For teachers and parents of adolescents and for anyone who wants to review and explore the story of Parzival.

Fairy tales, myths, and legends express deep truths. This is also true of the story of Parzival. . . . I hope that the reader, in unpeeling the layers of the story and opening them up for examination, will gain insight into the teenage years. [To the teacher]

The community of adults in a high school environment is a community of trust in which we need to foster hope, belief in positive change, and commitment to serve the highest good. This is our charge, and we must never forget it. We have the responsibility to believe in the capacity for change, for maturing, for transformation in every young person we serve. When these qualities live in the soul of the adults in a high school community, adolescents can thrive, can meet their own dark night of the soul and come through it into the light.

This compelling book shows us how Parzival, as the archetypal hero, undertakes the challenges of initiation. He suffers through and learns from his ordeals and failures, as we all must. Initiation is an ongoing life process beginning at adolescence and re-emerging at significant turning points. This leads to greater human consciousness and transformation of the self, if we are willing to take the risks it calls for. It is crucial to introduce adolescents to its meaning. Betty Staley's book successfully points the way. Elisabeth Bower, Jungian Psychoanalyst

Betty Staley, a Waldorf teacher for over 35 years and founding teacher of the Sacramento Waldorf High School, directs the Waldorf High School Teacher Training program at Rudolf Steiner College. She is the author of Hear the Voice of the Griot! A Guide to African Geography, History and Culture, and Between Form and Freedom: A Practical Guide to the Teenage Years

Published and available from Steiner Books