The Hero’s Journey of Rebirth
In Return with Elixir Four Maps for the Soul’s Pilgrimage through Death and Rebirth Miles Neale explores wisdom from mystical traditions
In Return with Elixir Four Maps for the Soul’s Pilgrimage through Death and Rebirth (Inner Traditions, April 2025, $29.99), Buddhist psychotherapist Miles Neale explores wisdom from mystical traditions and perennial philosophy on “dying before you die.” He shares his own hero’s journey of rebirth, providing a detailed roadmap for the pilgrimage through dissolution, into the great mystery, and back again to the world. Neale shares his transformation through a spiritual crisis and, ultimately, his creation of a more meaningful life. He provides four intersecting maps to help guide readers through the experiential process of metaphoric death, reclaiming the soul, and sharing one’s genius with others. These four maps—the cosmological map, psychological map, alchemical map, and mythopoetic map—draw on the mythological stages of Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung’s process of individuation, the Tibetan Buddhist alchemy of conscious rebirth, and the astrological phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes, offering a detailed philosophical underpinning for the soul’s journey to immortality. He also provides in-depth visualization practices based on ancient Tibetan wisdom to support you on the path of self-realization.
Integrating Tibetan Buddhism with psychology, trauma healing, neuroscience, and mythology, along with profound personal experience, Neale provides a step-by-step manual for spiritual rebirth, revealing how to reframe life’s unrelenting challenges and transitions as opportunities for psychological growth.
About the Book: Return with Elixir: Four Maps for the Soul’s Pilgrimage through Death and Rebirth (Foreword by Robert A.F. Thurman)
ISBN: 9781644118436, April 2025
Also available as an ebook Paperback: $29.99, 440 pages, 6 x 9
Includes 8-page color insert and 5 b&w illustrations Imprint: Inner Traditions
Author Bio: Miles Neale, Psy.D., is a psychotherapist teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, and founder of the Gradual Path through which he leads inner and outer pilgrimages of spiritual transformation around the world. The author of Gradual Awakening and co-editor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy, he lives in Bali, Indonesia.
Filed underCounselling & talking therapy, Bali & Indonesia
