The whiny testament of a former US Army officer who, after a stint of inner-space spying for covert agencies, turned on his erstwhile masters in a belated burst of moral outrage and was effectively cashiered. The third generation of his family to pursue a military career, Morehouse became a model soldier. While on maneuvers with the Rangers in Jordan, however, the author stopped an errant machine-gun round. His helmet saved him, but he soon began having vivid out-of-body experiences and visions. Morehouse was steered by the psychologist he consulted into a hush-hush project funded by the CIA. At his new duty station the apprentice psychic developed his gift for remote viewing; this extrasensory faculty allows him to move (in something very like a fugue state) backward or forward through time and gather information while doing so. On his travels in the ether, the author claims to have ``seen'' Iraqis place canisters near blazing oil wells, which purportedly released slow- acting toxins to poison UN Coalition troops during the Persian Gulf conflict. Morehouse also asserts that he observed the kidnapping and murder by Arab terrorists of a USMC colonel in Beirut, helped track the terrorists who blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Scotland, and identified couriers transporting contraband drugs across US borders. Ultimately revolted by the allegedly nefarious (but undisclosed) uses to which remote viewing had been put, the author resolved to go public with his complaints. Even now, Morehouse professes amazement at the lengths to which the military would go to protect the secrecy of a highly classified project and shock at the realization that his beloved army was prepared to court-martial him on trumped-up charges. A very different sort of war story, one that not only strains credulity but also begs rather a lot of questions about the scientific validity of paranormal visitations along what Morehouse presents as a sort of mental Internet.
Pub Date: Nov. 15, 1996
ISBN: 0-312-14708-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
The role of fantasy in personal and cultural evolution, explored in depth by an erudite psychiatrist (Columbia Univ. Medical School) who draws not only on her own patients' histories and the psychoanalytic literature, but from world history and literature. Person's interest in fantasy arose from her work on romantic love (Dreams of Love and Fateful Encounters, 1988) and deepened as she began to see how fantasy influences all human relationships. In her words, ``We enact aspects of our fantasies not only in our personal relationships but in the choices we makethe goals we aspire to, the paths we follow, the overall tone and content of the voyage we make from birth to death.'' Person examines various kinds of fantasies: repeating fantasies, which persist from childhood into adulthood; generative fantasies, which unfold over time; fantasies shared by two people; and borrowed fantasies, that is, ones drawn from the culture at large, often from fiction, but also from real life. Her discussion of borrowed fantasies, which focuses on two themes, suicide and violence, includes a timely look at the role of paramilitary fantasies in the formation of fanatic sects. Person concludes with an examination of how shared and borrowed fantasies influence the way a whole culture is shaped. The examples she chooses range from the establishment of a Jewish homeland to the French Revolution to the topic that triggered her initial interest in fantasy: the rise of romantic love in Western culture. The book ends on a somber note, for Person, citing as example the Aryan fantasy of the Superman that pervaded Nazism, warns that ``fantasy is to cultural evolution as mutation is to biological evolution, and cultural mutations, like biological mutations, may benefit us, but they may also kill us.'' A mind-stretching inquiry into the hidden but decidedly powerful world of daydreams.
Pub Date: Sept. 11, 1995
ISBN: 0-465-02359-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1995
A vivid account of one woman's pilgrimage to the shrines and sacred sites of the New Age quickly degenerates into pop psychology and pseudo-profundities. Bolen (Goddess in Everywoman, 1984), a Jungian psychoanalyst and a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, begins this spiritual memoir at a low point in her life. Nearing 50 and recently separated from her husband, she is searching for a new direction. Just at this midlife crossroads, an invitation arrives from a Netherlands foundation to undertake a journey. She is to visit many of the supposed holy places of Europe. Readily accepting this apparent godsend, she begins her quest for fulfillment with an arranged audience with the Dalai Lama. The spiritual and temporal leader of Tibetan Buddhism seems, by the author's own account, more bemused than captivated by her question about possible connections among Tibetans, the Hopi Indians, and the Oracle at Delphi. Her next stop is the great cathedral at Chartres, where she meditates on its relation to the Earth Goddess. A lengthy discussion of the legend of the Holy Grail and its psychological meaning precedes and follows her visit to Glastonbury, where the Grail was supposedly brought by Joseph of Arimathea. The book's title derives from the mystical island other world to which King Arthur sailed in death. Two places in Scotland- -Findhorn, a well-known New Age commune, and the Isle of Iona, an ancient Christian community—round out her personal quest. As she journeys, she picks up other spiritual vagabonds in the manner of Chaucer's travelers to Canterbury. Jungian psychological concepts form an overlay. Although the trip chronicled was undoubtedly meaningful for the author and will appeal to New Age seekers, it will leave others cold. ($50,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-06-250112-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1994
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