Books by Richard Grossinger
2013: Raising the Earth to the Next Vibration
For the Earth to move to the next vibration, says Richard Grossinger, consciousness must change in profound ways, and these involve core elements of humanity: evil, grief, bliss, and compassion. 2013 locates these elements in often unlikely places and seeks their nature and capacity for change. With playfulness and precision, 2013 tackles the questions of creation and existence in their twenty-first-century incarnation. In these intellectual field notes, the author’s absorbing style combines memoir with scientific deconstruction, metaphysical ontology, and experimental prose that recalls the Black Mountain school to draw transcendental insight from the ephemeral space-time we call daily life. Moving with equal ease between matters cosmic and earthly, Grossinger details existence as an exhilarating adventure always pushing us toward a higher state in this wide-ranging, humorous, and heartfelt book. Including an informal course in psychic development, 2013 sheds light on the ephemera of planets and iPods, politics and Zen, Buddy Holly and road trips in its study of the elements of psychic development that could transform humankind and the Earth.
Embryos, Galaxies, and Sentient Beings: How the Universe Makes Life
Why is the universe conscious? What kindles mind inside matter? Why do fundamentalist sciences and religions never ask these questions? This sequel to Embryogenesis deals with the theoretical issues brought up by Embryogenesis, including: the relationship between thermodynamics/entropy and the emergence of life; a speculative set of embryogenic principles for all creatures on all planets in the cosmos; an explanation and critique of Intelligent Design and a proposal for a more dynamic psychospiritual theory of creature development; a series of alternatives to genetic determinism; a discussion of the relationship between consciousness and matter; an interjection of 9/11 (which occurred during the writing of this book); and many other topics.
Embryogenesis: Species, Gender, and Identity
Embryogenesis is an unusual book in that it brings together a highly illustrated, practical embryology book in simple language, perfect for health practitioners, with a fascinating read on the history and philosophy of biological science. It discusses the various stages of embryonic development (meiosis, fertilization, blastula development, and gastrulation, and then the embryology of each of the human organs and organ systems in detail). It puts each of them in context, both in terms of its phylogeny: the evolutionary trajectory of cell-organized systems on Earth, and its ontogeny: the formation of individual organisms in the modern world. There are 24 color plates, many of them commissioned uniquely for this volume, and several hundred black and white illustrations. The book is 950 pages hardcover, 8-1/2 by 10.
Ecology and Consciousness: Traditional Wisdom on the Environment (1978-1979, revised in 1991-1992)
Rather than describe aspects of our global dilemma and pose interpretations and solutions, Ecology and Consciousness brings together a medley of voices crying out in Earth song. Some of them are sonorous, some of them shrill, some of them fully, some of them outrageous–all of them our paradox of consciousness in nature. Contributors include Gary Snyder, Knud Rasmussen, Roy A. Rappaport, Rinpoche Chogyan Trungpa, and Jacques Valle.
Homeopathy: The Great Riddle
This is a wonderfully succinct book which sets forth the history, essence, and methodology of homeopathy. The book is well organized in 5 major sections. There is a very thorough overview of the precepts and tenets of the practice, its historical origins, a detailed and well-covered biography of Samuel Hahnemann and a review of the politics of the allopathy v. homeopathy debate. It is further embellished with copious annotations, an appendix with an actual case history and a very fine reference for homeopathic resources such as organizations, suppliers and other texts covering a variety of related topics. Call it a perfect Homeopathy 101 text if you will, the author makes a very even-handed presentation of the material, including the politics of medicine as they have evolved in the USA over the past century.
Migraine Auras: When the Visual World Fails
Migraine headaches are familiar and generally treatable ailments. Less understood are migraine auras or scotoma, visual distortions—sometimes accompanied by headache and sometimes not—that make it difficult, sometimes impossible, to see clearly. Migraine auras can be frightening, disorienting, even incapacitating. Richard Grossinger, who has suffered from them himself, here presents a helpful guide to the subject that maps the terrain, describes the various forms migraine auras can take, charts his personal experiences with them, and offers informed suggestions for homeopathic and other treatments.
New Moon
The grandson of famed Catskill resort owner Jennie Grossinger, Richard Grossinger grew up in a Manhattan apartment with his mother, stepfather, brother and sister and attended private schools. In this affecting, gracefully written memoir, Grossinger details his unhappy childhood, which was punctuated by episodes of panic. His mother so resented his attachment to his father, Paul, with whom he lived at Jennie Grossinger’s resort during school vacations, that she consistently behaved as though she hated Richard and publicly favored his brother. Observing his son’s emotional distress, Paul arranged for Richard to undergo Freudian psychoanalysis, an experience that he describes here. The author skillfully evokes the world of ’50s New York and Grossinger’s Catskills as well as the counterculture of the ’60s, which he was drawn to while attending Amherst College.
On the Integration of Nature: Post-9/11 Biopolitical Notes
This collage-like book is an inquiry into the nature of life and of existence itself. Simultaneously philosophical, spiritual, and literary, it pushes the boundaries of this area of thought beyond the strictures of science, religion, and all other forms of ideology. Author Richard Grossinger dazzlingly blends narrative memoir, short science fiction “novels” (the shortest being a mere paragraph), political think pieces, Buddhist screeds, public dialogue via found art, and even dreams to create a bold view of the world and humankind’s precarious place in it.
Out of Babylon: Ghosts of Grossinger’s
Richard Grossinger, an anthropologist by training, a cultural rebel by inclination, and supposed heir apparent to the great, eponymous Catskill resort by birth, presents an intense, personal story in the form of a “nonfiction novel.” Grossinger recounts old dreams, lists every college course in which he enrolled, and enumerates the courses he taught. Then there’s the tarot, tai chi, and homeopathic studies; the poets and baseball heroes; the shamans and Edgar Cayce; the UFOs and monuments on Mars. He recalls his mean mother and painfully troubled brother, as well as multiple fathers and a phalanx of counterculture colleagues. Often it sounds like a transcript from an analyst’s couch. Still, Out of Babylon is a well-written personal story, ultimately sad and disquieting because it rings true.
Planet Medicine: Modalities
Planet Medicine is a major work by an anthropologist who looks at medicine in a broad context. In this edition, additions to this classic text include a section on Reiki, a comparison of types of palpation used in healing, updates on craniosacral therapy, and a means of understanding how different alternative medicines actually work. Illustrated throughout, this is the standard on the history, philosophy, and anthropology of this subject.
Planet Medicine: Origins
Planet Medicine is a major work by an anthropologist who looks at medicine in a broad context. In this edition, additions to this classic text include a section on Reiki, a comparison of types of palpation used in healing, updates on craniosacral therapy, and a means of understanding how different alternative medicines actually work. Illustrated throughout, this is the standard on the history, philosophy, and anthropology of this subject.
The Alchemical Tradition in the Late Twentieth Century
“Here alchemy assumes its rightful place with astrology as a psycho-spiritual system which poses questions about humanity and the cosmos that empirical science has not yet begun to address, let alone answer. – Norman Weinstein, New Age Magazine”
The Bardo of Waking Life
An avant garde set of improvisational essays, Richard Grossinger’s The Bardo of Waking Life is a meditation on the Tibetan Buddhist bardo realm which, in popular culture, is viewed as the bridge between lives, the state people enter after death and before rebirth. This book examines waking life and its history and language as if it were a bardo state rather than ultimate reality, and thus seeks a context for life (and dreams), even as it addresses more “mundane issues” including genetic theory, the war in Iraq and George W. Bush’s presidency, North Korea, advertising, global warming, Prison Industrial Culture, childhood trauma, even country western music. Written with playfulness and precision, Bardo takes a new, probing approach to all the important questions of creation, destruction, and existence. In these intellectual field notes, Grossinger proves thematically fearless as he crosses quantum mechanics with totemic hexes and draws transcendental insight from the ephemeral space-time we call daily life. If, as Tibetan cosmology holds true, all conditional realms are bardos, then the state we all share is nothing less than the bardo of waking life.
The New York Mets: Ethnography, Myth, and Subtext
No baseball team has captured America’s imagination like the Mets. Alternately the “Lovable Losers” and the “Miracle Mets,” New York’s other team offers fascinating fodder for writer Richard Grossinger in this thoughtful collection. The New York Mets is a series of probing essays on the best and most interesting years of the team, particularly 1969, 1973, 1986, and last year’s abbreviated run. A pivotal essay chronicles the lives of a professional athlete and a die-hard fan to create a well-argued, deeply felt meditation on the ways in which franchise baseball has come to fail not only the fans but the players.
This centerpiece presents a poignant narrative of Mets pitcher Terry Leach and author Grossinger’s own experiences playing and tracking the sport. Taken together, these powerful essays alternately take the poet’s, the alchemist’s, and the player’s perspective to paint a composite portrait that brings all the stunning highs and dispiriting lows together to show the ways in which America’s favorite pastime has changed. Grossinger reflects on the salad days when teams were happily homegrown and laments the current money-ball scenario some call baseball today.
Waiting for the Martian Express: Cosmic Visitors, Earth Warriors, and Luminous Dreams
Explores a full range of New Age phenomena including channels, past-lives, shamans, healing, and much more. Grossinger distinguishes New Age marketing from real phenomena, and looks closely at both scientific and fundamentalist debunkers of New Age.
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