HITW 128 | A Druid in Psychologist's Clothing: The Spiritual Psychology of E. Graham Howe | Ian C. Edwards

On this episode I welcome author and psychologist Ian Edwards to the podcast to speak about his new book A Druid in Psychologist’s Clothing: E. Graham Howe’s Secret Druidic Doctrine, published in 2023 by Anathema.E. Graham Howe is the epitome of the kind of renegade spirit that we celebrate on this podcast. He was born in 1896 and was one of the founding members of the famous Tavistock Clinic in London. Although Howe’s work was initially well received by the burgeoning English psychoanalytic community, he soon began to ruffle some feathers with his eclectic and non-conforming ideas that incorporated concepts derived from Eastern spiritual practice.Howe published 12 books on a number of topics, and his writing stands out in the field for his straightforward and clear style, and conscious avoidance of psychological jargon.Through his books and lectures E. Graham Howe influenced well-known intellectuals and fellow renegades such as R.D. Laing, Alan Watts and Henry Miller. While Howe travelled to India and studied Eastern spirituality and practice, he found a home for his ideas in the images and concepts of the ancient Druids, who he referred to as “masters of the art of living.” He outlined this druidic approach to a spiritual psychology in the posthumously published book The Mind of the Druid.In our conversation, Ian and I speak in depth about E. Graham Howe’s life and work, his place within the psychological milieu of the early 20th century among contemporaries such as CG Jung, and how revisiting his once-radical ideas could serve to revive secular psychology that has run out of ideas by finally incorporating spirituality and metaphysics into it’s theory and practice.Author page at Anathema: https://anathemapublishing.com/ian-c-edwardsIan's dissertation "The Truth of Relationship: The Psychology of E. Graham Howe"https://dsc.duq.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1534&context=etd