The Power of Now and A New Earth sold millions of copies and are perceived by his readers to be profoundly spiritual. One of Tolle's main points is apparently his emphasis on the present moment, and our subjective experience of our existence in that "spacious" moment.
This focus on the "here and now" sounds very familiar to humanistic or existential psychotherapists, having been employed by pioneering practitioners like Otto Rank, C.G. Jung, Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Fritz Perls, J.F.T. Bugental and many others long before Tolle began writing. Buddhism, especially Zen Buddhism, and Taoism influenced existential psychotherapy, placing particular importance on conscious awareness and acceptance of what is in the moment. Tolle takes these perennial, basic Buddhist principles of meditation and popularizes them for the masses. But what does the ravenous hunger for such rehashed and repackaged spiritual wisdom say about the times in which we live? And about the present and future of psychotherapy?
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