The editor of this book is a process philosopher at the Center for Process Studies in Portland, Oregon. The perspectives in the book are many, but all reflect ways of understanding God or the sacred different from “up there” and “out there.” Immanence is a common theme.
Davis’ first volume of mini-memoirs was published in 2018. It had prominent spiritual teachers, as does this one. Here we find, for example, Amit Goswami, Karen Johnson with A. H. Almaas, Beverly Lanzetta, Ervin Laszlo, and two of the Living Spiritual Teachers here at Spirituality & Practice: Kabir Helminski and Jay McDaniel (“God can be found in feelings” — see the excerpt accompanying this review).
These personal spiritual and intellectual narratives by pioneering teachers include dark nights of despair, the joy of scientific and intellectual discovery, physical movement, and perhaps most interestingly — enlightenments brought on by psychedelic, mystical, and near-death experiences (NDE).
Raymond Moody’s essay is special. A professor philosophy for decades and a scholar of NDE, he actually coined the term in his 1975 book Life After Life. Moody shows that he’s interested in experiencing God (whatever that is), instead of talking about it. He writes: “Some people get into endless debates with others as to whether or not God ‘exists.’ I have known people whose main activity in relationship to God is thinking, talking, and arguing about whether or not God exists. Sometimes, I suspect that this activity is actually their way of keeping distance from God or trying to keep God from getting too close.”
Experiential is the tone and spirit of all thirteen of the essays. This is a book about the spiritual practice of transformation, in every way that it comes and happens.
Another example is Beverly Lanzetta as she weaves her essay around an experience that took place — and then continued — starting on a sunny day in October 1976. “As Light beyond Light pressed into me with greater force, I started to vibrate until my whole being was stretched to an edge of emotional endurance. Every sense was heightened. My body could barely hold the magnitude of awe, of being consumed by a higher order of passion and wisdom.”
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