Soulforce: How to Discover Your Artistic Purpose, Create More Freely, and Make Art That Matters

Category Finalist, 2025 Eric Hoffer Awards
Winner, 2024 New York Big Book Awards Arts & Entertainment Category
Finalist: Arts & Entertainment, 2025 National Indie Excellence Awards

Many artists, musicians, and creatives share a secret fear: that their art doesn’t really matter, and that it isn’t practical or useful enough to make a tangible contribution to a world in need.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

The purpose of art is to bring us more alive, to connect us with something bigger than our individual selves, to inspire, heal, and bring us together. These are universal human needs whose fulfillment provides a necessary sense of meaning, purpose, and belonging, and without which life becomes a dry, dusty bone.

However, in order to make art that fulfills this purpose, you first must surmount the challenges inherent to creating art in an extractive, consumer-driven society.

This thought-provoking book examines how Soulforce—the transformative energy that comes from facing creative challenges from a place of wholeness, aliveness, and connection—can breathe new life into your creative works and empower you to have a new experience of your art and its impact on you, your community, and the world.

Through his unique Soulforce Arts Approach, Arnold empowers us to see art through the lens of deep humanity and interbeing, and presents a curriculum to help us move from fear, doubt, and disconnection to a place where art becomes a tangible expression of love, life, and the divine in all of us.

A must-read for fans of Julia Cameron and Alex Grey, Soulforce is a primer for a new generation of artists and creatives who are ready to claim their true potential as creative forces for change.

Joseph Arnold is the Director of the Soulforce Arts Institute, where he provides musicians and artists with tools to reconnect with their Soulforce, helping them navigate physical discomfort, manage performance anxiety, enhance their creative spirit, and contribute positively to their communities. Joseph spends his time playing Gypsy Jazz with the Hot Club of Philadelphia, volunteering at his local food forest, and exploring the outer reaches of inner space. Learn more at www.soulforcearts.com.