10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Misleading title, badly edited., August 30, 2010
This review is from: Illumination: The Shamans Way of Healing (Hardcover)
I love Alberto Villoldo's work and have read much of what he has written. I also practice the Process of Illumination as taught in his school.
Sadly, this book is NOT about his Process of Illumination, the fantastic technique he "brought back" and/or synthesized from his travels in the Andes; it's about Initiation; The Shaman's Way of Healing Self. Wish I'd known this when I bought it. I thought I was buying a more detailed explanation of Illumination, silly me.
The editing is at times atrocious: "Like Mark Antony, even ordinary people sometimes risk everything they once valued to follow love, succeed in a career, or in be good parents." ?? what? (page 6, paragraph 2)
Punctuation is not always complete or balanced: ending quotations and parentheses are left off occasionally.
Although a relatively good read for what it is, I feel duped.
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52 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Befuuzzled, July 26, 2010
This review is from: Illumination: The Shamans Way of Healing (Hardcover)
I'm sorry. I really wanted to like this book. Waited in anticipation for it's arrival. But alas I see that the book has twisted and turned away from it's title to something else conveying somewhat incomplete understanding of many spiritual fields.
First, the title of the book is 'Illumination: The Shamans Way of Healing'. You would think that the central topic of this book would be about helping to enter into illumination. To envision yourself surrounded with light, becoming the light, in order to clear obscurations, and thus bring about healing. Nope, not what this book is about. This book, over and over, every chapter, is about *Initiation*. Friends, *initiation* and *illumination* are not always the same thing.
From the introduction Alberto gets himself into trouble in the brief few moments that he actually does talk about illumination. In this case he mistakenly equates illumination to many states of consciouness including Samadhi. Folks, the deeper states of Samadhi are not palaces of light or standing in front of the Sun. They are more like the heart sutra where you have this incredible immense sense of being. But there is no sound, no form, no light, only undifferentiated being. Many times the author attempts to pass himself as an authority on Hindu beliefs and passes incorrect information. Certainly Hinduism embraces Peace as he states. But central to Hinduism is the Bhagavad Gita where Krishna compels Arjuna to enter battle with his relatives in a holy war (against the ego). So Hinduism embraces the dharma of right action. The eight-fold path of Buddhism shares it's core principles with the Hindu approach as elucidated by Patanjali and others. But what right action is depends on the situation.
In my mind the mystic is someone who can create within and around themselves the states of light (aka illumination) so that they transform their reality by infusing it with the essence of light and life. This book does not do that at all. And this is REALLY disappointing coming from Alberto because he is the one who previously announced the South American's shamans message of the coming of ***Homo Luminous*** on the planet. Yep, was not someone else but Alberto himself who bore this message. This book, especially with this title of Illumination, should have been a training manual on entering states of Illumination in order to transform yourself into Homo Luminous. But entering the luminous state is barely mentioned in this book a handful of times and then only in passing.
Many times in the book the author shows that he is fixated on using the concept of demons. Whether there are just personal demons or literal spirits does not matter. This emphasis on demons lends a heavy trip from Christian themes which are often overplayed. The author also gets himself into tenuous ground, or dare I say trouble, attempting to formulate a distinction between feelings and emotion. To him feelings are good and emotions are bad. You would not get very far trying to pass this argument off in psychology, shamanic, or mystical circles. In this book the emotions often become the haunt of the demons so there is great distraction throughout the book dealing with the authors terminology and biases.
(You also get a fair guilt trip through the rest of Christianity and it's 'seven deadly sins'. What happened to teaching the 'Inka' ways? And then the author in another book is passing off a translation of Patanjali the 'shaman' (oxymoron)? Alberto, what are you really teaching? It's looking more and more like just other New Age stuff?)
Even within the topic on initiation the author repeatedly approaches the subject as if it were an ordeal. Yes, some initiations are ordeals (like a divorce). But do not think every initiation has to involved some kind of terror or suffering. An initiation could be watching a butterfly on the wind and have some internal 'piece' that you have struggled with suddenly become clear and healed. Intitations can be very subtle. And then there are initiations such as in energy healing or other esoteric orders where the teachers touch and/or breath are used to convey the unspoken energetic qualities of the school or lineage. All these nuances I am talking about are glossed over into a more common clinical view of initiation. Wait a sec, wasn't this book supposed to be about illumiination? ;-)
Rather than being a book on the mystical process, of which initiation is but a part, this book has become a self-help text more in the spirit of a common purveyor of the genre such as Wayne Dryer than anything you will get from any mystic or shaman. Completely and absolutely this book is about Initiation, not Illumination. For this the title is overtly misleading. So rather than being a book of high potential this becomes another self help text, slightly above average, that those new to the spiritual path might glean some information from. I appreciate the author very much. But I am concerned that he knows a core of the Andean work very well and gets into trouble at times trying to branch out.
If you were looking for a book describing the process and types of *initiation* here is a much better place to start
The Seven Initiations of the Spiritual PathIf you are new to the spiritual path and want a really good book to get you started on not just reading about this but doing it then a very good book to start with is
Awakening: A Sufi Experience. In that book the author will guide you into meditations of your authentic light-self.
If you wanted to know more about aboriginal approaches into *initiation* then this book is a really outstanding view at the Nahautl/Toltec perspective
Burning Water. As it turns out the Nahautl people shared alot with the Egyptians in the development of the soul. And really any initiation is concerned with the maturation of the soul and the ego. This view was somewhat in this book but was covered over the by dramas from the inner demons and all the emotion trips going on.
If you are really looking for some solid information on life of a mystic and *illumination* then you really should read a good book like
The Sufi Message: Way of Illumination v. 1.
I would also assume that beyond the Sufi practices of illumination the author is unfamiliar with the transformation ceremonies of Joseph Rael (aka Beautiful Painted Arrow). These ceremonies are very much like classical initiations but with a structure which is not threatening and which most anyone can do. Joseph uses ceremony with fasting and dancing in a way which produces highly transformational outcomes in the person doing the ceremony. He is also the visionary creator of the Peace Chambers on the planet. His book on sound is a masterpiece
Sound: Native Teachings and Visionary Art of Joseph Rael. The best of Joseph's books to start with, if you can find a copy at a reasonable price, is
Being and Vibration. I have been reading through this book for years and keep finding new information. Sound is Joseph's opus and a very deep and thorough.
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