Quest Magazine

Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships

John Amodeo
Wheaton: Quest, 2013. 290 + xix pages, paper, $16.95.

John Amodeo's book is a life-affirming work that expands traditional Buddhist practice to the social dimension. Filled with dozens of examples, personal anecdotes, and pithy quotes, Dancing with Fire is dedicated to expanding conscious awareness and mindfulness to increase personal, interpersonal, and cultural intimacy. This well-seasoned therapist draws from Buddha's Eight Noble Truths to show how psychology can help those on the spiritual path.

Much of the book's theme could be captured in a quote from Rumi: "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. Amodeo suggests using meditation and mindfulness as tools to remove these blocks to intimacy. In meditation retreats, he observed practitioners confusing the Buddhist notion of nonattachment (vairagya) with emotional detachment. Instead of forming more intimate relations, they tended to isolate themselves and withdraw from people while thinking this was the way to liberation. He believes that desire shouldn't be denied or avoided, but rather fully experienced with joy and equanimity. It isn't enough, he suggests, to simply "note feelings and sensations and release them. Rather he advises people to "let in emotions and allow "our inner processes to arise, incubate, unfold, and shift [so that] a new understanding or forward movement may emerge.

Amodeo turns to John Bowlby's attachment theory, Emotionally Focused Therapy, and Eugene Gendlin's technique of Focusing to help avoid these pitfalls and expand the feeling dimension of meditative practice. He believes that greater intimacy occurs when we bring emotions to the surface of awareness, thus checking the mistaken idea that meditation should lead us out of this world into some kind of detached state of nirvana. He repeatedly stresses that meditative practice should improve the intimate quality of loving relations rather than isolating us from one another. Psychological methods can augment meditation by helping transform social relationship into sacred experience.

Becoming more aware of feelings and sensations, says Amodeo, makes for a "juicy life. The clarity and solid sense of ego helped by meditation enables us to keep a firm grip on ourselves and interact with people while maintaining a healthy degree of equanimity. As an experienced therapist, he points out the many ways people undermine intimacy and often get tangled  up in self-defeating, dysfunctional relationships. The only problem in this argument is that Buddhists are more interested in dissolving or altogether eliminating ego than making it more functional!

While Amodeo's sentiment is appealing, he doesn't sufficiently take into account the differences between Eastern meditation and Western psychology. The latter aims to heal or at least improve relations (attachments) between people, while the former seeks to transcend desire through nonattachment. Psychological intimacy brings us closer to satisfying our ego desires—a better marriage, security, forgiveness. Buddhists, on the other hand, have their sights set on transcending life. I agree that meditators should not alienate themselves or avoid others using meditation, but augmenting a Buddhist practice with psychological techniques that emphasize somatic and emotional experience confuses spiritual and psychological paradigms by putting at odds their respective goals.

Buddhists use meditation as a means of dissolving the subject-object relationship to experience samadhi, a state of pure awareness. Using this spiritual method, they seek to be liberated from this world of suffering. By contrast, psychology teaches ways of dealing with suffering in this life by engaging the object. Without addressing these differences, it is difficult to reconcile the desire for intimacy with the nonattachment of Buddhist philosophy.

With chapters composed of many subheadings no longer than a few paragraphs, the book makes for an interesting, fast-paced read. But this format doesn't leave room for deeper exploration; a number of critical subjects, like the one above, could have used more elaboration. Ironically, the reader isn't able to delve deeper and become more intimate with the subject.

Nevertheless, in the West, where intimacy is often perverted into clinging and craving behaviors, a practical combination of spirituality and psychology is sorely needed. To this end, Dancing with Fire is more than a self help book. It seeks to adapt contemplative practice to the proclivities of the Western mind by teaching us how to "be in this world, but not of it.

Thom F. Cavalli

Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D., is a practicing psychologist and author of Embodying Osiris: The Secrets of Alchemical Transformation (Quest) and Alchemical Psychology: Old Recipes for Living in a New World (Putnam).

The Hidden Geometry of Flowers: Living Rhythms, Form, and Number

Keith Crichlow
Edinburgh: Floris, 2011. 446 pp., paper, $50.

Keith Critchlow is one of the world's foremost experts on sacred geometry. His name has been familiar to me since the early '70s, when my former husband discovered his book Order in Space, propelling him into an enduring fascination with the mystical side of geometry. I, however, am geometryshy, despite having a maths teacher as a father, who despaired at my lack of ability. But in the spiritual traditions I was drawn to, particularly the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and astrology, I discovered that you can't go far with without confronting your inner geometrical demons. The structures involved and their significance demand at least a basic engagement with the concepts of spheres, solids, and divisions of space. Moreover, using the part of the brain that deals with pure geometrical shapes can propel one into a state of lucidity. To get there, one has to move beyond both the normal "thinking mind" and the film screen of imagination.

So the title of this book instantly intrigued me. For Critchlow, "what is evident in the geometry of the face of a flower can remind us of the geometry that underlies all existence. Studying the geometry of flowers is therefore a powerful way to reconnect us with the idea that we are all one"

At over 400 pages, this is a long work, but it is full of superb illustrations, providing instant appeal. Most are in color, but a wonderful exception is a sequence of grainy black-and-white photos, showing how a moon daisy progresses from bud to fully formed flower. Critchlow ties it into his theme by encouraging us to see the emerging geometrical forms in the flower: spiral, cone, and hemisphere.

Although the volume is lavishly illustrated, it is also a book of substance as far as the writing is concerned. The author gives us a veritable compendium of flower studies, including fruit and leaves, structuring it around the philosophical and geometrical concepts he wishes to convey. Flowers, he says, can be understood at four different levels: the material, the social and psychological, the cultural and mythological, and at the highest level, the inspirational. This theme is developed through the book, along with the geometrical idea of a flower expanding during growth from point to line, to plane, and to solid. Critchlow manages to convey the implicit geometry of natural forms as ideas that we can grasp without special knowledge or training, and which may continue to influence us as we observe and experience the world of nature.

This is an achievement of the highest order. The book is an important  resource, and will remain on my bookshelf as something to read and dip into over the years to come. My only concern is that Critchlow throws in so many citations from philosophy and mythology to explain the basis for his explorations. In the mix are Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the Vedas, chakras, Buddhism, Christian symbolism, Goethe's theories, and Anthroposophical and Kabbalistic schemas. It is a kind of glorious compost heap for growing the flowers, but it's the plants themselves that are most important here! I think that the reader will either know the basis of the perennial philosophy and have his or her own references to underpin the text, or, if new to these ideas, will struggle to digest them. However, I also consider this to be a book which will "grow" on the reade, to extend the flower analogy, and it is full of memorable quotes, which the mathematically challenged reader (like me), or the newcomer to the perennial philosophy, can hold on to while waiting for full understanding to emerge. Try this one, for instance: "Life takes time to possess space in spiral form"

Critchlow cuts to the chase in part three, "The Geometry of Flowers," explaining the principles of geometry as they relate to flowers and to life itself. He highlights the fundamental importance of symmetry, the principle of right- and left-handedness, both in terms of balance in the human body and of the growth of flowers, which frequently develop into a fivefold arrangement, echoing the Golden Proportion. The range of five-based flowers is vast, from the humble herb Robert or Robert's geranium (Critchlow's personal favorite) to fruit blossoms, poppies, and of course the rose. He systematically goes through all the different arrangements of flower geometry, from the rare single flower, such as the arum lily, to the prolific twenty-oneness of the daisy. Clues to their significance are given, for instance, that four is "the number of worldly order" and six embodies the idea of "perfection," but quite rightly, I think, readers are encouraged to come at interpretation by studying the forms and flowers themselves. For those who delight in the analysis of the mathematical constructs, there is plenty more material included in his explanations to chew over in the following section, "The Flowers of Geometry"

Above all, Critchlow encourages us to marvel at flowers: "These delicate, mysterious, vulnerable, beautiful life forms (even the most modest of then) can be used as a metaphor for our overall need to satiate our wonderment" This is the joy of the experience he invites us to cultivate, and which he conveys so well in this remarkable book.

Cherry Gilchrist

The Power of the New Spirituality: How to Live a Life of Compassion and Personal Fulfillment

William Bloom
Wheaton: Quest, 2012. 258 pp., paper, $16.95.

While some of us may not have noticed, over recent decades a new model of spirituality has been creeping steadily into our culture. From amid the vast array of over-easy, and highly suspect, New Age concepts, something real and authentic has emerged. Easily surpassing the teachings of organized religions in scope and depth, the new spirituality is the New Age all grown up. In The Power of the New Spirituality: How to Live a Life of Compassion and Personal Fulfillment, William Bloom, one of Britain's leading mind-body-spirit teachers, distills what this new spirituality consists of, lists its implications for society, and teaches us how to participate.

Written in the form of a self-help manual, complete with exercises, the book describes how this new spirituality is arising out of spectacularly different circumstances from the cultural milieus in which our traditional religions were formed. With most of us in the Western world adequately fed and housed, we should be ready to move beyond mere security needs "the comfort, protection, and rules that earlier religions sought to supply" toward a spirituality based on "higher"-level issues such as universal love and the role personal fulfillment plays in meeting that end. With the perspective gleaned from spiritual teachings all over the world, we can now see what the various forms of spirituality have in common, regardless of cultural circumstance. But lest we fall subject to what Bloom calls spiritual materialism  self-help concepts promising simply to make people feel better, or be accused of promoting a spirituality with no values, we must see how the new spirituality not only includes the core values of all the world religions, but goes beyond them in several important ways. Examples include the green movement, the findings of developmental psychology, and a sense of personal responsibility for the vibrations we radiate into the universe.

Bloom describes three golden keys to the new spirituality.

1. Connection assumes the existence of a benevolent cosmos with which we might wish to connect. The new spirituality involves appreciating that each person will have his own best means of connection, his own style, and intensity of connection at which he is most comfortable.

2. Reflection is an honest attempt to get acquainted with ourselves as we really are. It helps us move from fear to love and enables us to step away from our monkey minds "which tend to make up stories to fill in knowledge gaps" toward a tolerance of ambiguity. It also helps us overcome resistance to growth and detach from desires and expectations.

3. Service involves working to release into freedom that which is trapped, becoming humble, truthful, and transparent about our psychological and spiritual challenges, and caring for the natural world. A very important aspect is the idea of vibrational service. If we recognize that we live in a vast field of energy, we must accept the ethical imperative to radiate a positive presence in the world wherever possible.

I was 100 percent in agreement with Bloom all the way up until the final chapter, where two concepts bothered me. In the first place, Bloom suggests breathing negative energy into ourselves: "Inhale some of this suffering and negativity . . . [It] is breathed into your heart and stomach regions, and held there . . . [until you] imagine this negative energy transforming into something benevolent" While I can appreciate the generosity in the idea of "absorbing" negative vibrations from others in distress, as a long-time Reiki practitioner I don't believe it is necessary to direct the energy we wish to get rid of to any particular place. Breathing it into ourselves sounds like a good way to invite cancer or some other illness. As long as we are choosing our own visualization exercises, why not just visualize the negativity dissipating into nothing?

In the second place, despite my best efforts to understand it, I still stumble over the spiritual practice of assuming personal responsibility for evils one did not directly cause. Bloom uses the example of a Dr. I.H. Len, an educational psychologist who is often called in to help solve a problem at a school. Before starting out, Dr. Len will consider ways in which he is somehow both connected to and responsible for the problem, and will start with "The Ho'oponopono Prayer of Apology," taken from the Polynesian shamanic tradition:

This is my responsibility.
I am sorry.
Forgive me.
Everything is love.
Thank you.

Though I am a huge fan of personal responsibility, and generally like the idea of unconditional responsibility, I just don't appreciate the value in apologizing and asking forgiveness for a problem one did not cause in a literal sense.

Despite these two minor points, I enthusiastically applaud Bloom's efforts to help us realize that all our traditional religions contain common wisdom and recognize the need for, and the presence of, a new spirituality that takes us beyond the limitations of these religions. Moreover, as he stresses, we must learn to distinguish this more vigorous new spirituality from overly easy and largely counterfeit New Age promises. The Power of the New Spirituality admirably meets all these ends.

Margaret Placentra Johnston

The reviewer is author of Faith beyond Belief: Stories of Good People Who Left Their Church Behind (Quest Books).

The Origins of the World's Mythologies

E.J. Michael Witzel
New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 665 + xx pages, paper, $45.

Why do so many creation myths sound so much alike? Why can myths about a flood that nearly destroyed all of humanity be found worldwide? And why do we find motifs of an end of the world in equally farflung places?

There are two basic theories that try to account for these similarities. One is the archetypal, which argues that these universal myths point to a common structure within the human mind. The other is the diffusionist view, which claims that these resemblances point to a common source of myth in the historical past.

E.J. Michael Witzel, a professor of Sanskrit at Harvard, argues on behalf of the diffusionist view in this enormously learned and important volume. Comparing and contrasting the lore of cultures worldwide, he paints a picture of the history of myth that reaches back as far as 100,000 years.

Witzel claims that certain universal mythic elements may actually go back to the earliest stages of humanity, when the whole species still lived in Africa. He calls this strain the "Pan-Gaean" mythos (he uses the geological names of prehistoric continents to characterize these different strata). The next oldest is that of "Gondwana," a mythos that can be found today chiefly in sub- Saharan Africa and Australia. The myths of the rest of the world,”not only Europe and Asia but the Americas and even Polynesi,”are "Laurasian" They share one central feature: unlike the earlier strains, they all present a continuous and more or less similar narrative, beginning with the origins of the cosmos and the gods, extending to the birth of humanity and its different ages and finally to the end of time, whether this is portrayed as the Nordic Gmerung ("twilight of the gods") or as the Last Judgment of Christianity. Indeed, for Witzel, the creation narratives and eschatology of the Bible are only comparatively recent manifestations of the Laurasian mythos (which, he suggests, arose, probably in southwestern Asia, between 40,000 and 20,000 bc).

Why have these myths lasted for so long? According to Witzel, one reason is that, quite simply, they are good stories. Another is that the Laurasian mythos in particular recapitulates the human lifespan on a universal scale: like us, it is saying, the cosmos is born, grows to maturity, and eventually withers and dies.

Even taken as a whole (and the reasons I have just cited do not give the complete picture), Witzel's explanations for the persistence of myth are not entirely satisfying. The flood story”weird”goes back to the Pan-Gaean mythos, which, he says, is over 65,000 years old. Why should it, along with other myths that are almost as durable, have retained its fascination for so long? Whatever facts it may point to are in the remote and unattainable past. Witzel replies in part that, as others have argued, the human brain may be "hardwired" for myth and religion. This may well be the case, but it cuts against his criticisms of the archetypal view, which, after all, is also saying that myth is hardwired into the brain.

Witzel hits a wall in another way as well. He has no trouble fitting the Judeo-Christian mythos into his Laurasian scheme—but then what about the current scientific worldview, complete with its Big Bang, its gestation of the stars, and its picture of a universe that eventually collapses in upon itself? Isn't this just the Laurasian mythos recast yet again, this time by the scientific temperament?

Witzel does not go this far, and one suspects that he simply cannot. But if this is true of the scientific mythos, then we have to grant that any picture that we form of the cosmos may be simply a picture of ourselves writ large. The human being, the esoteric traditions say, is the microcosm of the universe. Is this really so, or are we simply foredoomed by the structures of our minds to see it that way?

Richard Smoley