^{It may have taken a village but, in this case, there was an unexpected and unfortunate mis-interpretation. When Hilary Clinton was writing It Takes A Village (1996) she asked Jean Houston for help. Houston, as scholar, philosopher, researcher and one of the prime-founders of the Human Potential Movement has written some 26 books.}

^{So who better than Houston to help Clinton realize her creative potential and write her vision of the importance of community? And who could best guide and help to imagine: What would Ghandi say? What would Eleanor Roosevelt say? Good questions when trying to gain wisdom from the voices of the past. Regrettably, this meeting of the minds was made into an incident that was spun into “seance” with Clinton speaking with the dead and Houston dubbed as the “First Lady’s Spiritual Advisor.”}

^{YIKES!!! That won’t do.}

^{Better to get advice from likes of Rush Limbaugh who lambasted the phrase It Takes A Village interpreting it as an attack on the nuclear family and parental rights and Rick Santourm who wrote  a rebuttal in 2005 It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good.} 

^{YIKES!!! That won’t do.} 

But this will:

^{Although Houston was not Clinton’s spiritual advisor she certainly was mine. With a steady hand and a guiding light she was with me in spirit as I explored and experienced altered and expanded states of consciousness with and without drugs.}

^{Jean Houston, with her husband Robert Masters, was founder/co-director of the Foundation for Mind Research. In 1972 they co-wrote Mind Games — the Guide to Inner Space. It was not the amusement of parlour games, rather mental and spiritual exercises for building an agile and creative mind.  For the altered states of consciousness set, sans drugs, it was a book to be read aloud, in a group, with one person taking on the role of “guide” and the other participants listening to inductions, receiving instructions about how to move in and out of trance.} 

^{In the spring semester of my senior year in college (1972) a friend proposed Mind Games as an independent study course. She needed to convene a group of trustworthy players willing to suspend judgement and open themselves to new ways of thinking. Since a quiet place, free of distractions was necessary, the circle of eight of us met most times at my house.} 

^{Each session takes one deeper and deeper into a state of focused attention, a “hypnotic” state of mind, a  place with enhanced ability to concentrate then, gently takes one safely back to “reality”, returning with a renewed sense of being.} 

^{Find yourself a quiet, comfortable place, free of distractions where you can stretch out, relaxing as fully as you can; discovering that you can relax even a bit more. Then click the play button on this audio file and attend to the sound of my voice.}

 

^{It is my hope that you will emerge from this experience refreshed, enriched and deepened so that you now can go farther on your way, without my audio prompt, knowing that you can return again and again to this tranquil place — stepping down the ancient stone staircase, finding the small boat at the edge of the dark water, drifting deeper and deeper until you arrive at the meadow where you will feel in total harmony with all things. In that mentally enhanced state, you can enjoy listening to music, contemplate the beauty of an artwork, or envision solutions to problems.} 

^{The benefits of this inner travel are many. And, especially these days, when we can’t go anywhere any way. As much as we might be longing to travel the world, we can instead appreciate the adventure that awaits just inside our heads.}

^{Even John Lennon was a fan of Mind Games and produced an record album with lyrics expressing his philosophy of peace and love. He wanted people to continue planting the seeds of this ideal with “faith in the future, outta the now.”}