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If you sometimes wonder what can be done in the western world to deal with present day issues and insanities, Nicholas Beecroft may have the answer in his new book where he shares a psychiatrist’s prescription for western civilization.

We are entering a period of dramatic change that will reshape our world. The tectonic plates are shifting, the pressure has been building and the earth will move beneath our feet. The frozen ice will melt, bringing long dormant forces back to life. Solutions that have been waiting in the wings will quickly come to the fore. Everything will go in the crucible and a new world will be formed. As things unravel, unforeseen events will trigger a chain reaction which will unleash forces beyond our control. In such times, our shadow side’s long repressed tensions and impulses reawaken.

Events may take a number of turns. We may descend into conflict, financial crisis and ecological disaster. We may rise to the challenges we face wisely, raise our consciousness to match the moment. We can harness the creative energy of every human being alive to create a new civilization that enables each one of us to fulfill our potential.

We do not have the choice of keeping things as they are. Nature will not allow it. We do have a choice about how we respond to this time of upheaval. We can enter it unconsciously or passively and allow nature to take its course. That would be the perfect environment for extremists, ideologues or vested interests to manipulate group dynamics to their own ends.

Alternatively, we can keep a level head and recalibrate our inner compass and map and establish a clear vision of who we are, what we believe, what we value and where we’re going. If we imagine the ideal world we want to create and identify the necessary steps to get there, then we have got some chance of achieving it. That is the purpose of this new Magna Carta.

2015 is the eight-hundredth anniversary of the Magna Carta, which was sealed in 1215 beside the River Thames at Runnymede, just outside London. It is often cited as the first written agreement in the long journey from absolute monarchy to democracy. It was an agreement between King John and his nobles and clergy, who agreed to support him in exchange for a guarantee of their rights and freedoms. It ended the absolute power of the King who agreed to be subject to the law himself. It guaranteed freedom from arbitrary arrest and right to due process in law. It established the principle that there should be no taxation without consensus, that people were free to come and go from the kingdom, that the Church was free in England, and it established the freedom of the City of London.

Key points include:

• Group consciousness
• The foundation of authority
• Who should be a member of our group and who should not

Read the reviews and access the book, New Magna Carter: A psychiatrist’s prescription for western civilization, on NewMagnaCarta.org.