Home    |     The Author     |     Excerpts    |     Order Here     |     Contact

Hi, I'm Dr. McMahon. Thanks for being here with me this moment. Do you want to be free? Free to see the world through your own eyes; to think your own thoughts, to know the emotions you have, to do that which you believe is the right thing for you to do. To create what only you can create, to love in the unique way you can love, to show forgiveness and compassion that comes from your inner Wisdom, not some one else's directions? Of course. But most of us are not so free. We are caught up in psychological Fusion, an attachment to mother and father and brother and sister, church or philosophy or cultural attitudes of our childhood which we unquestioningly hold on to because it makes us feel safe. We often sacrifice our unique selves

and the happiness and joy we feel when we truly and honestly show the courage to express our spirits, each as unique as a snow flake or a finger print.

The opposite of psychological fusion is psychological Separation. I've spent my life studying and teaching how to disentangle our selves from those past influences and become truly free; the courage to become a person. The price for this is the pain and fear that sometimes comes from looking at these issues straight in the eye. The reward is Wisdom, seeing life and the world through your own eyes, and the joy and happiness that often accompanies that accomplishment. I describe my struggle and those of the many people who have worked with me over the years in my book,

The Price of Wisdom: the heroic struggle to become a person
James Mc Mahon

I am a psychologist, psychotherapist and teacher. I have also written four books. Two professors, neither of whom I know, sent me an e-mail of their conversations about my book, The Price of Wisdom: the heroic struggle to become a person

In these few pages I want to tell you something of this book which is now out of print, and suggest that it may just change your life as it has for the many people who have written me about it.

"I love your book, I'm reading it like a bible...Everyday is so invigorating..I can't tell you how well it is written and how meaningful it is to me." Selma T., Westchester, NY

"I read the book by the river every day..it is getting me through the death of my father." Lisa K., New York, NY

"I'm having goose bumps from your words.; oh my God I feel so alive! I feel free, recognizing that little tape in there is not about me or God and I don't have to honor it. Thank you with all my heart for your beautiful words." Dorice S., Ridgewood, NJ

People contact me for copies and I don't have any to give them. The Price of Wisdom also seems to be something of a collectible. On-line book sellers charge extremely high prices for used copies. I offer it to you to down load as an E-Book - to enjoy on your computer, or you can print the entire book or any part of it that suits you. I offer it to you for a modest fee to download. I wrote The Price of Wisdom because I had to. It was burning in my heart for over thirty years as I struggled in my personal life and sat side by side with hundreds of others who also struggled. It became amazingly clear that each of us has a spirit, a unique force within us that can lead us to joy and accomplishment that is unique to us. At the same time it became clear that from the beginning of our life, forces and influences

affect us which interfered with the full expression of our spirits and stifled our freedom.

The root of this is the terror at life that we all suffer because we are the only living things that have conscious awareness of the spot we are in: we don't know where we come from, we don't know where we are going, and we don't know what's there, there. Most of the time this anguish is on the back burners of our lives, but it is always there. Our first tendency is to fuse with our caretakers, trading our uniqueness for the delusional belief that identification with our original caretakers and those imagined ones we create in our minds would keep us safe. We learned to trade freedom and joy for supposed safety and approval of others.

In The Price of Wisdom, you learn how to wrest your spirit back from the fusion that you are in and become your own person, to see the world with your own eyes. But it's not just theory we deal with in this book, it is the practical awareness of just how this fusion affects us.

The Price of Wisdom is the only book to my knowledge that demonstrates exactly where this fusion has taken place inside us and how to separate from it. Fusion has contaminated our thoughts and even how we think or if we are allowed to think at all. Fusion has affected our emotions, what we feel and even if we have the right to feel. Fusion has interfered with our behavior, what we do or don't do and even if we are allowed to do anything at all! The Price of Wisdom shows you just how this operates.

"I've read this book three times cover-to-cover! Powerful! I've been meaning to write to James McMahon to tell him how powerfully affected I have been by this easy-to-read, but profound book. If you are wondering what a truly individuated, psychologically-separated and free individual looks like - read this book! It's a road map that takes you all the way there. Must reading for people on the journey to wholeness!" (review sent to Amazon.com) Judith Machree, Brussels, Belgium

In the Price of Wisdom there are two chapters having to do with change. I have suggested a three tiered, unique approach to where we are stuck that has been helpful to me and those with whom I work. First we identify clearly and unambiguously what is it is that we deem in need of change. We take our time about this because much of what we think must be changed is someone else's idea, not ours. But after careful attention, and in a loving and self-respectful manner we think we would express our spirits better if such and such changed, we do the following:

Form a clear and honest Intention to change, being specific about what our thinking, feeling and behavior would look like, if our intention came to pass.

Then we observe. We carefully and patiently and lovingly watch the discrepancies between what we intended and what we actually do. We are careful to be honest about this. Then, and this is the most important, we practice what I term Radical Self Acceptance. We know what our intention is, we honestly note whether we carry them out or not. And then we love and accept ourselves with that reality under our nose. And we apply the whole process even when, no matter what we do, we cannot love and accept ourselves at that moment. Seemingly miraculously, when we have despaired of ever changing, if we are determined to do the above, change occurs, seemingly behind our backs!

I have made it simple here in order to be clear. Read The Price of Wisdom and you will get the emotional support and hard-nose techniques that will make this possible.

"What a contribution! Every page speaks to me. Your book is a treasure." Sr Pascal C., Bronx, NY

"I feel like you're talking to me.. It is so compassionate and loving...I'm passing it back between me and my friends..It's the best book that I've read....I feel like you wrote this book for me." Joyce S, New York, NY

I did write this book for Joyce, and I wrote it for you, too. I wrote it for me, too. I wrote it for all of us, for children of all ages who thirst for the right and possibility to disentangle themselves from the past and live the rest of their lives free with clear vision - their own, and capable of loving all they choose to love, fully and joyfully: Wisdom. I hope you join us in struggling with that which limits us, in our one and only life. There are no enemies here. There are no good guys and bad guys. Our parents and those who may have contributed to our distress are suffering too.

"I read the phrase, 'we must hold hands between generations', and I broke down and cried. I remembered my mother's death, felt compassion for her and forgave her. I feel transformed. I feel like a new person. I'm at peace for the first time in my life." Herman F. (age 70), Brookyn, NY

"a rare, outstanding, fantastic book. It can change your life. Go out and get it." Host Craig R. WCCM, Boston, MA