A personal view of karma, likely to appeal mainly to readers curious about reincarnation and related topics.
A semiautobiographical guide to the dynamics of karma in everyday life.
A Los Angeles–based shaman and “spiritual empath,” Dunblazier stays faithful to the spirit of her earlier books, which include Heal Your Soul History (2017). She sees karma as “the accumulation of the energy of all your actions and the responses to them over time and space”—in both your past and present lives—and says that in her past lives, she’s been an African tribal leader from around 1000 BCE and a French American from the 1900s. Each of the five parts of her book begins with a parable from one of her past lives and goes on to cover a range of everyday challenges from time management to how to handle feeling attracted to someone already in a relationship. At the end of each section, the author suggests a self-help ritual that can help you achieve a goal, such as “Free Yourself from the Opinion of Others.” Dunblazier keeps her message positive, reflecting her belief that “regardless of your circumstances right now, your patterns do not obligate you to continue them if they no longer serve you,” and she packs an extensive amount of material into 325 pages. Not everyone will buy her views on subjects like demons or telepathy, and Penn’s bold illustration of a concentration camp prisoner, in an image that also shows a crowd of smiling, well-dressed people around a table bearing a vast amount of food, will strike some as insensitive. Nevertheless, even readers skeptical of whether they are reading the words of a reincarnated Chief Running Bear may be intrigued by her information on how people make use of concepts like totem animals. For most readers, this book will provide different ways of looking at things. And who wouldn’t want to believe, as the author does, that in the end “you are the master of your universe”?
A personal view of karma, likely to appeal mainly to readers curious about reincarnation and related topics. (notes, bibliography)Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9963907-6-7
Page Count: 324
Publisher: GoTracee Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A hauntingly honest and revealing memoir.
A survivor’s account of the seductiveness of an “everyday cult.”
This book is part memoir, part warning. Buglion, a cult-awareness consultant, devotes her debut book to her experience with a group she renames the “Center for Transformational Learning.” It initially appeared benignly therapeutic, she says, with its focus on “the work,” which “included a lot of longing, learning about myself, and a whole lot of idealizing,” and its use of Jungian psychology in the apparent service of healing and growth. Specifically, the author sets out to refute the notion that the methods of cults are always easy to spot. The style of the book itself demonstrates how slowly warning signs appear, and when Buglion reveals an experience with the cult’s more overt methods of control—an incident involving strangling—it’s genuinely shocking. The author takes care to explain how, even after experiencing such red flags, she remained so invested in the group. One thread about her own house-cleaning business, and the influence that the cult had on it, illustrates how cultists taught her not to trust her instincts—until a frightening discovery awakened her to the necessity of doing so. She also speaks about the ill effects of her membership on her family relationships, as when she missed her own brother’s funeral to attend a cult retreat. The book’s searing honesty does a service for cult survivors, and will also be informative to those who don’t understand how thin the line can be between a benign organization and a dangerous one; the most telltale sign of the latter, Buglion points out, is that you can never graduate from it. She also provides a thorough examination of the stages of cult participation, from “Falling” and “Drifting” to eventually “Snapping” out of its control, and, with luck, “Waking up Again and Again.” Near the end, the book becomes somewhat polemical in its discussion of cults’ authoritarianism, but it still provides good insights into how such control works.
A hauntingly honest and revealing memoir.Pub Date: May 25, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-57-869055-8
Page Count: 218
Publisher: Rootstock Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A book with true wisdom to share, even if it’s a little rough around the edges.
A sequel novel about one man’s relationships and personal development.
Frank follows up The Courage of a Butterfly (2018) with another intimate look at the life of protagonist Jeff Williams, who has a motorcycle accident in the Utah desert. Things look grim, as he’s not only injured, but once again accompanied by a personification of Death, whom he affectionately calls “Big D.” Jeff believes that “everything in my life is there as a lesson for my learning,” so what better opportunity for engaging in some introspective education than being stranded in inhospitable terrain? The previous book was structured as a more linear telling of the events of Jeff’s life, starting in childhood, but this volume is mostly dedicated to specific interactions with people he met along the way. Key events include his divorce after some 25 years of marriage, and a clash with a man who claimed to have been part of a white witches’ coven. Jeff has much hard-won truth to impart, often summed up in “Spiritual Laws”; as he shares concepts such as “Everyone in your life is there, bearing you a gift of learning,” he also shows how he came to know their truth through experience, including during time spent with motorcycle clubs. Frank provides his protagonist with a crass mode of expression from the get-go; for example, Jeff reflects that his first marriage officially ended when his wife complained, “Why can’t you wipe your butt better?” It’s clear right away that Jeff isn’t the type of person to mince words, and this extends to accounts of sexual experiences; readers may not necessarily want to know about the “exotic muskiness” of one of his love interest’s “most private of privates,” for instance. That said, this style combines well with the characters’ earnest accounts of road trips and spiritual healing. There’s a heartfelt honesty that permeates the pages, which makes for a memorable read, and readers may find themselves learning a lot from this account of an unwavering quest for self-discovery.
A book with true wisdom to share, even if it’s a little rough around the edges.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-73483-675-2
Page Count: 428
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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