About the Author: John C. Robinson

I am a clinical psychologist with a second doctorate in ministry, ordained interfaith minister, author, husband and father. I started writing books about psychology and spirituality at midlife and I couldn’t stop. Looking back now, I am beginning to see the larger design of my work, like one of my wife’s quilts when it’s hung, all the pieces finally in place, the design evident. Quite without planning, I have been following a single vision of life that I am certain is true, though I can take no credit for it. As music comes through a composer, this vision came through me. I wrote Death of a Hero, Birth of the Soul -- a description of the male midlife passage -- while dealing with my own midlife and specializing with men’s issues in my psychology practice. The book argued that the central developmental task men faced in their forties was to replace the traditional model of manhood -- driven, competitive, soul-numbing and exhausting, with a deeper and truer model, one that unleashes the true self and its gifts. This first book also hinted at the possibility of one day living in the divine world, an experience forgotten since theologians convinced the Western World that we had been expelled from the Garden for some mythical figure’s "Original Sin." I then moved more deeply into the spiritual realm. Intuiting that psychotherapy was only half the solution to psychological problems, I wrote But Where Is God? Psychotherapy and the Religious Search. It was meant for psychotherapists of all stripes who either left spirituality out of their work (often dismissing its insights as irrelevant or even pathological) or inadvertently (and unethically) imposed their own spiritual beliefs on their clients. I wanted to heal the split between the defiantly empirical medical model and the sometimes rigid theologies of religion. I knew that psychology more fully appreciated the dark side of religion (the reality of sexual scandals, religiously-rationalized child abuse, spiritual addictions) and that religion better appreciated the forgotten spiritual side of healing (the value of prayer, the healing of Presence, and the importance of ultimate questions). After envisioning a spiritually-oriented psychotherapy, I wrote Ordinary Enlightenment: Experiencing God’s Presence in Everyday Life, for I longed to understand the nature of Presence and how to experience it. By the time the book was completed, I knew firsthand what God’s Presence felt like and how it changes us. I had entered the realm of mysticism -- the direct experience of divinity -- and began to see how this experience can transfigure the world in the most extraordinary ways. The mystics from across time and religion often talk about seeing Heaven on Earth. They say that Heaven is already here when we are awake enough to see it, and that this awakening occurs in the experience of the Presence. As I found more and more evidence of this universal realization, I was thrilled and amazed -- Heaven on Earth seems to the best-kept secret of the spiritual life! I wondered, "Why doesn’t everyone and every religion talk about this?" I explored this amazing theme in Finding Heaven Here. Then, as I started to age, I sensed that growing older continues this same unfolding transformation of consciousness that had begun with midlife. More than that, I realized that aging itself offers the highest levels of spiritual realization if we understand and surrender to its powerful energies. The Three Secrets of Aging describes these energies as initiation, transformation and revelation and argues that they are intrinsic to natural aging. Moreover, as advances in medicine, nutrition and public health increased the average life span by nearly thirty years, we are now witnessing the unfolding of an entirely new stage of life. Hoping to make this vision of aging more accessible (and more fun), I wrote Bedtime Stories for Elders: What Fairy Tales Can Teach Us About the New Aging. Drawing on ten old and new fairy tales from around the world, I invite older folks (just like me) to discover the three secrets of aging in symbolic parables. It should be evident by now that the vision I have been following represents the call of a profound developmental process driving the second half of life. Aging is changing me, revealing an essence I had long sensed but couldn’t get at until time, loss, and love broke loose the façade I had created so many years ago. In aging, I return to a sacred consciousness that now welcomes me home to myself.
  • By Published On: March 14, 2024

    Flow is an experience of Heaven on Earth. It happens magically during wide-awake,

  • By Published On: March 14, 2024

    A paradigm-shifting journey into God as Self and the World as Heaven on Earth.

  • By Published On: October 28, 2023

    The mystic seeks direct experience of the divine to explore its perceptual, emotional, and metaphysical nature. For the mystic, the entire universe is conscious and alive, saturated by an all-encompassing eternal and loving Presence.

  • By Published On: October 13, 2023

    In the mystical consciousness of divinity, love saturates my being,

  • By Published On: August 24, 2023

    But sometimes, along the way, we get off the train and, startled by beauty, question the whole routine.

  • By Published On: August 14, 2023

    God wants us to know where we live, to open our senses to now and this and here, because wherever we are is God.

  • Wisdom & Revelation from Mystical Consciousness

    By Published On: October 22, 2022

    The mystic, seeking first-hand experience of the divine, soon discovers that the entire universe is conscious and alive, saturated by an all-encompassing and loving Presence. In this sacred and timeless consciousness, God is revealed as both Self and Creation and a great peace begins to melt humanity’s fever dream of scarcity and conflict.

  • By Published On: October 8, 2021

    Many of us wrestle with fear, despair, insecurity, and loneliness in this time of sustained global crisis. I worry for the future of the human family and life itself. But these times are also an invitation.

  • By Published On: June 30, 2021

    In mystical activism, we live more and more in the divine flow of here and now, and experience the sacred world in everything we do – raising our children, loving our family and our friends, performing our work, being kind and considerate, caring for community and environment, pursuing climate activism, and even in the simplest human acts of eating and drinking and loving – they are all sacred in awakened consciousness.

  • By Published On: May 1, 2021

    Profound shifts in consciousness are driving the accumulated crises of the world. I believe the timeless and universal vision of this work is critical to our survival. 

  • By Published On: May 20, 2020

    Here’s a book uniquely aimed at today’s critical challenge. It comes from a writer with a long history of (pious but genuine) infatuation with Creation.

  • By Published On: May 13, 2020

    As the coronavirus burst upon the scene, I realized that climate change was only one of a new “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” The storied marauders of old – death, plague, war and famine – had morphed into the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, uncontrolled population growth, and the unraveling of modern civilization.

  • A journey into the wisdom, maturity, and resilience of age in a time of crisis.

    By Published On: May 13, 2020

    Writing on conscious aging, Dr. John Robinson, 74-year-old psychologist, minister, teacher and author, contributed his decades of experience to guiding the 65+ demographic through these tumultuous times.

  • By Published On: May 11, 2020

    Finding out that this world is Heaven is crucial for human survival. Otherwise in the frenzy of dissociation, our shadow games will annihilate the planet. John Robinson's passionate and finely researched book will inspire seekers to open their enlightened eyes and see the world as it is, and start working in Sacred Activism to preserve it.

  • By Published On: March 18, 2020

    What do climate change, the novel coronavirus, and the Earth’s population explosion all have in common? They comprise a Biblically-sized Armageddon calling for an equal Biblically-sized rebirth of sacred consciousness, this time from the deep feminine.

  • By Published On: March 8, 2020

    In Mystical Activism, we each hold the power to change the world right where we are. To call these “end times” is not hyperbole.

  • Mystical Neuropsychology

    By Published On: February 1, 2020

    Throughout history, humans have believed that deceased loved ones, ancestors, spirit guides, angels, and other helpful spiritual beings operate in our lives and are genuinely interested in our welfare. Notwithstanding the advent of scientific materialism, such beliefs are also alive and well today.

  • By Published On: December 10, 2019

    In Mystical Activism, we each hold the power to change the world right where we are. To call these "end times" is not hyperbole. We are in trouble and the signs are everywhere: extreme political divisions; xenophobic violence; enormous wealth inequity; poverty and homelessness; racism, sexism, and ageism; arms buildups and unending wars; and, most critical of all, terrifying climate disruption associated with man-made global warming.

  • By Published On: October 4, 2019

    A sustainability leadership professor from the University of Cumbria (UK), Jem Bendell tells us that, at the current pace of runaway global warming, we can no longer assume that humans will figure out a way to avert environmental and societal collapse within the next ten years.

  • By Published On: September 11, 2019

    Join us for a monthly conversation on CREATION IN CRISIS

  • An Introduction to Mystical Activism

    By Published On: July 21, 2019

    Mystical activism begins with mystical consciousness: an intentionally awakened, the thought-free, sacred of awareness of the mystic that transforms the experience of our self, our work, and the world itself.

  • By Published On: May 14, 2019

    To call these “end times” is hardly hyperbolic. We are in trouble and the signs are everywhere: extreme political divisions; xenophobic violence; enormous wealth inequity; poverty and homelessness; sexism and ageism; arms buildups and unending wars; and, most frightening of all, escalating climate disruption.

  • By Published On: February 13, 2019

    A life time of study, a master’s degree and two doctorates (psychology and spirituality), interfaith ordination, numerous articles, nine books, and the wisdom of age, can all be distilled to this:

  • By Published On: August 2, 2018

    We encounter the word mysticism more often these days as if we were collectively searching for its renewed significance in today's world. Though long misunderstood in secular and even spiritual circles, mysticism - and the mystical experience - has an essential and profound place in the history of the world's religions. More importantly, the mystical experience itself opens the door into the direct experience of the divine itself. With these comments in mind, I want to offer a modern explanation of mysticism and its relation to religion and spirituality.