Sacred Pleasure: Sex, Myth and the Politics of the Body, New Paths to Power and Love by Riane Eisler
This wasn’t the book I was planning to write. I promised my publisher another book but a chapter of that book kept expanding—I was becoming curiouser and curiouser about its topic and how it related to me and others, to our world. Finally it became clear it was the book that needed to be written next.
We realize that flowers and candles and wine are the stuff of romance but I began to notice through research how important they are in our most sacred rites as well. And this lead me back into the prehistory, into art and the many clues that affirmed that indeed there is this link. That interest led to me noticing patterns of relating I was seeing through this lens.
I began to see patterns of movement, a gradual shift over time, historically from a partnership style of male/female relationship to a domination style and now slowly back toward a partnership one. And I was seeing a real transformation of both spirituality and sexuality along this arc of time. As well, I saw that these shifts occurred across cultures and around the world as well. What I discovered in the research and writing of this book changed and impacted me to such a great degree I felt I had to include it in my top 10.
The Human Potential for Peace: An Anthropological Challenge to Assumptions About War and Violence by Douglass P. Fry
I love this book because it’s a collection of essays by a renowned anthropologist that explores our prehistory way back to when we were foraging societies and into modern times. How it does this and how it correlates that with the history of war and violence, is utterly fascinating. It is an important and wonderful book.
Darwin’s Lost Theory of Love by David Loye
David is the author of the award-winning book, The Healing of the Nation. He’s a psychologist, a social researcher, a scientist, an evolutionary systems scientist, and a prolific author of dozens of books. He is also my beloved husband who died recently just days after the 45th anniversary of our meeting.
Few people even knew there was a lost theory of love in Darwin’s work before David brought this to our greater awareness—it’s a major theory of Darwin’s that has been ignored over a 100 years. This theory focuses on the impact of the evolution of love, sex, and moral sensitivity rather than the selfishness and survival of the fittest. In fact, Darwin apologized for using the phrase “survival of the fittest,” regretting the unintended connotation that the strong must best the weak. Based on page after page of Darwin’s own writings about a third major process of evolution—the development of caring and sensitivity—this important book changes our whole perception of Darwin’s work and offers new hope for humanity as we move forward.
Delusions of Gender: How Our Mind, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference
by Cordelia Fine
Cordelia Fine has written a wonderful book that draws on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology to debunk myths about men and woman’s brains being hardwired in ways that make women limited and inferior to men. This stereotype has long existed and as this book shows, it simply is not true in any way. There are certainly differences but none that justify the male dominance that developed. In Delusions, she uses science to discount that and then moves us into a look at the role of cultural and socialization factors that create false stereotypes and differences. It’s an illuminating and fascinating book.
Discover the remaining books on "Riane Eisler's 10 Best Spiritual Books List" on Sandie Sedgbeer's website.
Learn more about Sandie Sedgbeer here.
Learn more about Sandie Sedgbeer's No B.S. Spiritual Book Club here.
Discover Sandie Sedgbeer's other guests' "10 Best" lists here.
Leave a Reply