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Pigs Eat Wolves
Going into Partnership with Your Dark Side
Hardcover  978-0-936663-26-5: $21.95
Paperback 978-0-936663-32-6: $15.95

By Charles Bates

Midwest Book Awards:
Interior Layout (1st place), Self-help/Psychology (merit), Distinguish Service
 

Expanded edition! A radical fairy tale for adults to help face the fears that consume us. The Three Little Pigs is a story of your own transformation. Which little pig are you? Who is your wolf? What does it say about your own past, present, future? "This book is excellent." - Marie Louis von Franz. "An amazing little book!" - Robert Bly. Hardcover.

All of us have a shadow side—those unlovely qualities which we shove aside, ignore, or attribute to others. This important book shows why we should honor this aspect of who we are, and how our shadow can empower us to greater wisdom and fulfillment. We must be aware of our shadow, or we shall beware of it." —Larry Dossey, M.D., Healing words, Healing Beyond the Body

"Charles Bates lights a fire under an old warning tale, challenging our comfortable perceptions. He shows that the sweet pigs, their well-meaning mother, and the cunning wolf contain a complex, psychologically true account of a process we desperately need to understand. Here is a quick, graspable, and illuminating tool for handling the presence of the darkness we fear." —Nor Hall, Ph.D., The Moon and the Virgin, The Broodmales

"Pigs Eat Wolves represents a masterful understanding and integration of every individual's lightness and darkness. Charles Bates gives us a way of understanding our life journey and making meaning of the stages and phases of human development leading to full self-realization. This is a book to read again and again, its full depth and breadth revealed as the reader grows." —John D. Carter, Ph.D., Gestalt Institute of Cleveland

Twin Cities Wellness, October 2002

ALTHOUGH THIS ISN'T a new book—it was first published in 1991 and then re-released last year—it remains new and fresh and current. Because I'm writing this review just before the one-year anniversary of 9/11, I read it with the view of how our country "projects" its problems relating to terrorism and associated matters onto others. It seems most Americans aren't in touch with or don't want to look at their dark side. But that's not what the book is about; I'm merely extrapolating!

Charles Bates has written an excellent primer about identifying and then dealing with the dark side of oneself (or one's community, nation, etc.). He's used the unabridged version of the fairytale, "The Three Little Pigs," to show how fairytales offer valuable symbols teaching us about values and morality. Pigs Eat Wolves takes us chapter by chapter through the old fairytale, translating the drama, character, and storyline into an updated psychological process—the one of transformation and integration of the self to wholeness. It is every self-actualized person's story. I found it fascinating and though shadow work is not new to me, the way Bates writes, he angles the prism just that wee bit askew so you can see the "dark" in a different light. A really ingenious book with material every person on their own journey to wholeness needs to read and reread. Bates writes in a non-flowery fashion, getting to the point, and more important—getting to the point clearly, no holds barred. What so impressed me with this book is the incredible amount of knowledge, wisdom, and insight that was packed into this small book. He writes "densely," wherein there's no fluff language, and where every word, every phrase, sentence, and paragraph has deep meaning. That meaning has, I assume, come from living a lifetime of integrity, in purposefulness, and cutting to the core of issues; that masterfulness bleeds through so well in the pages of this book.

I think everyone should read this fabulous book; it relates to all of us, is important to our growth and learning. It reads easy, like a fairytale, simple in its conveyance of deep wisdom. I just loved the surprising twists and turns—the outcome of which is so ultimately satisfying—like a good meal eaten slowly that's delicious and nutritious. Highly recommended.

Reviewed by Lynn S. La Froth, Editor