Roadmap to Reality: Consciousness, Worldviews, and the Blossoming of Human Spirit

by Thomas J. Elpel, Bonnie Andrich (Illustrator)

What if our entire experience of reality were based on an assumption that could be proven false? In Roadmap to Reality , Thomas J. Elpel tests the assumption that we are a sentient (self-aware) species, and finds evidence suggesting otherwise. Like automatons, we copy beliefs and behaviors from generation to generation without consciously evaluating why we do what we do. We absorb a definition of reality and act on it, without ever questioning the source of that definition. In short, we don't act; we react .

      Roadmap to Reality is the quest to unravel the illusions to discover what reality really is. The journey follows the link between technology and thought, showing how hunter-gatherer, agricultural, industrial, and informational societies define reality in predictable ways. In essence, production technology dictates how we perceive cause and effect, how we solve problems, and how we approach parenting and governing. Roadmap to Reality sequentially follows simple ideas and commonsense logic to reveal how consciousness and worldviews evolve in layers over time.       Roadmap to Reality enables the reader to step outside of ordinary reality to obtain a fresh perspective on culture, government, prosperity, sustainability, and meaning. The quest takes the reader to the ends of the universe with a casual writing style, peeling back the layers of consciousness to discover the reality beyond. Roadmap to Reality will change your perspective of history and world events, and it will change you, enabling you to let go of preconceived notions about the nature of reality to discover a more holistic, more satisfying life experience. Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper.

Genres: Spirituality

260 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Thomas J. Elpel has authored numerous books on topics ranging from wilderness survival and botany to stone masonry, sustainable construction, and green economics.

He is the founder of Green University® LLC and Outdoor Wilderness Living School LLC (OWLS), as well as HOPS Press LLC and the Jefferson River Canoe Trail.

As a child, Tom was mentored by his grandmother, Josie Jewett. Together they explored the hills and meadows near Virginia City, Montana, collecting herbs, looking for arrowheads and watching wildlife. Grandma Josie helped Tom to learn about native plants and their uses, igniting a passion for nature that has inspired him ever since. She also sparked his interest in survival skills.

Tom's first serious exposure to wilderness survival skills began at the age of 16, when he went on a 26-day, 250-mile walkabout in the desert canyons of southern Utah with Boulder Outdoor Survival School. The following year he and Grandma Josie went together to Tom Brown's Tracker School in New Jersey.

From there Tom spent thousands of hours practicing, developing, and teaching survival skills in his "backyard" in the Rocky Mountains. These experiences led to writing his book Participating in Nature: Wilderness Survival and Primitive Living Skills.

Tom's basic philosophy is that wilderness survival skills are useful to connect with nature, yet you shouldn't run away from the problems of modern society. Instead, we need to apply the lessons of living close to nature to the challenge of solving our worldly problems.

Outdoor Wilderness Living School LLC is dedicated to providing Stone Age living skills classes and camping trips to public school groups. Tom launched Green University® LLC in 2004 to expand the curriculum from teaching merely primitive skills outward towards addressing issues of global sustainability.

In 2019 Tom enlisted former Green University students and led a "Missouri River Corps of Rediscovery" down the 2,341-mile Missouri River, as told in his award-winning book Five Months on the Missouri River: Paddling a Dugout Canoe.