Books by Jon Platania PhD
Jung For Beginners
Carl Gustav Jung merged Eastern mysticism with Western psychology, brought scientific respectability to religion, laid the foundation for ‘the New Age,’ and is second only to Freud in influence and importance in the world of psychoanalysis. Many consider him a genius, but many others disagree.
Scholar and clinical psychologist Jon Platania, PhD, presents Jung as a somewhat opportunistic and dissociated character whose most famous historical events were his break with Freud and his questionable sojourn with the psychological elite of the German Third Reich. On the other side of Jung's complex genius, there is a deeply spiritual man who laid the groundwork for a more optimistic approach to our modern understanding of the human psyche in both theology and psychology. He is remembered by many as the Swiss Doctor of the Soul.
Dr. Platania then takes us on a tour of the work that made Jung one of the pillars of modern psychology. And what a body of work it is. Jung’s open-mindedness was astonishing. Wherever he went—Calcutta, Egypt, Palestine, Kenya—Jung learned something that expanded his views. His open-ended psychology incorporated Yoga, meditation, prayer, alchemy, mythology, astrology, numerology, the I Ching—even flying saucers! He taught us that psychology and religion can not only coexist peacefully together, but that they can enhance us, inspire us, and help us complete ourselves.
Freud, for all of his brilliance, reduced us to little more than vessels of hormones with high IQs. Jung, for all of his flaws, gave us back our souls.
The 12 Step Restorative Yoga Workbook
The 12 Step Restorative Yoga Workbook presents a practical guide to two great healing traditions, Yoga and Recovery. The central point of the book is that people who suffer from addiction are generally uncomfortable in their bodies. This disconnected condition is also characteristic of depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Chapter titles call upon the reader to "Awaken the Sleeping Yogi" and include The History of Yoga and a Brief History of Recovery. The book asks the question, "What is Addiction and What are its causes". Physiology, anatomy and psychology are understood within the frame of Yoga, Ayurvedic and Western medicine.
"Finally, someone takes the 12 steps of Recovery into the transformative power of Yoga. An easy to use manual with great illustrations that makes the whole process friendly and enlightening at the same time. It looks great. I like the easy style."
- Anodea Judith PhD author, Wheels of Life; Eastern Body-Western Mind.
Books Reviews
Morris Kight: Humanist, Liberationist, Fantabulist
A Story of Gay Rights and Wrongs
by Maryann Cherry
A Review by Jon Platania PhD
Founding Board Member,
the Los Angeles LBGT Center
Maryann Cherry has written a seminal biography of the late and great Morris Kight. Considered by many the Dean of Gay Activists, Morris was my friend. We marched, disrupted and created together a revolution. We were on the same political turf that was Los Angeles in the late 60's and early 70's. We, along with a few other misfit radical crazies, were part of a small band of GLF leftists. With Mother Morris orchestrating the grand and decidedly Hollywood production, the Gay Liberation Front would, both because of him and in spite of him, change the world.
Maryann Cherry speaks honestly about Morris. I'm delighted to report that my own history and reflections are fairly and accurately chronicled in this scholarly, compelling biography. She documents the bravery, sacrifice and significant contributions made by me, Morris Kight, Donald Kilhefner and many others in the formation of Los Angeles Gay Community Services Center. She acknowledges well the cast of principal actors and walk-by characters who would strut their hour across the stage of what is skillfully presented as something of a five-part drama spanning the 83 years of the grand old actor's full, and as often as not, unnecessarily tragic life.
The reader is transported back in time to briefly recount the roots of the Kight name and legacy. We come to know Morris as a boy, an under-privileged teenager, a handsome young man, a husband and a father. Morris - the son of an altogether mad mother. He's a gay blade at a time when such a moniker could just as likely as not have seen him killed. And very nearly did more than a time or two. He's something of a scholar, he's a man-about-town, he's a small time real estate developer, a flimflam man, a transcendentalist, he's a Gay Gandhi of sorts. One man, many characters, all of whom are part of the transformative tapestry that Morris Kight wove together to make himself who he was and now how he will be remembered.
Thank you Maryann Cherry. You came to this solid work only as a humble biographer worth her salt. Clearly you came neither to praise nor to bury the man. You have, in laying bare the forces and people who shaped our complicated friend Morris Kight, done well to separate fact from fiction all along the way. You have brought this giant of a man back to life. Your artfully chosen words allow us to travel with him through the hard scrabble clay dust days of the flat lands of his Texas cowboys. You escorted us through it all. At the end we were there in Los Angeles with everybody who was anybody. We were there when the not entirely Venerable Morris Kight was finally memorialized at Mother House of the Metropolitan Community Church by the Reverend Troy Perry, Founder.