Seeing Seagulls

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It was a seventies thing.  Even though I lived in a small town, even I had heard about Jonathan Livingston Seagull.  At first I didn’t know it was a book.  (A similar thing happened to me in the nineties with a character named Harry Potter.)  It was probably in college that I learned this was a book I should read.  I did, and I followed it up with Illusions, also by Richard Bach.  Now, this was unorthodox stuff.  These novels consider what some would call superhumanities and others self-deification.  The two are related.  In any case, Jonathan Livingston Seagull is a story about a seagull that overcomes limitations.  An inspirational book.  The publisher had no great expectations for it but it ended up becoming a number-one bestseller without any real marketing support, largely through word of mouth.  You’d have had to have been living in a cave in the seventies not to have heard people mentioning Jonathan Livingston Seagull, whether bird or book.

I got a hankering to read it again but alas, it was one of the books destroyed in the flood.  I went to a local bookstore and was disappointed to see that it was out in a new edition—larger, and, of course, more expensive.  Longing eventually overcame reluctance and I bit the bullet.  I’m glad I did.  The story is still as empowering as I remembered it, but the fourth part, the new one, strikes me as very necessary.  In it, rumors of the disappeared Jonathan Livingston Seagull have turned him into a god.  A god, moreover, whose followers are more interested in the orthodoxy of ritual than what he taught.  This was published before Trump’s first election, but it accurately describes what “Christianity” has become under his two-pronged reign of terror.

The idea of Christianity itself has become deified to the point that Jesus—what he did and taught—have become completely irrelevant.  Now, you don’t have to walk all the way with Richard Bach (I read the two books after Illusions as well, The Bridge Across Forever and One), but this book has a message that still rings true after all these years.  The book is over half-a-century old now and I am glad that it’s having a small resurgence.  The message, when the book ended at part three, was perhaps a little lighter.  We still, however, have to learn to overcome limitations.  And there’s a fair amount of wisdom in this little book.  Even though it was a seventies thing, it remains a good thing.

Illusions Incorporated

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illusionsFiction and fact aren’t so different. Long before the Wachowski Brothers came up with The Matrix, Richard Bach wrote Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. I was in seminary when I read it and it seemed, at that time, to change my life. Fiction, or fact, has a nasty habit of getting into the way of things and over the course of decades I forgot. The Matrix reminded me—reminded me multiple times—but Illusions sat on the shelf, gathering dust. I was reminded of this book that refuses to be categorized when playing a family game. Like many games these days it’s a set of pre-printed cards and what makes the fun is the context in which you put the words. In this particular game you have to find the suggested idea in the book you have at hand.

I have to confess that this is just a touch artificial at our house. We don’t have much in the way of things, but we have books. Lots and lots of books. When we play this game, we think ahead of time what books we might bring to the table. You never know what the cards will ask, so books with diverse ideas are a good choice. I saw Illusions on the shelf. As I thumbed through, it was as if the decades were wearing thin. I knew I had to read it again.

Stubbornly refusing to classify itself as fact or fiction, the narrative of what it’s like to meet a messiah is inspirational. I can’t claim to have come to the conclusion on my own—I’ve read Illusions before, and I have seen The Matrix many times—but I recollect the realization coming to me on the streets of Manhattan. This is not real. Standing in the shadow of the tallest buildings in this country, that’s not a comfortable realization. Nobody said reality was comfortable. We easily let ourselves accept what we can’t do and what’s impossible. It’s far more rare to consider what is truly possible. What we can do. These ideas will be a hopeful ebenezer over the coming months. We choose to elect reality. Despite what the loud and angry say, the mind is the arbiter of truth. I read the book before I knew much about the world. If I’d had the good sense to believe it, it might not have taken me decades before pulling it off the shelf to remind myself of what I already knew.

Shaman Shifting

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Shapeshifting I confess that I haven’t read Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Being incurably drawn to the weird, however, I picked up a copy of John Perkins’ earlier book, Shape Shifting: Shamanic Techniques for Global and Personal Transformation at the recent Hunterdon County Library Book Sale. I also confess that I fear being classed as one of those irrational sorts who’ll believe anything. It’s pretty obvious to anyone who’s been to college or university that a Ph.D. is no protection from the strange ideas that waft through human gray matter. Many years of teaching convinced, I hope, at least a few of my students that I approach the study of religion in a reasonable—dare I suggest?—rational, way. Despite appearances to the contrary on this blog, I weigh evidence carefully. Sometimes the evidence suggests we don’t yet have all the data. So it was with an open mind, but also a dose of skepticism, that I read through Perkins’ book. And yes, he does suggest that cellular-level transformation is possible.

Before breaking out your hooey-meters, however, consider that John Perkins is a successful businessman. Money speaks, n’est-ce pas? So I’m reminded every rational working day. The human mind, however, plumbs realms on which empirical method sheds little light, even to this day. Psychologists still debate whether there is a subconscious mind at all. And then there’s that troubling question of what exactly reality is. Historically, people have answered such questions with religion. And religion quite often permits entry where science declares “no gods allowed.” So did John Perkins really transform into a ball of energy and float across both time and space and see such disturbing sights as he describes? Did Richard Bach really astro-project with his partner, as recounted in The Bridge Across Forever? Are we really rooted to this mundane world where politicians and entrepreneurs make all the rules?

Perkins recounts his experiences with shamans of the Amazon, and like Jeremy Narby, his experiences with ayahuasca, a consciousness-altering plant. He even recounts transforming into an “inanimate object” so that his wife could not see him. Is it real? Can science measure such events? Does anything escape the penetrating stare of the electron microscope? We will have our Richard Dawkinses on one hand declaring an unequivocal “No!” The other hand, however, may be generating the sound of clapping for those who have ears to hear. Or at least for those who have eyes to read. At the end of this book, truth comes down to a matter of belief.