Why does so much human activity continue in the illusionary bubble where lifestyles and societies require the resources of more than one Earth? In his first book,
Blinded by Progress
, Lee Van Ham contributed to a deeper understanding of that question. This book takes us on the heroic journey to relocate outside of that illusion. With a 1.5° Celsius temperature rise above pre-industrial levels now certain by 2026, we must immediately and massively scale-up many excellent ecological efforts in order to have any chance of avoiding 2° by mid-century. It requires we take a heroic journey on which our most challenging choices are met with new thinking, aroused imaginations, and a greater consciousness where we live out our truest human capacities.
From Egos to Eden
guides us on this journey, moving from ego to Self, from civilization to Earth-size living, from smaller topographies of consciousness to transforming ones. We metamorphose into our fuller capacities as humans--people eager to leave MultiEarth living and join Earth in co-creating OneEarth societies. The powers of our imagination help us crossover into a world in which we take our place with other species in Earth's interdependent community of life--a OneEarth livable world. The author reclaims Eden from a morality tale of human failure and returns it to the cutting edge it had when its creators told it in protest of the coercive, over-sized ways of empires. In their case it was the Babylonian Empire of the 6th century BCE; in our case, Eden turns its spotlight on the United States superpower, China's rapidly emerging super-status, and the globalization driven by transnational corporations. All are revealed as flawed, MultiEarth models that need to unravel or be radically re-imagined to fit with nature's demands. Guides on this heroic journey include First Peoples who have resisted for millennia the Civilization Project of MultiEarth living; Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Jung, who gives a psychological-spiritual basis for believing we can be new humans; and David Korten whose map shows us five topographies of consciousness through which we can and must journey. Coming to see clearly that living with the thinking of a MultiEarth paradigm can never get us to OneEarth living, we can undergo the metamorphosis to the greater OneEarth standards of thought and choice that the current context requires of us.