The View From the Other Side of My Head: My Education in Shamanic Trance chronicles the first few years of the author’s education. Beginning with a co-worker’s request that he help her with a rather unusual homework assignment, his deepening exploration of the dreamworld, accompanied by various Spirits and informed by anthropological scholarship, modern shamanistic literature, and recent neurological studies, led him to a new understanding of ancestral and personal traumas, intimacy with a tree, the bowels of a Phoenix, several moments of satori, and a wilder and wider sense of the human mind’s workings, capabilities, and place in the world.
Praise for the writing of Seth Steinzor & Advance praise for
The View from the Other Side of My Head
“Recommended . . . compelling . . . strong and consistent use of sensory images . . . almost surreal, musical quality . . . humorous and intriguing . . . captivating throughout . . . a memorable retelling . . .”
—U.S. Review of Books
“. . . achingly personal . . . the finesse—and humor—of someone who has read the classic closely and lovingly. . . . Ultimately, Steinzor’s poem is not merely a rewriting of Inferno—the kind of exercise given to undergraduates in which they’re asked to consider who would populate Dante’s hell today. It’s both a paean to Dante’s unendingly enthralling vision and—given Seth’s visceral, even hotheaded emotional reactions to each shade—a personal meditation on humans’ transgressions against one another.”
—Amy Lilly, SevenDays
“The View from the Other Side of My Head is a beautiful, intimate portrait of the possibilities awaiting us when we have the courage to cross the threshold from the tangible comfort of the intellect into the infinite wisdom of the Dreaming.”
—Wendy Halley, author of Raven’s Daughter: The Story Keeper
“With the objective and logical mind of a career attorney, Steinzor gives us a fresh and compelling perspective on metaphysical reality with this riveting account of his journey into the world of shamanism.”
—Jeff Lindsay, NY Times best-selling author of DEXTER and RILEY WOLFE novels
About the Author
Born in 1952, Seth Steinzor grew up in the suburbs of Buffalo, New York. His parents encouraged his verbally precocious creativity. After graduating from Middlebury College in 1974, a job with the local Public Defender led Steinzor to law school. He slept on his 1979 Juris Doctor degree until 1990 when Vermont Attorney General Amestoy promoted him from Civil Rights Investigator to Assistant Attorney General. During the next twenty-seven years, he represented the State, married, fathered two children, divorced, and wrote most of In Dante’s Wake. He retired in 2017 to a life of woodworking, gardening, voracious reading, and writing.
SPECS
The View from the Other Side of My Head
Nonfiction
Paperback Original
Trim Size: 6 x 9
Page Count: 252
Price: $19.95 (CA $26.95)
ISBN: 9798991413404
Publication Date: September 23, 2025
Distributor: IPG/Chicago, Ingram.
Rights sold: All rights available.
Rights & Publicity: Dede Cummings, dede@greenwriterspress.com
Distributor: IPG; also available through Follett/Baker & Taylor, Ingram, and other wholesalers.
Individuals can pre-order directly from Bookshop.org, or contact your local, independent bookstore.
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