Bradford Keeney - Sacred Ecstatics

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Bradford Keeney
Bradford Keeney, Ph.D. is critically acclaimed for his creative innovations in the art of
conducting experiential transformation. He was accepted as a healer by the Kalahari
Bushmen (San) of southern Africa and the healers of Bali, Mexico, Brazil, St. Vincent,
Japan, and other traditions. Megan Biesele, a former member of the Harvard Kalahari
Research Group, writes: “There is no question in the minds of the Bushman healers that
Keeney’s strength and purposes are coterminous with theirs. They affirmed his power as a
healer.” Daniel Goleman, former science reporter for The New York Times, concluded that
Brad’s life story is important to “anyone wanting to understand the full spectrum of paths to
heal the heart, mind, body, and soul.”

Brad also served as a professor, director, and founder of doctoral programs in numerous
universities. Following his early contributions that applied cybernetics to psychotherapy, he
invented the research method called recursive frame analysis, and (with Hillary) created a
new orientation to therapeutic practice called creative therapy. Most importantly, Hillary
and Brad co-developed Sacred Ecstatics, a radically practical approach to spiritual
transformation that brings together embodied cybernetics, the improvisational
performance arts, and the tacit know-how of ecstatic healing traditions. Their books, essays,
recordings, and live performances bring something profound to the world—the numinous,
luminous fire that must be felt in order to melt away whatever impedes the next adventure
into mystery.

"Keeney's story ranks with The Gospel of Ramakrishna and The Autobiography of a Yogi in
terms of sheer revelatory power with its encounter with the sacred.”

STEPHEN & ROBIN LARSEN

Authors of A Fire in the Mind: The Life of Joseph Campbell

Endorsements
“Bradford Keeney emerges as a fascinating and charismatic healer, one who brings to
modern life the powerful wisdom of a traditional shaman.”

DANIEL GOLEMAN

Author of Emotional Intelligence
“In this invitation into very ancient medicine, we hear the voices of the elders issuing a
timely wakeup call, accessible to the modern world through Bradford Keeney who is their
representative in the west.”
MALIDOMA PATRICE SOMÉ, Ph.D.
Author of The Healing Wisdom of Africa

“I meet a continual stream of people devoted to intelligent soul work and spiritual
journeys, but Keeney’s radiance shines a different light on the territory. Life happens in
dreamtime for him…the soul-in-the-world is alive, and he is, (as D.H. Lawrence said), in
sheer, naked contact with it.”

NOR HALL, Ph.D.
Psychotherapist, author, and playwright

“A colleague and I were interviewing the most influential therapists of this generation
about their most seminal cases. Among all the most prominent thinkers and clinicians,
Keeney’s work struck me as the most memorable . . . Anyone is fortunate indeed if they
have the opportunity to learn from Brad Keeney’s keen intellect, compassionate heart, and
vast experience. I have never worked with any professional – physician, teacher,
clergyperson, or therapist – who has more charisma and more power to move people who
otherwise feel stuck in their lives.”

JEFFREY A. KOTTLER, Ph.D.

Former Chair of the Counseling Department at California State University – Fullerton and author of more than
fifty books.

“Did you ever wonder where the spirit and voice went of Abraham Maslow, R.D. Laing,
Fritz Perls, Jacob Moreno, Sheldon Kopp, Ira Progoff, Carl Whitaker, Eric Berne, and
other therapists who inspired your career? It is alive and well – Keeney is on fire with
their spirit!”

STEPHEN LANKTON
Author, renowned therapist, and Editor-in-Chief, American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis

“Brilliant is the first word that comes to mind in characterizing Dr. Keeney and it does
justice to the overwhelming dynamism, competence, enthusiasm, foresight,
indefatigability, and sheer radiance of personality of this remarkable human being. His
professional competence, charming personality, scientific credibility, and sense of
responsibility serve as an inspiration.”
HEINZ VON FOERSTER, Ph.D.
A founder of the science of cybernetics

“Brad is the most creative scholar I have ever had the pleasure of working with. He is
always at the cutting edge of issues in psychotherapy and anthropology.”
STEPHEN TYLER, Ph.D.
A founder of cognitive anthropology and postmodern anthropology; former endowed chair of anthropology and
linguistics, Rice University
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