Robert Atkinson, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, and developmental psychologist bridging storytelling, transformation, and the evolution of consciousness with an all-embracing vision. He is a 2017 Nautilus Book Award winner for The Story of Our Time: From Duality to Interconnectedness to Oneness, and a co-editor of the award-winning Our Moment of Choice: Evolutionary Visions and Hope for the Future (2020). He is founder of One Planet Peace Forum and StoryCommons, an internationally recognized authority on life story interviewing, a pioneer in the techniques of personal myth making and soul making, and a member of the Evolutionary Leaders Circle.
Atkinson is the author of a dozen books, including The Story of Our Time, called “a must read by the widest of global audiences” by Michael Bernard Beckwith, and Mystic Journey: Getting to the Heart of Your Soul’s Story (2012), called “an exquisite exploration of the spiritual craft of soul-making” by Jean Houston. In 2022, he published the award-winning A New Story of Wholeness: An Experiential Guide for Connecting the Human Family, and in 2025, the award-winning The Way of Unity: Essential Principles and Preconditions for Peace. His journey included sailing on the maiden voyage of the Clearwater with Pete Seeger, attending Woodstock, and a synchronistic and fateful meeting with Joseph Campbell that became a mentoring relationship. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania in cross-cultural human development and a post-doctoral research fellowship in adolescent development at the University of Chicago. He is professor emeritus of cross-cultural human development and religious studies at the University of Southern Maine and director of Story Commons.
Why their voice matters: Bob Atkinson demonstrates that beneath the illusion of separation, humanity is one family, offering a deeply thoughtful narrative of conscious evolution drawn from the continuous wisdom of the world’s religions to trace love’s unifying power throughout history. By identifying factors that can move human consciousness toward the unity underlying the divisions of ordinary perception, Atkinson shows that the shift we need to survive and transform requires making the transition from the love of power to the power of love. His pioneering work in life story interviewing and personal mythmaking proves that story carries the power to transport and transform us, and that our time is not merely the present moment of confusion and conflict but the eternal moment in which past, present, and future become one—revealing indigenous cultures as holding the missing link to knowing how to live with a consciousness of oneness.
