A useful and intellectually stimulating manual aimed at readers yearning to find their destinies.
In this guide to retrieving destiny, the author explores shamanism, time, identity, and the importance of linguistic weeding.
Modern society, Kowalewski (Death Walkers: Shamanic Psychopomps, Earthbound Ghosts, and Helping Spirits in the Afterlife Realm, 2015, etc.) asserts, is highly stressful. It pushes individuals further and further away from a deep engagement with compassion, purpose, and service. His book begins by delving into a discussion of life’s purpose and the trajectory of the human journey. It then broaches the topic of shamanism and examines the importance of shamanic mentorship. Shamans, the author writes, are the world’s “oldest soul doctors,” who align clients with the purposes and meanings of their lives by such practices as showing them symbols that surround them: linguistic patterns that mire them deeper in egotistical traps. The author explains at length in an orderly set of chapters how shamanism and mentorship have lost meaning and prevalence in modern society due to increased anxiety, an oversaturation of consumerism, and what the author calls an “inadequate initiation of the young into the tribe.” What have replaced them, he notes, are “ego mentors”—psychotherapists, self-help therapists, and life coaches—who provide “mood boosts” that fail to compare to the deep spiritual guidance of shamans. According to Kowalewski, individuals can recognize that shamans—whose common traits are understanding, honesty, humor, and loyalty—are different. Shamans possess the ability to have transcendent relationships with the gods of many cultures, past and present, and to guide clients away from such distractions as false identities, the negative power of words, and attachments to the past. The author, who has a Ph.D. in comparative and international studies, offers what many books in the mystical genre lack: a clear, concise, well-organized depiction of the challenges of spirituality in contemporary life (“Modernism, instead of treating life as a hero’s quest for spiritual significance, has encouraged a professional’s career for economic advancement. We are taught promotion of self instead of service to others”). Any reader who wants to develop a deeper understanding of the self apart from the ego-driven talk that creates suffering should enjoy this thought-provoking work’s lucid focus. Kowalewski successfully presents succinct and simple explanations of the mystical possibilities of a deeper spiritual journey.
A useful and intellectually stimulating manual aimed at readers yearning to find their destinies.Pub Date: June 30, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4917-9691-7
Page Count: 222
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
EXPLORING THE LABYRINTHA Guide for Healing and Spiritual GrowthWest, Melissa Gayle
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7679-0356-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
For an anthropologist and astronomer, Aveni (Conversing with the Planets, 1992, etc.) displays an encouraging though sometimes excessive openness of mind about things magical in this dash through the history of Western mysticism and hokum, from the Gnostics to the alchemists to the New Age. While he recognizes the many benign uses of magic—as religion, as ritual, as epistemology—Aveni is also far too accepting of the innumerable abuses. Pulling the usual flea-bitten rhetorical rabbits out of his hat (science is limited, magic is nonempirical, etc.), he clumsily seeks to excuse all manner of mountebanks and charlatans: ``When we compare magic's by-laws to those of science, it becomes very clear why the two constitute ways of knowing that are totally at odds with one another concerning both what knowledge is valid and how that knowledge gets passed on.'' Yet as Aveni acknowledges, the two have sometimes become entwined. Further, he believes that as science supposedly becomes less rational (cf. quantum mechanics), it will once again meld with magic. Interestingly, while science changes constantly, magic has altered very little over the centuries, with old beliefs constantly ``being rediscovered and dressed up in brand-new clothing.'' Though Aveni's erudition is impressively vast, he doesn't know when to rein it in, as he hies off after even the most obscure flummeries. Yet he manages to slight both non-Western magic and the history of science. In short, this is one of those works that seem both too long and too incomplete. Certainly, it is far removed from the benchmark history of mysticism, Charles Mackay's entertaining 19th- century classic, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Still, saw this book in half, suspend some of Aveni's credulity, and presto chango, you just might conjure up a highly readable book. (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8129-2415-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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