Quest Magazine

Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life by Thomas Moore; HarperCollins, 1992; paper

Facing the World with Soul: A Re-imagination of Modern Life by Robert Sardello; Lindisfarne, 1992; paper.

Like the Eastern philosophers, Carl Jung drew from his own experience when writing about Soul. His insight, however, was inspired by a myriad of ancient philosophies, such as Greek, Indian, African and Native American.

Jung concluded in his Collected Works that Soul is “objective, self-subsistent and live(s) its own life” (CW Vol.8, p. 666). The ancient Greeks called Spirit’s metaphysical manifestation “pneuma” or “wind.” Vedic philosophers deemed Spirit a latent energy, which can only become activated when joined with its empirical counter part -Nature. Jung calls the union “transcendent function,” a spark of life that gives Soul a form.

Psychotherapists Thomas Moore and Robert Sardello model their notions of Soul on Jungian tradition. By observing today's social and environmental conditions, they present their expanded versions of lung in separate monographs, which work well as a dyptic. Moore observes Soul’s intern al dynamic while Sardello portrays Soul's presence in the material world.

The authors, who are friends, agree that we have ignored Soul's existence in living things and have created a world suffering from its neglect. You can see it in air, water, animals, plants, and humans, they say. All states of Nature are perishing because we tune out the voice within ourselves and that of the Earth. Instead, we apply quick fixes to problems, which do little to resolve the real problem.

Both authors present ways to hear Soul. They explore how the light of the Soul struggles into consciousness and then into action. Cautioning not to fixate on results to problems in our lives, the authors recommend shifting gears and to ca re about our feelings about those problems. To do so requires probing with in and listening to the sacred, silent breath in both ourselves and Nature. One will learn to locate Spirit within the body and mind. Only then can we see clearly when feeling aids reason.

Moore's Care of the Soul, invites us to observe the dark beauty in human suffering, which he views as the most compassionate aspect of listening. Such observations provide the … opportunity to discover the beast residing at the center of the (psychological) labyrinth is also an angel…The Greeks told a story of the minotaur, the bull-headed, flesh-eating-man who lived in the center of the labyrinth. He was a threatening beast, and yet his name was Asterion- Star. I often think of this paradox as I sit with someone with tears in her eyes, searching for some way to deal with a death, a divorce, a depression. It is a beast, this thing that stirs the core of her being, but it is also the star of her innermost nature. We have to care for this suffering with extreme reverence so that, in our fear and anger we do not overlook the star.

In an approach similar to that of Joseph Campbell, Moore explores cultural myths as they apply to family and childhood, love and narcissism, jealousy and envy, money, failure , and creativity. Using rich and free-flowing language, he also confronts psychological conditions, telling tales that reveal Soul's inner workings. His informative and user-friendly book is a must read.

On the other hand, Robert Sardello's Facing the World with Soul is more of a chore. Sardello begin s with a self-conscious and awkward introduction that dilutes the eloquent messages in his essays, which he calls “Letters.” But enjoyment begins once one is embraced by Sardello's patchwork quilt of thought-provoking essays.

Sardello has subtitled his book “Re-imagination of Modern Life.” But it is nothing of the sort. One wonders if his collaborators at The Institute for the Study of Imagination displayed their influence through the title.

What Sardello does, however, is to lift “the primary veil covering direct perception of the soul of the world.” Sardello agrees with Moore's approach to embracing the monster within, which is not unlike Jung's famous concept of embracing the shadow. “Rage, felt, held, not shut off or denied nor acted out-leads to compassion. Compassion must be nurtured to the point that one suffers with things.”

Sardello’s contribution becomes a manual for living in the modern age, drawing on age-old practices. For ordering your physical space, he offers “Feng Shui,” the Chinese Buddhist method for positioning architecture and interiors in accordance with the laws of Nature. Diseases like AIDS and cancer are “the most concrete instance[s] of the suffering of things of the world.” Economics and technology are tackled.His presentation of data informs, but leads to no unique conclusions.

He tells us to wait with an attitude of silence and “the Soul work (will loosen) the web of anesthesia…” that numbs our consciousness. Hopefully, the reader will agree. The spirit in Nature will disclose itself and our neglect of the sacredness in all living things will cease. In such harmony, we will regard ourselves as a part of Nature rather than Nature's master and all living things will thrive in a right way.

While one can appreciate Sardello's series of essays, the reader may become amused at the number of ideas boldly left open to disagreement. Yet, his cognitive speculation pro vides the charm of the book. Soul, after all, is drawn upon for interpreting Sardello's musings.

Feel into what is being said. Neither book defines Soul, perhaps for this very purpose.

-MARGARET FIRESTONE

Spring 1993

Samadhi: The Highest State of Wisdom, Vol. I

By Swami Rama
Twin Lakes, WI: Lotus Press, 2002. Paperback, 242 pages.

Just how hard is it to attain samadhi or "enlightenment?" In Samadhi: The Highest State of Wisdom, volume one in a series of three, Swami Rama has encouraging news: You can learn to live peacefully in this world, attaining your goal of life in this lifetime, in a few years' time, in a few months' time, in a few days' time, even in a second's time if you understand the philosophy of vairagya, or nonattachment (192).

So what is standing in the way? Swami Rama's answer is vrittis, or "negative mental modifications." In current American parlance, these "negative mental modifications" could be called "pessimistic tape loops" that constantly dog our consciousness. Some examples of such tape loops are "I'll never make it," and "Who cares?"

Sharing the credit with vrittis as an impediment to enlightenment is moha, or attachment. Attachment exists when we think of ourselves in terms of what we own or want to own, rather than who we are or want to be. One can become attached to physical possessions but also to other people and to the persona that we project to the world.

Samadhi is a collection of 18 lectures given by Swami Rama in 1977 at the headquarters of the Himalayan Institute of Yogic Science and Philosophy in Glenview, Illinois. The book is designed for the "advanced beginner," i.e., for one who aspires to enlightenment but is unfamiliar with some of the Sanskrit terms and techniques in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain thought.

The reader may be pleased to learn that this is a secularly oriented book. Unlike some other yogis, Swami Rama stresses that it is not necessary to quit one's job, desert one's family, and go live in the jungle in order to reach the higher stages of consciousness. In fact, he hints that becoming an indigent beggar can become just as habitual as working a steady job.

One pearl of wisdom I found particularly useful is the author's Zen-like question, "In which language will you think when you have nothing to think?" (25) I am not sure of the answer, but contemplating this question has gotten me through a lot of long red lights without becoming impatient. Also worthy of contemplation is this passage:

So many thoughts come, and you call it the thinking process. There is a space between two thoughts. But if there is no space between two thoughts, then what will happen to time? Time will not exist. If there is only one thought, what will be the condition of space? There will be no space at all (14).

Swami Rama emphasizes that total mental and physical equilibrium—also called serenity--is the sine qua non of enlightenment.

Only at the very end of the book does Swami Rama allude to the magnificent fate that awaits those who make samadhi their life's goal: "Blessed are those who want to attain samadhi ... Such persons live like kings of the world ... All others live like fools" (226).

-JACK MACKAY

January/February 2004

H.P.B.: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Founder of the Modem Theosophical Movement

by Sylvia Cranston
Jeremy TarcherlPutnam,1992; hardbound.

The late and great American spiritual philosopher Manly P. Hall wrote in The Phoenix: “Occultism in the Western world owes all that it is to the pioneering of H. P. Blavatsky. Her tireless efforts are responsible in no small measure for the freedom and tolerance accorded to metaphysical speculations in this century. Remove H. P. Blavatsky and the structure of modern occultism falls like a house of cards.”

Time has a way of putting truly great people in a sense ahead of us rather than in the darkening past. As a result, those who are regarded as great in their lifetime, without truly deserving such regard, tend to diminish once dead, while the truly great continue to increase in stature with the passage of the years and decades. This increase of stature is what has happened to Blavatsky, who died 101 years ago. The books in which she poured forth the quintessence of the alternative spiritual tradition of several cultures are still sold and read by discerning persons on all five continents. She is widely regard ed as the “grandmother” of the New Age, although she would have numerous bones to pick with many New Age teachers and their followers. Concepts such as reincarnation, karma, self-directed evolution of the soul, and many more that she introduced into the ambiance of our culture have lost their elitist associations and are part of our everyday reservoir of ideas.

Over the last 101 years many have asked what her greatness consists of, and some have answered this question by writing biographies of her. The latest and one of the most detailed of such works has just been published and –we are told - is the subject of a $50,000 national advertising campaign. The author, Sylvia Cranston, has previously coauthored four books on reincarnation. The book is advertised as “the definitive biography” of its subject, and in many ways one is inclined to agree. Extensively illustrated, well indexed and running to 640 pages, this is a serious work which no one with an interest in the late “high priestess of the Occult…can afford to bypass.

Strange and heroic was the life of this amazing woman. Born in 1831 in Russia from a noble Russo-German family, and married at seventeen to an elderly man, she fled from husband, family, and high society, and spent most of her life as a traveler and recorder of little-known truths and traditions. In America and Europe she took advantage of the then young and flourishing spiritualist movement in order to expand further the mental horizons of those who were attracted to spirit manifestations. She told spiritualists that they might modify their devotion to “revelations” from spirits and pay attention to the fact that they themselves are also spirits, albeit of an incarnate order. She called attention to the powers latent or only partially manifest within living humans, and wished to motivate men and women to discover their own spiritual nature which in turn would lead to the discovery of ultimate deific Reality. Even more boldly she proceeded to duplicate (at times openly) various phenomena of the spiritualists, while proclaiming that she had no need for spirits in manifesting the supernormal powers of her own spirit. In the course of such activities she ran afoul of an investigator associated with the prestigious Society for Psychical Research and was condemned publicly by that organization, which only recently got around to rescinding its judgment and exonerating the maligned H. P. Blavatsky.

Madame Blavatsky, or “HPB” as she preferred to be known. Performed some apparently miraculous deeds, but all such were superseded by her greatest “miracles,” her books. With such large tomes as The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, and with many smaller books, including the timeless spiritual classic, The Voice of the Silence, she left an abiding and unique legacy, and also laid the foundation for a distinguished school of thought, usually called the Theosophical Movement which today encompasses several active organized bodies, each with a worldwide membership. Besides such organizations directly connected to her teachings, there exist a large number of others which have more remotely benefited from her inspiration.

The major portion of Cranston's work is devoted to HPB's biography, but all along we find insightfully interwoven with the data of the subject's life various aspects of her teaching s. A most valuable portion of the book is Part 7, entitled “The Century After,” in which the author extensively catalogues areas of HPB's influence in many different facets of culture over the last 100 years. Literature, the Visual Arts, Religion, Mythology, Psychology, the Physical Sciences all receive their due in terms of the often prophetic, always creative and stimulating insights and inspirations proceeding from the person and message of the Russian wise woman.

What Madame Blavatsky really and truly was the world may someday know, or alternatively, such a full view may never be available. In many ways she still appears as a riddle, an enigma, not unlike some magi of the past, the Comte de St. Germain, Cagliostro, and others. One of her ongoing afflictions is that virtually all her biographies are flawed in some manner, Some, like Marion Mead's Madame Blavatsky: The Woman Behind the Myth ( 1980), are of fine literary quality but hostile to their subject. Of hers, like When Daylight Comes by Howard Murphet (1975), and Blavatsky and Her Teachers by Jean Overton Fuller (1988), are quite simply unremarkable both as to content and style. Sylvia Cranston is a fine researcher and thus her book is replete with highly useful, well-organized data, some of which are taken from Russian sources only recently made available. At the same time it is also apparent that her talents as a writer do not match her scholarship and research. It is sad to see an exciting subject become unexciting reading, yet such is the case. In addition, it is all too apparent that the author views HPB as little short of a major saint. All information that does not agree with this hagiographical emphasis is either ignored or is minimized to become virtually invisible. It is doubtful that the redoubtable Madame would have enjoyed being placed into a stained glass window, yet such now has become her lot. A completely balanced, excitingly written, kindly irreverent, and above all, humorous biography of the astonishing mystery woman still needs to be written. Fellow men and women of letters, please take heed!

-STEPHAN A. HOELLER

Spring 1993

Pagan Theology: Paganism as a World Religion

By Michael York
New York: New York University Press, 2003. Hardback, x + 239 pages.

"Paganism views humankind, nature, and whatever the supernatural mayor may not be as essentially divine." So writes Michael York in this groundbreaking book, one much needed to shed light on today's evolving spirituality, York, Director and Principal Lecturer of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cultural Astronomy and Astrology, as well as Director of the Bath Archive for Contemporary Religious Affairs, Bath Spa University College, UK, not only is an accomplished scholar but an active researcher.

At the outset, he reminds us of the correct definition of the word "pagan" which comes from the Latin word for "peasant." Christianity began in cities and country folk clung to the old-time religion, (I can vouch for this personally because 40 years ago I was studying Russian and needed to look up the word for "peasant" in my atheistic Soviet dictionary. To my amazement, one of the definitions was Kristian!) So paganism in the broadest sense is any religion that views the natural world as sacred. Further, York traces the word "cult" to its association with culture, agriculture, and cultivate. Thus he is not just writing about Wicca, Witchcraft, and magick but about the distinction between the Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which are monotheistic revelations given by God through a historic individual and those religions that celebrate the holiness of the seasons, the multiple personifications of archetypal processes punctuated by the movements of the solar system, the natural elements, and the divine interplay of masculine and feminine (creative and receptive) of gods and goddesses as aspects of a hidden source of Spirit. Buddhism seems a borderline case. Though Gautama Buddha was an historical figure, he never claimed to be a messenger of God, but offered the world a wise and compassionate way out of suffering.

Michael York centers his study on his rich personal and joyous experiences in India, Nepal, China, and Japan while living and participating, as well as documenting, the fervent earthy celebrations of the ordinary population in contrast to the transcendent views and teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. His accounts were riveting and brought a new perspective to many memories for me. I realized afresh that since many of us also believe in a "spirituous earth," that being a Nee-pagan is not necessarily a heretical posture but one leading us, with the help of theoretical physics, to a new appreciation of the spiritual glory and wonder of the cosmos (a Greek word meaning "beauty"). The book itself concerns paganism as religion, behavior, and theology. As one reads, one discovers the really valid aspects of the pagan approach despite the fact that the term itself is so encrusted for many by semantic prejudice and negative associations. By York's definition any dedicated environmentalist would classify as having pagan tendencies. Perhaps what many people celebrate unconsciously, more and more of us are approaching more consciously. There is a hilarious section on what the unconscious secular symptoms of paganism can produce.

Perhaps, York could have given some credit to the author of some of the Psalms, who praises the earth and its creatures, or mentioned some of the truly poetic passages in the Koran of the same nature, or even mentioned St. Francis and especially Celtic Christianity which never ever has excluded nature. Granted that these attribute creation to one God, but even in polytheistic religiosities there seems to be an underlying inference of an invisible Unity, the diversity of which is acknowledged as manifesting in aspects and relationships to be personified and worshiped. Hopefully there will be a sequel to this truly important work that will further address paganism in the West with more about the Celtic tradition which is corning to the fore.

As Jesus says in the Gospel According to Thomas, "Heaven is spread upon the earth, but men do not see it." Therein lies the wisdom of many pagans.

Michael York has laid the intellectual groundwork for a new approach to theology, one which hopefully might reconcile the appalling feuding ones of our time. We need to celebrate the earth, because though Spirit may give us Life, it is Mother Nature that gives life form, and perhaps that is a symbolic message of Incarnation.

-ALICE O. HOWELL

January/February 2004