A rambling discussion, redeemed by its intriguing spiritual ideas and sprinklings of practical advice.
A client of an Australian healer shares insights from him as well as her own musings in this debut spirituality guide.
Single mother Sargent first went to Brisbane-based Telman, a self-described “psychic healer,” for life-planning sessions, and then asked him to meet with her for a series of conversations, from which she developed this book. Although the text covers some details about Telman’s childhood in Communist Poland as well as his subsequent world studies and travels, it’s largely concerned with his concepts regarding spirituality. According to Telman, the world is vibrating with the energy of souls created by an “organic spiritual machine” (“It’s alien, I think”), and all those souls have “an instinct to reincarnate” until they’re perfected. He says that he knew since childhood that he had psychic visions and healing gifts, and asserts that “after a healing session with me your energies are raised, and ipso facto so do your life experiences: at the higher level is a greater level of self-confidence and belief, personal productivity, success, happiness and so on.” He details some of the practices that he asks his clients to do, such as “Front Door Activity”—thinking positive thoughts every time they walk in and out of doors. Sargent also offers her own personal commentary on her relationship with her now-deceased father, her ambitions to be a writer, and even a banana bread recipe. She’s crafted a provocative spirituality tome, but it’s somewhat hard to navigate; for example, she offers paragraphs of dialogue without attribution, making it challenging to keep track of when she or Telman is speaking. Still, she touches down on many engaging topics, thankfully offering helpful organization by sectioning her text into chapters on “Karma,” “Free Will,” “Death,” and other concepts. Most significantly, Telman, while making some strange claims (such as that he’s gone on “night missions” in the spirit realm and that he’s “Australia’s most read poet”), ultimately offers bracing wisdom, underscoring the need for people to take ongoing action to be positive, loving, and successful in life.
A rambling discussion, redeemed by its intriguing spiritual ideas and sprinklings of practical advice.Pub Date: Dec. 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5144-4244-9
Page Count: 250
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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