In the Company of Gods: Public Dialogues with an Unconventional Mystic
Ray Grasse
Chicago: Inner Eye, 2025. 197 pp., paper, $24.95.
Before I delve into this wonderful book, it is important to introduce Shelly Trimmer. “Shelly Trimmer (1917‒1996) was a Pennsylvania-born yogi and occultist who studied under the famed teacher Paramahansa Yogananda during the early 1940s, and was a student of both the Eastern and Western mystical traditions. After several years with Yogananda in California, he traveled back East to undertake an intensive regimen of private study, meditation and ritual practice, choosing to forego formal titles or an affiliation with any organization. He eventually married and moved with his family to a remote region of Minnesota, then finally to the West Coast of Florida where he lived until the end of his life. He never published books or articles, choosing instead to teach primarily on a one-to-one basis with a comparatively small circle of students.”
We are fortunate to receive this book through former Quest editor and frequent contributor Ray Grasse. I read his book An Infinity of Gods: Conversations with an Unconventional Mystic and yearned for more. My yearnings are answered with the current volume.
Grasse learned about Shelly through Chicago-based Kriya Yoga teacher Goswami Kriyananda and then met with him in person at his home in 1977‒78, followed by a number of encounters throughout the eighties and nineties, which Grasse recorded.
Shelly was an unorthodox teacher. Grasse says that his teachings “prominently included elements of yogic mysticism and astrology, but also Kabbalistic, Hermetic, alchemical, and mathematical elements, all framed within a distinctly modern sensibility.” When Shelly talked about reincarnation, psychic phenomena, magic, or chakras, it never came through as dogmatic. As a true teacher, Shelly always wanted students to find out the truth themselves.
Shelly gave a series of four public talks in Chicago in 1985. Grasse’s book is a compilation of selected passages from the recordings of these talks. An additional blessing is Grasse’s commentaries. Shelly’s ideas at times are challenging, but Grasse’s interpretations serve as thought-provoking clarifications.
The twenty-seven chapters cover topics from reincarnation, meditation, free will, cosmic dreams, time and space, horoscopes, simplicity of love, to the archetype of the zodiac and even the big bang. Grasse leads us from simpler to more complex ideas, making our journey a little easier.
What is the nature of a true teacher? I always felt that it is the utter simplicity of his or her presence. I am reminded of my first meeting with my own teacher from a small town in India. He sat in a modest 10 x 14‒room dwelling and sent his assistant to fetch some tea leaves, giving him the equivalent of ten cents. I am still carrying the blessings of that “perfect ordinariness” (a term Grasse uses to describe Shelly). As Grasse described him, “If you were to meet Shelly on the street and have a conversation with him, without knowing anything about his background, you might not think there was anything exceptional or unusual about him, other than maybe those unusual eyes and that deep voice of his.”
Someone asked Shelly how one could attain Christ or God consciousness without “getting crucified.” Shelly’s answer was: “Well, the key there is to hide your sainthood under a bushel, so to speak.” Kriyananda once asked Shelly, “Can you prove to me that you’re spiritual?” After pausing for a moment, Shelly turned, walked to the other side of the room, grabbed his hat, then walked out the front door and went to work!
I am personally drawn to a Zen-like approach to life and living in its utter simplicity of love. Grasse relates a story when one of Kriyananda’s students approached Shelly and said, “My love is so imperfect. There is always some ego involved and I don’t know how to express true unselfish love.” Shelly said, “Just love!” Grasse comments, “Both Shelly and Kriyananda sometimes used the analogy of ‘priming the pump’—the traditional practice of pouring a little water down the shaft of a water pump to get it started, in order to draw more water out from the ground. In short: stop judging or analyzing how ‘perfect’ your love is—and just do it. Prime the pump of your heart chakra and it will naturally start to pour forth from there.”
Each topic in this volume is full of wisdom. Shelly’s teachings and Grasse’s commentaries are a combination made in heaven. This is not a book that is to be read once and put back on the shelf. Please take your time to read it. Let the transmission of teachings take place. Be grateful!
Dhananjay Joshi
Dhananjay Joshi is a regular reviewer for Quest.