About Rick Jarow

E.H. Rick Jarow, PhD is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, a former Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at Columbia University, and chair of the Carolyn Grant ’36 Endowment Committee on embodied learning and the mythic imagination. He is the author of The Alchemy of Abundance, Creating the Work You Love, The Advanced Manifestation Program, Tales for the Dying, Your Life’s Work: The Ultimate Anti-Career Guide, In Search of the Sacred, The Yoga of Work, and numerous articles and audio programs. 

At age 19, in anguish with the world around him and seeking a higher truth, Rick left Harvard University and traveled throughout Europe and India for seven years.  This pilgrimage is partially recounted in his first book, In Search of the Sacred.  There, initiated into the yogic disciplines and meditational arts, he took up residence in the holy city of Vrindaban. Responding to a calling to return to the West at age 26, he went through the doctoral program at Columbia University, receiving a Ph.D. in Indian Languages and Literatures. Returning to India on a Fulbright research grant, he studied with scholars and adepts, working on the ancient Puranic mythic lore and writing the text of his doctoral dissertation, which would eventually become Tales for the Dying, an in-depth exploration into the mysteries of union and separation, life and death in classical Indian mythology. 

Returning to the West again, he entered into extended apprenticeships with Hilda Charlton, master of the arts of manifestation and healing, and also with the Cuban shamanic healer, Orestes Valdes. Incorporating Western healing modalities, earth-based shamanic work, and cross-cultural mythology, he entered into an apprenticeship with the renowned astrologer, Eleanor Bach.  Rick’s own astrological healing and counseling practice involved interfacing vivid inner experience with effective functioning in the outer world and soon evolved into his now renown alternative vocational practice of “anti-career” work. His holistic career workshops met with strong positive response in the early 90s, and their effectiveness and energy served to expand them worldwide into Germany, Italy, Canada, and Eastern Europe, as well as throughout the continental United States.  Creating the Work You Love, published in 1995, became a standard in the career counseling field, and the publication of the Ultimate Anti-Career Guide has transformed the way thousands of people have understood and enacted their vocations in the world. 

More recently, Rick’s work has focused on the Art and Science of Manifestation, not in the simplistic sense of thinking on what you want and getting it, but in the deeper alchemical possibilities of simultaneously loving what is, while moving toward where one wants to be on both individual and cultural levels. His group work is renowned for its fostering of deep community, creativity, and life-transformation. 

Rick’s workshops can be experienced at venues including the Omega Institute in New York; the Open Center in NYC; Esalen in CA; Naropa University in CO, and numerous other conferences and holistic centers in the U.S. and abroad. His current schedule can be found on the Workshops & Appearances page of this blog, and at his web site, www.anticareer.com. Rick is also a practicing career counselor and astrologer, available for private appointments via phone or in person in NYC.  To book an appointment, please contact Sheri Bresson: manifestation44@cs.com.

Please direct inquiries about inviting Rick to appear at your organization, corporation, or school to Laurie Pentell:  lpentell@earthlink.net.