Robert Sardello is a cofounder of the School for Spiritual Psychology and author of Facing the World with Soul and Love and the Soul. He states that the most central spiritual task of our time is working with fear — "not running away from it or trying to eradicate it." The great destroyer often turns out to be the great awakener. Sardello maintains that we can counter the pervasive influence of fear by strengthening the competence of our soul. This is one of the major tasks of adulthood.

Fear is increasing in the world — it is a shape-shifter manifesting itself in terrorism, time collapse, and violence. Of course, it continues to sap our creative energy in its guise as anxiety over money, relationships, suffering, and death. Sardello presents a series of imaginative exercises (many of them adapted from Rudolf Steiner) designed to develop our soul's capacities as a balance against fear. With great élan, the author also shows how we can open to love, get more from the region of the heart, guard our consciousness from the efforts of doubling, and live artistically. Sardello describes the last as displaying "the power of soul and spirit in and for the world." This erudite volume adds more luster to Sardello's reputation as a pioneer of soul work.