New Books in Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness

In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with Mischa Oak about his book, Rainbow Wisdom: 18 LGBTQ Life Lessons for Everyone (Page Two Book Inc. 2026) Joyful life lessons from the LGBTQ+ community to help you move through the world with more harmony, authenticity, and possibility. Rainbow Wisdom is a companion for anyone who wants to live more fully. The LGBTQ+ experience can inspire us all. Regardless of sexuality or gender, every person is unique and unusual in some way. Drawing on firsthand research, global thought leaders, and personal reflections, renowned educator Mischa Oak presents 18 uplifting lessons from the LGBTQ+ community that will make anyone feel good. You will learn how to: - Live authentically by asking Why Fit in a Box When You Can Break It Down?- Raise the Bar by leaving behind exhausting debates and embracing conversations rooted in values and hope.- Challenge Queer Fear by confronting misinformation and dismantling “flawgic” (aka flawed logic) with clarity.- Celebrate your own difference with Congratulations! You’re You!, a lesson that helps you embrace and affirm your identity—whatever it may be—and walk proudly in your truth. These and other lessons show you how to approach the world with more passion, flair, innovation, and liberty to be yourself, while you shift humanity forward. Whether you’re seeking deeper understanding, stronger allyship, or ways to live more freely, Oak invites you into a space of connection, where everyone can draw on LGBTQ+ experiences to live with more joy and make the world a better place. With a rich glossary of LGBTQ+ terms and practical tools for building more welcoming conversations, spaces, and communities, this book will lift you up, push you forward, and remind you that different is powerful. Rainbow Wisdom is also your allyship guide—helping you grow into a more confident and informed ally, and supporting Queer people and their loved ones to feel valued. This is what LGBTQ+ life lessons are all about: seeing yourself and the world in new ways, to be the best version of yourself possible. About the author: Mischa Oak founded LGBTQ Inclusion Training to improve the lives of 2SLGBTQ+ people and support meaningful diversity and inclusion within organizations. With over twenty years of experience as an educator and 2SLGBTQ+ advocate, Oak holds a Master of Education in Social Justice Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning. He gained international recognition as part of the first wave of legal same-sex marriages in the world, featured on the reality TV series My Fabulous Gay Wedding. His involvement in the Queer Liberation movement propelled his lifelong advocacy, including expanding transgender and Queer inclusion in Canadian schools during his seventeen-year teaching career. Today, Oak delivers transformative talks worldwide, guiding teams, communities, educators, care and service providers, and governments toward meaningful 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion. Oak is a Loran Scholar and an alumnus of Queen’s University, the University of Toronto, and Memorial University. He lives in Vancouver Island, Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

A Brilliant Adaptation: How Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Power of the Therapeutic Bond Saved Me (New Harbinger Publications, 2026) is a searing and profound memoir of one woman's journey through dissociative identity disorder and childhood sexual abuse--and how she found hope, healing, and recovery. Sally Maslansky is living the perfect life: a beautiful home in Malibu, California, a successful Hollywood producer husband who adores her, and a recently adopted son she treasures. But when Sally begins to remember the trauma she endured as a child, her world begins to unravel. In this gripping and provocative memoir, psychotherapist Maslansky shares how childhood sexual abuse led her to develop dissociative identity disorder (DID), and how, with the help of renowned therapist Daniel J. Siegel, she ultimately recovers. The book reveals the power of therapeutic bond to heal deep attachment wounds, the science of neuroplasticity in healing the traumatized mind, and our capacity as human beings to reconcile unspeakable experiences in order to grow, change, and live vibrant, loving, and joyful lives against all odds. Together with Siegel, Maslansky slowly recovers her childhood memories and reconnects with the forgotten parts of herself--parts that she grows to admire, respect, honor, and love, because they literally saved her young mind from unimaginable horrors. In the book, Siegel describes Maslansky's DID as a brilliant adaptation of the mind--a protective force that kept her mentally safe when the people she should have trusted most were the ones responsible for her abuse. Whether you have struggled with DID yourself, love someone who has DID, or are simply looking to be inspired by the tenacity of the human spirit, this memoir offers a provocative glimpse into an often pathologized and misunderstood condition, and shows the profound and healing possibilities of therapy, human understanding, and the will to survive. Sally Maslansky, LMFT has been in private practice for twenty years in Chapel Hill, NC. She treats families, adoption, trauma, parenting, and adult individuals. Her training is in interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), adult attachment interview (AAI), attachment theory, polyvagal theory practices, mindfulness, and the wheel of awareness practice. For more information on Sally and her work, please visit her website sallymaslansky.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

In this episode, Nicholas Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, and University of Puerto Rico professors Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera and Maritza Stanchich, discuss something deceptively simple: putting one foot in front of the other—and how that act can reshape the way we perceive the world. Seizing an idea from Steve Prefontaine—that running can be an act of creation—this episode considers how running can extend beyond the physical and extend into memory, relationships, and inheritance. They discuss how running can be a way of thinking, a way of loving, and, at times, a way of understanding who we are. The Running Ground: A Father, a Son, and the Simplest of Sports (Harper/Random House, 2025). Nuevos Horizontes is the podcast of the Instituto Nuevos Horizontes at the Universidad de Puerto Rico-Mayagüez. Quotes, organizations, books, athletes and scholars mentioned in this conversation: Tony Ruiz, Central Park Track Club “There’s a lot you can get from Tony Ruiz’s life that you can’t get through mine.” -Nicholas Thompson “The dignity of enduring the complexity of my father.…she plays a major role in shaping me.” -Nicholas Thompson, about his mother “It’s really hard when people are still alive to write these kinds of books. It takes a lot of courage on everyone’s part.” -Maritza Stanchich “Only the disciplined ones in life are free.” -Eliud Kipchoge Steve Prefontaine W. Scott Thompson Puerto Rican boycott of 1980 Olympic Games Bobbi Gibb Yaelis Carmona, University of Puerto Rico Biomechanics Falmouth Road Race Paul Souza, Wheaton College Souzapalooza, East Falmouth music festival Phil (PJ) Alessi, North Attleboro Bill Jennings, Brockton High School Track Coach William McKay, Falmouth High School English Teacher Mario Watts Sergei Bubka Matt Booth Joe Gohring Phillips Academy Falmouth High SchoolEric Gethers Falmouth Road Race Northfield Mount Hermon Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism Frank Shorter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Today I sit down with Dr. Tawni Tidwell, a biocultural anthropologist and Tibetan medicine doctor at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Together we discuss how Tibetan medicine approaches the challenges that arise in the course of meditation. Along the way, we talk about reconnecting with indigenous knowledge, establishing a more intimate relationship with the body and the land, and the importance of social context in supporting spiritual practice. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show! Resources related to this conversation: Tawni Tidwell, “Life in Suspension with Death: Biocultural Ontologies, Perceptual Cues, and Biomarkers for Tibetan Tukdam Postmortem Meditative State” (2024) Tawni Tidwell et al, “Effect of Tibetan Herbal Formulas on Symptom Duration Among Ambulatory Patients with Native SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Retrospective Cohort Study” (2024) Tawni Tidwell, “Tibetan Medical Paradigms for the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Understanding COVID-19, Microbiome Links, and Its Sowa Rigpa Nosology” (2021) New open access book! Crafting Potency: Sowa Rigpa Artisanship Across the Himalayas Tawni’s research profile at the Center for Healthy Minds Please note that Tawni is not taking new patients at this time, but she recommends the American Tibetan Medical Association Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including downloading scholarly articles by Dr Tidwell Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Today host Pierce Salguero sits down with Marleen Thaler, a researcher at the University of Vienna and University of Graz. Together, we investigate the history of the transformation of Kundalini from a Hindu goddess resting at the base of the spine to her modern manifestation as a psychiatric syndrome. Along the way, we discuss the central importance of the Theosophical society, the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1970s, spiritual emergencies, and kundalini as a meeting point for religion and medicine. Resources mentioned in this episode: Arthur Avalon, The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga Gopi Krishna, Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man Lee Sennella, The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence Spiritual Emergence Network (USA | International) Marleen’s publications: Academia.edu Become a paid subscriber on Black Beryl Substack to unlock our members-only benefits, including PDFs of these resources. Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Art-Making as Spiritual Practice: Rituals of Embodied Understanding (Bloomsbury Academic Press, 2025), edited by Professor David Newheiser, is a new collection asks if it’s possible to consider art-making as a spiritual practice independent of explicit religious belief or content. Where earlier research has focused on the religious significance of secular artworks, this innovative volume turns its attention to the role of the artist, and to specific examples of art practices, putting them into conversation with ritual practices. By creating a web of connections that emerge across multiple disciplines and practices, a team of scholars and artists shed new light on the way art-making and ritual embody non-discursive forms of understanding. Drawing on the work of scholars who argue that ritual practice is central to religious identities, they use close analysis of specific examples to address philosophical issues about the nature of knowledge and spirituality and the relationship between them. Art-Making as Spiritual Practice is a rich and in-depth examination of the possibility that art has spiritual meanings that are endemic to the practice of art-making itself, establishing a new paradigm that changes the conversation surrounding the spiritual, if not religious, significance of art. Professor David Newheiser is a returning champion on New Books in Secularism—he joined us in 2020 to talk about his book Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and the Future of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and in 2023 he told us about his edited collection, The Varieties of Atheism (University of Chicago Press, 2022). He is Associate Professor of Religion at Florida State University, with research that explores the role of religious traditions in debates over ethics, politics, and culture. He received a PhD in Religion from the University of Chicago and an MPhil in early Christian thought from Oxford. He is also co-editor of the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion. Art-Making as Spiritual Practice: Rituals of Embodied Understanding is an open source publication, available free from Bloomsbury Academic Press, here. … Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD candidate at Université Laval in Quebec City. carrie-lynn.evans@lit.ulaval.ca @carrielynnland.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with Nick Canby, visiting assistant professor at Brown University and a clinical psychologist specializing in meditation and psychedelics. Together, we dive into Nick’s research on the self — what is it and what it’s like to lose it. Along the way, we mention some of the downsides of experiencing oneness and the complications of defining a mental health disorder. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show! Resources mentioned in this episode: Previous episode on meditation challenges with Willoughby Britton and Jared Lindahl List of Publications from the Varieties of Contemplative Experience study Canby et al., "The Teacher Matters: The Role and Impact of Meditation Teachers in the Trajectories of Western Buddhist Meditators Experiencing Meditation-Related Challenges" Pierce's forthcoming volume, "Meditation Sickness: A Sourcebook on the Dangers of Buddhist Practice" Previous episode on madness and religious experience with Richard Saville-Smith Nick's clinical practice Nick's profile on Cheetah House Complete list of Nick's publications Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including downloading: Article summarizing Nick's dissertation research on "loss of self" experiences Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (2010), and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University’s Abington College, located near Philadelphia. website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

In this episode Rabbi Marc Katz is in discussion with Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin about his new book Inviting God In: A Guide to Jewish Prayer (Central Conference of American Rabbis Press, 2025), an engaging and insightful commentary on the Shabbat evening and morning services. Designed for students of all ages, from bet mitzvah to adulthood, the book's relatable tone and discussion questions meaningfully engage readers in the worship service they are leading or attending. In the book, Rabbi Salkin breaks down each prayer and ritual, helping learners connect to the service with fresh insight and knowledge. With a blend of humor and depth, Inviting God In shows how the ancient words of prayer still speak to the challenges and joys of contemporary life. Our discussion, not only touches on the main themes and ideas in the book, but about prayer itself and the role that ritual plays in helping Jews connect with God. Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin is the author of numerous books, including Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models for Sacred Relationships and Putting God on the Guest List, winner of the 1993 Benjamin Franklin Award for the best religion book published in the United States. Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, NJ. He is the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness