Customer Reviews

Nature Spirits & Elemental Beings

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Other than Machaelle Small Wright's books, this is one of the very best descriptions of one person's insight into the elemental world that surrounds and supports us. I had the great privilege of working with Marko Pogacnik at Findhorn last August and can say with complete confidence that he is a very clear and humble being. Fluent in Slovenian and German, English is not his first language. That, and the fact that the dimensions of realities he describes do not lend themselves easily to words, may be why some reviewers feel his language seems unclear at times. I had exactly the opposite reaction! Here, at last, is an author who is putting into words some of the experiences I have had and didn't know quite how to describe. For those of you who are interested in connecting with the devic realm, read this book. Those interested in Earth Healing should read Marko's latest book, Earth Changes, Human Destiny. For those sensitive individuals on our planet who are already sensing enormous shifts, it will explain a lot and offers suggestions as to how we each, as individuals, may participate consciouly in the transformational process now under way.

The book is written by a lithopuncturist from eastern Europe. The book has been translated into English and what an amazing treat!!! The book is a patchwork of experiences had by Pogacnik while on many of his lithopuncture projects and conferences in Europe. This makes it a bit unorganized, almost like reading journal entries, and I believe that because of it being a translated work at some points it was difficult to directly translate parts which resulted in some ideas being very difficult to communicate, so you may have to read a paragraph a few times to get the gist of it. However, if one is willing to put these issues aside it is defiantly worth it. A very comprehensive view of different types of elementals and the structure or hierarchy which exists. Pogacnik's experiences and insights are profound into the workings of the natural world and I found the material to be invaluable, especially seen through someone form a different culture. He claims in this book that what he `perceives' is tainted in a way by his own consciousness of his culture and upbringing and that though the technical aspects of the nature beings he communicated with are universal the actual appearance will vary from country to country. Parts of the book can get a bit too heavy, such as the chapter on ones personal elemental, but I recommend it for the core material. Pogacnik is able to illuminate the reasons and background as to why a place may feel so special or sacred and portrays the complex interactions of these nature spirits and how they maintain these scared places. If you feel connected to nature in anyway and wish to learn about furthering your experience more, this book is for you!!!

This book contains a comprehensive education about elemental beings. Call them what you will: elementals, fae folk, or the devic realm, this book introduces the various beings in connection with the author's work in earth healing. Truly fascinating. Since the author's native language is not English, and this is such a comprehensive tome, this may not be the best book for an introduction to elementals (Try 'Summer with the Leprechauns' first.) But don't forget about Pogacnik's books for further study.

JUST AS THE HUMAN BODY IS PREY TO VIOLENCE AND trauma (both physical and psychological), and manifests that trauma through illnesses in certain parts of the body; and just as it is possible to heal that trauma by releasing the blocked energy locked inside the area where the violence has manifested itself-so the Earth's body has sites where human violence (both to the Earth itself, other human beings, and other animals) has led to trauma that needs to be healed. The knowledge of the Earth's bodily energies is present in Asian cultures through feng shui-a science where objects are located to harmonize with the natural energy patterns of the environment around them. In the West, this knowledge is expressed through the practice of geomancy-a wisdom tradition that argues that our planet is crisscrossed with energy lines. At the nodal points of these lines, human beings have constructed sacred sites (such as Stonehenge, the Pyramids, and Sedona, Arizona) that reflect the powerful energies that meet there. Marko Pogacnik is a Slovenian artist and healer who specializes in visiting sacred sites and places where enormous suffering has taken place, and trying to heal the wounds. He does this by what he calls "lithopuncture." Just like acupuncture, which recognizes that the body is an interconnected network of energy channels called meridians and tries to release the energy blocked by trauma or illness, so lithopuncture involves placing monoliths-effectively large acupuncture needles-in key places to release the blocked energy of the Earth and revitalize the environment, both human and natural. "To the inner vision," writes Marko "an acupuncture point looks like a sort of energy vortex penetrating vertically into the earth. Within itself it collects information on the properties of the specific subtle phenomenon with which it resonates. These points can be detected at very specific spots on the ground. There they hand over the information they hold to whomever attunes to their focal point." Marko has performed lithopuncture in Northern Ireland, where in 1992 he was invited by the county council of Derry-scene of some of the most violent encounters between Catholics and Protestants in the ongoing 30-year conflict-to revitalize certain places that the council felt had continuous problems. He placed an acupuncture bronze plate in the sidewalk of a Derry street and a lithopuncture stone on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Sometimes lithopuncture is neither suitable nor possible. When this is the case, Marko uses human beings-both residents and visitors-literally to harmonize the natural environment. Groups gather in a circle and sing certain notes, which vibrate with the natural harmonies of the landscape and retune the discordant wavelengths of the area. "Musical sound has a strong power for breaking through and enabling access to a place, no matter how heavily blocked and suppressed it is," Pogaĉnik writes. "Music can serve to cleanse and revitalize power points and also to regenerate a space completely. In the same way that spring revitalizes the forces of nature, music too carries within itself the energy that reawakens life; therefore, sound can bring a place that has, for example, been put to sleep by destruction, oblivion and the like back to vibrating, awakening, and reactivation. Its pulse beings to beat again, its currents to flow." Marko used singing when he visited the site of the former Berlin Wall. "When viewing the site with my inner vision," he says, "I noticed to my surprise, a deep black canal inside the no-man's-land where two energy lines run alongside each other, a thicker yellow one and a thinner red one. As my intuition interpreted it, this was a `rope' made of two `strands' with the help of which West Berlin was to be choked on an energetic level." "Our work consisted of two kinds of acupunctural singing," he continues, "coupled with color visualization and guided imagery. From what the participants related to us afterwards we were able to reconstruct the whole grueling process of `alchemically' transforming the Wall's energies at that place." The result was startling: instead of a black tunnel, Marko saw a white band at the same place on the surface of the earth, which reflected the colors of the rainbow. This was a sign that the transformation had been successful. Marko is aware of the elemental beings - gnomes, undines, sylphs, salamanders, also described by Rudolf Steiner in his book "Man as Symphony of the Creative Word".In his workshops Marko gives advice for meditative techniques for all of us to awaken our own powers of observation and communication with these beings all around us. Marko feels that more and more people are going to awake to the sensitivity of the Earth and what should take place on it. Pogaĉnik echoes James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis in arguing that the Earth is a living organism, an organism we have to be responsible for. In all of his books, Marko suggests that we all have to wake up to what this planet really is, and act on what we can do to make sure it is healthy. ¨

Reading the adverse commentaries by scientists on Marco Pogacnik's book serves more as a comment on their view of reality rather than on the contents of Marco's book. As Quantum Mechanics demonstrates to the other sciences and engineering that the universe is energy, the proposition that forms of energy can be intelligent (as in human beings and other known life forms) becomes a logical next field of examination. Science is moving toward a knowledge base that intuitive humans have explored for perhaps as long as humans walked the earth. As one indigenous knowledge carrier commented "It was not until white man developed the language of quantum mechanics that they offered a language form comparable to our ancient tongue."

I first met Marco's book in 1998, on his coffee table in his living room in Slovenia. As his house guest, but not knowing anything about the man, I asked if I could read it. By midnight that evening, I concluded either the man was utterly delusional, or he had just repealed my understanding 2,000 years of mainstream Judeo-Christian reality.

When I encounter something completely outside of my field of experience, I make it a practice of believing what they say and then setting out to test how it is possible. If to the contrary, I were to begin by saying "what utter nonsense", then I close the door and will be assured of learning nothing new. Sometimes I do learn that what they say is utter nonsense, but not always, and it is in the latter cases that my planes of reality expand, my understanding deepens and grows.

So, a few weeks later in London I bought his book, and set about trying to see if I could replicate his experience, to connect with intelligent beings formed not of physical matter but unseen energy. At first, I could not help thinking I was experiencing an over-active imagination - that I was engaged in a conversation with myself. However, as the information coming through began to go outside my experience, I either had to conclude that I was a lot smarter than I thought, or that Marco was on to something. Since I introduced his book to others, and observing the same experience in them, it seems Marco is indeed opening a door to a new plane of reality... Marco and many others, as indeed the opportunity to go to this plane is open to anyone. You don't need millions in scientific equipment or laboratories to get started; you don't need a tenured salary or acknowledgement of your peers to begin. You need simply to quiet down, introduce yourself (good manners are important), and ask if anyone is out there... and then when an answer pops into your head, (instantly because such answers bypass sensory wiring) go with it.

Unlike many breathless new enlightenment authors, who tend to wrap their new discovery in a hyped package of workshops, tapes, and self-enlightenment books pitched on a colourful web-site, Marco writes much more like a scientist - observing, engaging, providing form and structure. He describes an experience: he describes what he perceives, he describes his interaction, and in some of these, he describes his resolution. In doing so, we are engaged, invited to be along side of him, and to follow the process he uses. He doesn't seek to make us be or act like him, but rather to find our own ways, for us to walk through the door and explore, where all he offers in the book is to open the door.

At times his language is thick - not because it is English as a second language, his command of English in conversation is excellent - but because he writes in a scientific form although about a field of science that would be as popular with mainstream scientists as a fundamentalist writing for his church on the truth of evolution. It will be interesting to see how long it will take science to turn its attention to his work - maybe not as long as we might expect.

When I met him, he was writing his second book, Christ Power and the Earth Goddess, a Fifth Gospel in which he tests the words of the New Testament. In doing so calls attention to passages which really are quite odd, and which Marco suggests were not there originally, but added as the Church Councils sought to transform a message into an institution. Time for another reality challenge.

Now Amazon lists seven books as Marco explores the world from this proposition that the universe is intelligent, contains many intelligent beings which are directly accessible and who are interested in human beings. I've bought all of them and find gems in each.

Well worth reading, but do approach with an open mind... especially if you are a scientist or dogmatist.

Perhaps there's not much more to add to what has already been said by the other reviwers that preceded me in rightfully praising Mr.Pogacnik and his fabulous capacity and work. I'd just put in my 2 cents worth then and say that while not being a novice to this very important theme, I was very satisfied with this book, the personality of the author that flows through its pages and the way the subject is treated. It really shows things as they are and you will really learn much, especially if you have the right background. Sadly, many people don't and will come up with the usual common-man's obvious and useless objections to the author's work and the subject itself. Forget those, you know better.

That said, if there is anything to regret in it I would say that many of his exciting explanations also bring up more questions that, unfortunately, go unanswered (but this is not an indication of deviousness or shallowness -as the 'practical' man would say- but rather just a writing style or a personal decision in keeping certain things out of this book). One wants to share more of his background and how he can know certain things. The subject is so engrossing and vital that one wishes that it wouldn't end and more information were supplied on some of the cases described. When describing an experience he doesn't always go all the way and explain the knowledge behind it or how he knows what he knows.

For instance: When he describes the column of light on a hilltop of the Isle of Srakane, he just mentions in passing that it has an inner connection with planet Venus. Now, as readers we would like to -and are entitled to- know more about this astonishing revellation, as a sudden connection of a hill with a planet is something that obviously requires some explanation, also because so many implications derive from just this statement. Many other similar descriptions that are not explained leaves us in the dark on some things we so much wanted to understand better (that is why we buy such books after much deliberation as to its reliability).

The bottom line is: This is an essential book to have, you will return to it many times as your own maturity increases with time, but you will need other books (by him or equally reliable authors) or experiences to understand everything you need to understand about this subject, even if to only answer all those burning questions which no one book ever seems to want to deal with.

This one, though essential reading (like all his other books) in the unique times we live in, would have been even more essential if it had a more thorough approach to educate the reader into all the important facts he needs to know, and got to the task of laying down solid guidelines to develop his awareness. I understand that perhaps it was not the scope of this book to give complete explanations to everything it describes and because some issues are dealt with in his other books, but even so I felt that some more essential info was due to complete the experience of reading a single, unabridged, book and educate the reader that doesn't have the same rich environment and ability to see for himself, but nevertheless, would want to know more through the author's eyes and soul.

Providing insight into the world supporting physical reality, Pogacnik is a true genius. His profound perceptions and straightforward explanations reveal a true and clear heart-mind. A must have for anyone working with the earth or interested in raising consciousness.

One must remember, Marko is an artist. His humor and imagination pervade the book, but do not detract from any of the truth and importance asserted regarding elementals.

I, also, have had the incredible good fortune of participating in Marko's workshop (New York, 2005) and can attest to his uncompromised integrity and knowledge of the work.
An truly rare, incredible being is he.

This book is interesting and has several original twists to it. The author is very good at tying his clairvoyant impressions into the local European history. His style of writing is story-like, engaging, and he comes across as an authority on his subject. He adds to his words by also sketching the spirits. To do this he uses impressionistic line drawings, most with a single line. To me, this is a good seed-thought approach for sharing the vision with the reader. Some people I've shown this to don't like his drawing style; others do.

The hierarchy of elementals here is based in part on a "Steiner" inner world-view, but adds a lot of value with new insights. Also, I have no doubt Pogacnik is influenced by the Findhorn work, especially since they are the publisher, but that's OK by me. I think there is a lot to be learned from reading between the lines in this book generally too. I am most impressed with the views the author has about the elementals of the earth, and the way he finds meaning out of the experiences. He is open about his intuition and shares his clearest visions well, also stating any doubts he may have along the way. He clearly has an underlying motive for earth healing and for cooperation between people and nature. As contemporary New Age literature, this book is convincing and a worthwhile investment.

I put this book in my favorites collection. It moved me in a way that is hard to describe.

There is a definite power in this book. Each time I opened and read further, my consciousness was shifted. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the depth and beauty of Nature.

The mind is a lense unique to each of us, and I think that we will all see things slightly differently from the next person and that this is natural, so your or my experience might be somewhat different from the author's, but what this book showed to me is that I too have the opportunity to 'see' beyond the physical and it is very real and tangible. Since reading this book, my relationship with nature has deepened greatly.

Also, I really like the visual way this author thinks.

Highly recommended!

I had a strange reaction to "Nature Spirits & Elemental Beings", almost a kind of irritation. This book grated on my mind in the same way that an out-of-tune musical instrument grates on the ear. The author's impressions of the elemental world struck me as a disorganized patchwork of truth and nonsense. For example Pogacnik's theory of how airplanes work was a bit startling.

"Once, while flying from London to Belfast, I watched some sylphs who accompanied the plane, and in my opinion it was they who made it possible for the plane to move through space at all."

I was trained in engineering and I can well imagine the look of astonishment on the face of my old professor of aeronautical engineering if I had told him that aircraft were kept aloft by legions of little magickal beings!

Undoubtedly some of my irritation was due to frustration because so much of the text was difficult to understand. For example, consider the following from chapter 7:

"I understood that the elementals who are associated with animals try to educate the animals in the coordination of their emotionally polarised consciousness of individuality with impulses from the group soul."

This is an example of what might be called "occulti-babble." I can almost imagine the author composing such a sentence by throwing darts at the pages of a new-age dictionary. It is an example of the kind of pretentious, nearly meaningless prose that any good copy editor would "blue pencil" out of a first draft. The editorial staff at Findhorn Press should be ashamed of themselves.

In summary I am sad to say that I wasted time and money on this book. I would not recommend it to anyone under any circumstances.