Customer Reviews

Signs of the Times

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Since the object is to GIVE a REVIEW of this book, I will not go into a long boring biography of myself like one person here has This book is something you must read. You will not be disappointed. You will learn a lot from it. The ideas shared are clear and concise and the author is obviously very thoughtful and highly intelligent. And the ideas are very accessible to all. learn and enjoy. Give yourself a gift, buy this book!

I picked up this book as a skeptic and wound up finishing it far more open to the ideas that Dr. Bluestone explains. The book is full of games and exercises, and uses humor and true-life anecdotes to illustrate complex ideas and concepts. "Signs of the Times" isn't hocus-pocus foo-foo Madame-X magic stuff, as many books claiming to cover similar ground wind up being. It's a truly educated examination of the subject. I've never read a book quite like it, and doubt that any of comparable quality exist on this subject. If you're even remotely interested in this subject, or if you're a skeptic (as I am), pick up this book. I am truly looking forward to other books by Dr. Bluestone.

Of all the colorful tales about growing up in America's Deep South that my friend Julia told me, the one about "the lady in the big old red bandanna" was my favorite. As the story opens, Julia is a small child walking with her mother through the streets of Atlanta when a mysterious stranger (i.e. the lady in the big old red bandanna) stops them, squats down, looks Julia in the "aaah" and says, "Whaaah, I do believe you have the gift." The lady then takes her and her mother into a back alley and teaches the young clairvoyant how to read stones and bones. This was the story with which Julia introduced her "stone readings," a method of divination that involved tossing a handful of pebbles onto a medicine wheel she'd draw on the ground with a stick. In the first three years after first hearing this tale, I had many "aaah" and heart opening stone readings from Julia. But one night when the two of us were camping with our children - after we had put our smaller companions to bed - we sat around the fire together and shared some of our deepest secrets. "You know that story I always tell about the lady in the big old red bandanna who taught me how to read stones and bones?" she asked. I nodded at her across the flames. "I made it all up," she confessed. "I figured that if I told people I made up my own way of reading, nobody would listen to what I had to say." I laughed in the realization that her revelation could not diminish the insight I had gleaned from her readings. Not only that, her confession brought the business of reading out of the hands of the esoteric few back into the realms of "us folks." And so, the next morning I went to the river, gathered my first set of personal "reading" stones, and set out on the path my sixth sense would carve for me. Sarvananda was my next tutor on that path. We worked side-by-side as "psychics" in New York's Catskill Mountain resorts for more than five! years (between 1988 and 1992) and his unpretentious approach to "reading" the world around him was a joy to behold. Besides, he was good at it. A Natural - with vision based in the heart, ears tuned to the inner voice, and an unselfconscious capacity for bringing the mystical back to the earth. SIGNS OF THE TIMES: FINDING OMENS IN EVERYDAY LIFE is Sarvananda's offering of the well-informed, compassionate, inspired guidance that were my private privilege for so many years as his psychic side-kick. If you are moved to delve deeper into your own clairvoyance (literally, clear vision), this book on the practice of divination is your perfect guide. The culmination of a richly divergent career as scholar and professor of history, 18-year meditator/disciple of Osho, and long-time professional psychic, this is a book only Sarvananda could deliver. Both humorous and reverent in tone, it is at once a thoroughly researched (29 back pages of annotated footnotes!) historical perspective on the role of omens in man's quest for self-understanding, and an abundant tool box (over 75 methods) for the contemporary practitioner. Sarvananda defines an omen as a sign "that guide[s] us into the unknown." Illustrated with poetry, anthropological anecdotes, and small pen and ink drawings, SIGNS OF THE TIMES opens with a provocative investigation of such signs, our collective fear of them, and their subsequent corruption into crippling superstitions and beliefs. Recounting innumerable approaches to the reading of natural signs from various cultures throughout history, he makes a solid case for his thesis: "Omens are rooted very much in the human condition," and its corollary: "The death of omens is the birth of belief." In his well-developed argument, Sarvananda makes the point that our double-edged gift of consciousness has rendered each of us humans aware of our own deaths and thus bestowed upon us our greatest fear - a fear of our own end that so distorts our vision, we are virtually! blind to the myriad reflections of ourselves in the world around us. Staggering myopically through our lives, we have become prey to the "priests and politicians" of escoterica: The fear of the unknown and a craving for certainty gave birth to superstition. And it was the use of that fear to control and manipulate that gave rise to the official books of omens and a privileged group of those authorized to interpret these omens...Instead of knowing the signs of the times, people had to believe in the experiences and interpretations of others. Our guide makes it clear that while a superstition is fear-based and rooted in either our cultural or personal past, an omen always arises in the moment, its very nature spontaneity. With modern man's psychic predicament clearly delineated, the book now develops its playful and ultimately practical solution: Taking your inspiration from the simple peoples of the world, open your eyes, ears, heart, and guts and start reading for yourself! The rest of the book is an illuminating journey through stories and practices of such methods as "scrying" (gazing), casting objects, and dowsing. We are encouraged to experiment with methods that attune us to the earth's elements, the energy of Qi, and the varied, mysterious signs in wild life. We are shown ways to read numbers and letters with fresh eyes, and in the end, we are instructed in the delicate art of reading another person which is simply defined as an act of love. SIGNS OF THE TIMES is a book with an empowering and uplifting message, delivered with warm intimacy. It squats down, looks each of its readers in the "aaah" and declares, "I do believe you have the gift!" If its purpose is, as I felt while reading it, to give us the courage to look into our own lives and trust what we see, then in every way it succeeds.