Our pluralistic world encourages us to harvest wisdom from the world's religions, including ancient traditions. Douglas Gillette has done just that in The Shaman's Secret. The author, a mythologist and co-author with Robert Moore of King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine, covers the Maya understanding of the living cosmos, the connection between blood and ecstasy, the soul, shamanism, death, suffering, and resurrection.
Some of the fascinating elements of Mayan mythology include a view of God as the "Holy Thing" who contains monstrousness, the "Cosmic World Tree," the soul as "A White Flower Thing," and lightning as bearing the power of renewal. Throughout the book Gillette compares ancient Mayan teachings to Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, and Mesoamerican religions.
Gillette sees great strength in the Mayan ability to accept evil as a dimension of the divine and in their refusal to evade the harsh realities of suffering, cruelty, and brutality. He also respects their understanding of soul as containing both the capacity for creativity and for savagery. Sensitive readers will have to overcome the hurdles of Gillette's graphic descriptions of human sacrifice, blood-letting, and decapitation. They were all part of the Mayan practice of trying to defeat death and embrace immortality.