Quest Magazine

The Way of Story: The Craft and Soul of Writing

By Cathrine Ann Jones
Ojai, CA: Prasana Press, 2004. Paperback, 195 pages.

The Way of Story: The Craft and Soul of Writing By Cathrine Ann Jones will appeal to anyone interested in an intuitive approach to effective writing by drawing from personal experience. The book also teaches writers how to share one's inner journey with others through the medium of story. Jones, a successful New York playwright and Hollywood screenwriter, inspires the reader to write what one feels passionately about and also gives guidance to develop the solid skills necessary for successful story writing. This balanced approach to the writing process can have a healing influence on the writer, as well as on a fractured society in need of spiritual connection.

To reveal the essential elements of what creates a memorable story, the author delves into the inner workings of the art of storytelling. At its best, writing, and the writer as shaman, act as a bridge between spirit and earth. From this perspective, it is seen that the work must begin within, in knowing one's self, and being able to feel at the heart level. In order to serve the soul, feeling and emotion, rather than knowledge, must be the raw material to work With. One must begin with a passion for what one writes, then, use the craft to contain it in a story to be shared with others, People read stories or go to movies in order to feel something. Having an emotional identification with what one writes can only help the reader make an emotional connection with the story and its characters, and through that, to their own humanity.

Practical advice and techniques on the craft of writing are organized in chapters on topics of re-writing, character development, dialogue, and scenes, Examples are given from the author's own work to illustrate the points made and writing exercises at the end of each chapter reinforce the material presented.

Jones also leads "The Way of Story" experiential workshops, one of which I was fortunate to attend. I was impressed by her ability to individually work with participants, bringing them to their next stage of development, regardless of whether they were interested novices or seasoned professionals. This was accomplished through guiding the participants to arrive at their own insights through exercises and reflective work, rather than feeding them information. The Way of Story: The Craft and Soul of Writing is a valuable presentation of the author's understanding that truly transformational work begins from within, through experience absorbed through the heart and not the head.

-EILEEN SETO

January/February 2006

Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism

Edited by Wouter J. Hanegraaff. Leiden
The Netherlands: Brill Publishing, 2005. Hardcover, 2 volumes, xxix + 1,228 pages.

Wouter J. Hanegraaff, the editor of the provocative two volume Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Has compiled "a great range of historical currents and personalities that have flourished in Western culture and society over a period of roughly two millennia, from Late Antiquity to the present." His aim was not simply to produce a comprehensive reference work of superior quality-no small feat in itself-but to challenge "certain ingrained assumptions about the history of Western religion and culture," which have long been held by members of academia. Due to these "ingrained ideological biases," the field of Gnosis and Western esotericism has been largely ignored by scholars until quite recently.

The dictionary contains 344 entries by 149 contributors from seventeen countries on four continents. Most entries run for more than a page in length, allowing for in-depth coverage. An alphabetical listing collectively identifies all the contributors. Each entry is followed by a bibliography and its contributor's name. The writing is of consistently high quality throughout. Volume 2 includes one comprehensive index for persons and another for organizations. The editors supply numerous cross-references embedded within the articles. By following these cues, the reader gains a greater appreciation for the many crosscurrents of esoteric thought in Western culture. "Rather than a repetitive series of variations on the same essential 'truths,' the reader will find here a dazzling variety of ideas and practices, reflective of ever-changing historical contexts and testifying to the remarkable creativity of the religious imagination."

The panorama of historical personages spans the spectrum from martyrs (Giordano Bruno) to poets (William Blake), from occultists (Eliphas Levi) to alchemists (Paracelsus), from psychics (Edgar Cayce) to scientists (Isaac Newton). A number of Theosophical luminaries are given generous coverage (Besant, three pages: Blavatsky, eight pages; Olcott, two pages; Leadbeater, two pages). The fair and balanced portrayals accorded them should satisfy Theosophists of all stripes. The Theosophical Society itself receives a well-crafted eight-page entry by James Santucci of California State University. Santucci docs not gloss over the various crises in the Society's history, but presents them even-handedly. "Strong personalities and disagreements over teachings invariably lead to schisms and splits within organizations, large and small, The TS is no exception ... of Charles Leadbeater, Brenda French (University of Sydney) says, "Leadbeater's influence on 201h century occultism has been immense." Michael Gomes (Emily Sellon Memorial Library, N.Y.) describes Henry Olcott's Old Diary Leaves as "his greatest contribution to the field of esoteric literature" and points out Olcott's role as "an Important witness for the existence of the Mahatmas."

The ten-page entry for imagination contains several noteworthy passages such as this:

In a mystical and esoteric context the imagination has been believed to give access to levels of reality deeper than those that can be experienced by the senses, and thus to function as a do, main of mediation between different ontological planes. As such it enables man to transcend the material world and gain access to the divine. In other words, the imagination could become a bridge between microcosm and macrocosm.

And this interesting excerpt from the seven-page entry for mnemonics:

In the Middle Ages techniques of memory were closely linked to the techniques of meditation that were used to develop a particular "force of thought." This force was used to build structures in the mind-temples, tabernacles, palaces, gardens, trees, stairways- which could then be used to design a spiritual itinerary. Each stopping place along this itinerary represented an advance in knowledge and a step forward in a gradual moral transforma tion which would culminate in the mystical experience of a union with God.

In summary, the Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism should prove to be of great value to both lay students and professional researchers with a mutual interest in Western culture's contributions to the philosophia occulta. According to the editor, "This Dictionary hopes to contribute to the current academic emancipation of Gnosis and Western Esotericism as a comprehensive domain of research." This reviewer concurs. Let the emancipation begin!

-DAVID P. BRUCE

January/February 2006

The Yoga of Time Travel: How the Mind Can Defeat Time

By Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D.
Wheaton, IL: Quest Books, 2004, Paperback, 258 pages.

The term "time travel" conjures up all kinds of tantalizing images: elaborate contraptions that can whisk intrepid adventurers from era to era before you can say "H. G. Wells”; direct encounters with historical figures; and the handy ability to correct past mistakes, avert future disasters, and ascertain the numbers of next week's lotto drawing. These scenarios appear often in science fiction and Wishful thinking, but time travel also plays a role in mystical traditions such as yoga (knowledge of past and future events, certainly a type of time travel, is among the powers that a yogic master may develop, according to Patanjali). Also, in the wake of twentieth-century advances in theoretical physics, it figures in some scientific thinking as well.

In The Yoga of Time Travel: How the Mind Can Defeat Time, National Book Award recipient Fred Alan Wolf examines time travel from both a scientific and a spiritual perspective, demonstrating that while we probably shouldn't expect front-row seats for the Gettysburg address any time soon) certain forms of time travel may well be within our reach.

As you might suspect, this is mind-boggling stuff, Wolf, who appears in the recent film What the Bleep Do We Know!?, kindly prepares the way for readers like me whose knowledge of physics would barely fill a thimble, He explores the strangely malleable quality of time and its integral connection to space, matter, and mind, He also points to striking parallels between physics and some of the world's spiritual traditions, including the Australian aborigines' concept of dreamtime and Krishna's teachings in the Bhagavad Gita.

Wolf writes that there are two types of time travel: the ordinary and the extraordinary. Ordinary time travel falls within the domain of theoretical physics and involves such intriguing phenomena as black holes, wormholes (like a cosmic subway tunnel, a wormhole is a type of black hole that could theoretically enable travelers to traverse vast spans of space and time almost instantaneously), quantum computers (computers that function as if they exist in an infinite number of parallel worlds), and the "sphere of many radii," a giant, probably impossible-to-build device of incredible mass that, when hooked up to a quantum computer, could perhaps propel the minds of time voyagers forward or backward through time. Of course, the knowledge and technology to achieve this kind of time travel, if it's possible at all, is many years and a plethora of paradoxes away. However, Wolf tells us that extraordinary time travel, where science and mysticism converge, not only is possible but happens all the time.

From the standpoint of physics, Wolf writes, this form of time touring involves the "squaring" or modulation of possibility waves (for some scientists, these are imaginary constructs; for others, including Wolf, real waves, capable of moving forward or backwards in time, that arise out of the "infinitely dimensional" subspace realm, from which consciousness and matter also emerge); the complementary principle (the idea that we gain and lose knowledge of something as our observations of it change); parallel universes (which Wolf contends may resolve many of the paradoxes besetting "ordinary" time travel); and the discombobulating notion of a fundamentally timeless universe in which the past is being created in the present, and the present and future are somehow creating each other.

From a mystical perspective, however, things may be a bit less complicated. According to Wolf, this form of time travel (subjective, internal time, rather than objective, clock/calendar time) can be seen as bringing to light and overcoming habits of thought through relinquishing the ego.

Wolf writes that mind yoga helps practitioners to shift possibility waves-essentially, to change their ego-based ideas about themselves and the world. According to Wolf, when we focus on an object, a person, or an aspect of ourselves (much the same, he says, as entering into a pose in yoga), our impressions of it gradually become habits of thought and its range of possibilities diminishes. However, when we let go of our habitual viewpoints and expectations, such as during the act of forgiveness, its possibilities increase concomitantly, and in a sense we "reverse time" by returning to an earlier, more receptive mind-set. Wolf believes that this process of focusing and defocusing is also what gives us our objective sense of time. Additionally, Wolf writes that, following Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, we may, at times, actually change the past by changing our present perceptions, and that the act of letting go may even enable us to enter parallel universes, though he admits that we probably wouldn't know it if we did.

This book is teeming with ideas. I've read it twice and feel as if I've just scratched the surface. It's a great introduction to theoretical physics, it points the way, at every turn, to new ways of thinking, and it resonates with a deeply spiritual impulse.

"Give up your ego," Wolf suggests, "enter the sacred timeless realm, and forgive. Such is the path to true freedom."

-PAUL WINE

January/February 2006

What Is Self? A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness

By Bernadette Roberts
Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, 2005, Paperback, 208 pages.

What Is Self? A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness by the Catholic contemplative Bernadette Roberts is profound and helpful, although not the easiest introduction to her work. Those who are not familiar with Roberts might turn first to her earlier books, The Experience of No-Self, and The Path to No-Self. What Is Self? includes less immediately personal narrative and more of the philosophical underpinnings of Roberts's understanding of the spiritual journey.

Roberts endeavors to express interior movements at the outer limits of what we know as human experience, The subject matter inevitably results in a difficult text, one that demands slow reading and much pondering. Many readers might want to begin in part: 3, where Roberts summarizes her own journey, This narrative provides a handhold as the reader wrestles with the more abstract earlier chapters,

The author is known for her teaching that the dissolution of the personal ego, and the following discovery of unity with the divine center, is not the end of journey, Rather, the unitive state leads us into the marketplace" where the true self in union with the divine is fully exercised until there is no more to do, no more to give. Then the self (identified as consciousness itself) falls away, and with it all self-experience, including the experience of the divine. She points again and again to the fact that our experiences of the divine are our experiences, which may be caused by but are not themselves the divine, "Thus the deepest unconscious true self IS the experience of the divine, or the divine in experience. This experience, however, is NOT the divine. What falls away, then, in the no-self experience, is not the divine, but the unconscious true self that all along we thought was the divine!"

What lies beyond the no-self event is expressed in koanlike language, which threatens to stop the brain in its tracks. Roberts hints at many deep mysteries, including a profound understanding of the true nature of matter, form, and the physical body, which will probably be of interest to theosophically inclined readers.

Some readers may be uncomfortable with Roberts's Catholic theological commitments and may quibble with her interpretations of Hinduism, Buddhism) and Jung. (These issues are carefully addressed in the forewords by Jeff Shore and Ric Williams,) Nonetheless, her writing is infused with a powerful honesty, and one has the sense that she is trying not to fit into any preconceived mold but to express the insights she has gleaned from her journey as clearly as she can. Even if our journey has been different from Roberts's, we can only bow before such an offering.

-JOHN PLUMMER

January/February 2006