we enmeshed with nature and lived simpler lives, but I believe that the path forward must actually embrace technology and the modern world. How these two opposite sides work together I think is the key. Nonetheless, great book with an important message.
February 27, 2021
If you want to make sense of where you are in your journey or find inspiration for where you might one day be, this is the book for you. This book provides a map for the deep dive that is the journey to soul. Bill Plotkin has dedicated much of his life to the discovery of his own soul and will help you do the same.
March 12, 2021
Bill builds on and develops the wisdom that he has gained over the years which we see reflected in his previous books.
It is not a book of theory, but a book filled with real life experiences of real life people. The book gives a theoretical framework, but it is not heavy on this.
Overall an easy read, but slow - since I find myself needing to take time to digest what he writes.
It is not a book of theory, but a book filled with real life experiences of real life people. The book gives a theoretical framework, but it is not heavy on this.
Overall an easy read, but slow - since I find myself needing to take time to digest what he writes.
January 22, 2022
I have long been a fan of Bill Plotkin and his work. I have given all previous books by him a top rating. I enjoyed The Journey of Soul Initiation as a narrative of his student's journeys, but had been expecting new content as well. I didn't find anything new that I hadn't already gotten from his previous works.
January 26, 2025
The problem is that if everybody followed Plotkin's guide, the world and all its people would have a massive shift in the way we see everything, but the benefit is that it takes a long time and considerable effort and it's simply too difficult for most people to do. (Wait a minute, reverse that problem-benefit).
November 9, 2024
I am touched by the notion that we seldom see or have access to a ceremonial and supportive transition into adulthood. Emerging from “cocoon” (safety nets, coping mechanisms, comfort habits, and addictions - societal, emotional, digital, and substance alike) is a rite of passage that all of humanity has access to. It is a beautiful experience to be therapeutically guided through this initiation. It is truly freeing to release the past, step into adulthood, and align with our intended soul path. I look forward to learning more about Plotkin’s development of this initiation process. I appreciate that this book traces a deep study of indigenous theosophy and Jungian philosophy, and then translates it into an approachable pathway for our modern world. Granted, the path = leaving most if not all of your previous life behind, but such is the journey of soul path on your way to purpose! I’m excited to understand my true role in community (how I am intended to serve), family (my loss of / search of / and growing of), and how I can express love and gratitude to others through the work I am intended for here on Earth.
March 5, 2021
Plotkin's wisdom is timely, for our world and our societies are sick and need this medicine.
April 28, 2022
This book feels like it was written by Kyrie Irving
November 13, 2025
The most non-woo guide I’ve seen to creating profound experiences that awaken your spiritual life. Bill has a great process outlined here, with tangible experience backing it
March 14, 2022
Dense, beautiful. A comprehensive treatise on evolutionary soul work. This book helped me clarify why conventional 'coaching' isn't a fit for me, how my longing for connection with nature is an urgent call, and the steps I need to take to find my true 'eco-niche.' This one took a while to read - so much in every paragraph! - but well worth it. I'll be referring to it regularly.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews