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The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit [Paperback]

Shirley MacLaine
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (145 customer reviews)

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Book Description

April 1, 2001
It has been nearly three decades since Shirley MacLaine commenced her brave and public commitment to chronicling her personal quest for spiritual understanding. In testament to the endurance and vitality of her message, each of her eight legendary bestsellers -- from Don't Fall Off the Mountain to My Lucky Stars -- continues today to attract, dazzle, and transform countless new readers. Now Shirley is back -- with her most breathtakingly powerful and unique book yet.
This is the story of a journey. It is the eagerly anticipated and altogether startling culmination of Shirley MacLaine's extraordinary -- and ultimately rewarding -- road through life. The riveting odyssey began with a pair of anonymous handwritten letters imploring Shirley to make a difficult pilgrimage along the Santiago de Compostela Camino in Spain. Throughout history, countless illustrious pilgrims from all over Europe have taken up the trail. It is an ancient -- and allegedly enchanted -- pilgrimage. People from St. Francis of Assisi and Charlemagne to Ferdinand and Isabella to Dante and Chaucer have taken the journey, which comprises a nearly 500-mile trek across highways, mountains and valleys, cities and towns, and fields. Now it would be Shirley's turn.
For Shirley, the Camino was both an intense spiritual and physical challenge. A woman in her sixth decade completing such a grueling trip on foot in thirty days at twenty miles per day was nothing short of remarkable. But even more astounding was the route she took spiritually: back thousands of years, through past lives to the very origin of the universe. Immensely gifted with intelligence, curiosity, warmth, and a profound openness to people and places outside her own experience, Shirley MacLaine is truly an American treasure. And once again, she brings her inimitable qualities of mind and heart to her writing. Balancing and negotiating the revelations inspired by the mysterious energy of the Camino, she endured her exhausting journey to Compostela until it gradually gave way to a far more universal voyage: that of the soul. Through a range of astonishing and liberating visions and revelations, Shirley saw into the meaning of the cosmos, including the secrets of the ancient civilizations of Atlantis and Lemuria, insights into human genesis, the essence of gender and sexuality, and the true path to higher love.
With rich insight, humility, and her trademark grace, Shirley MacLaine gently leads us on a sacred adventure toward an inexpressibly transcendent climax. The Camino promises readers the journey of a thousand lifetimes.

Frequently Bought Together

The Camino: A Journey of the Spirit + The Way + A Pilgrim's Guide to the Camino de Santiago: St. Jean * Roncesvalles * Santiago (Aamino Guides)
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Known as the Camino, the Santiago de Compostela Camino is a famous pilgrimage that has been undertaken by people for centuries across northern Spain. It is said that this 500-mile path lies directly under the Milky Way and that it reflects the energy of the star systems above it. Facing her sixth decade of life on earth, writer and actor Shirley MacLaine decided to go on this trek. She wasn't sure why, she only knew that the Camino had been traveled for thousands of years by "saints, sinners, generals, misfits, kings and queens. It is done by the intent to find one's deepest spiritual meaning and resolutions regarding conflicts in Self."

Typical of MacLaine, this is a personal story with enormous adventure, a smattering of flashbacks, and a hefty serving of cosmic revelations. Like a true pilgrim, MacLaine travels solo, willing to strip herself down to the backpacking essentials and find deeper meaning in all the bizarre, frightening, and coincidental events she encounters along the way. It is no small feat that this sixtysomething woman walked the grueling path in 30 days. Readers can expect vivid stories of stalking paparazzi, icy showers, bouts of hunger, lost paths, a worshipping young man, a deranged woman screaming in a roadside shelter, saintly truck drivers, a fellow pilgrim in a wheelchair, bouts of constipation and diarrhea, and a cosmic crescendo that will knock the socks of MacLaine's fans. --Gail Hudson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Following a centuries-old tradition, entertainer MacLaine walked nearly 500 miles across northern Spain's Camino Santiago de Compostela. This memoir of her formidable journey, like her other books, is a likely candidate for bestsellerdom as well as for ridicule in some quarters. An effort to "feel human again," her physical feat was daunting: she hiked for 10 hours a day on her own, often in intense heat, and slept in refugios--crowded, dirty shelters. Though she observes the small villages, historic cathedrals and other trekkers along the way, MacLaine is most interested in her interior journey. The actress, who has written before about her numerous past lives in such books as Out on a Limb and Dancing in the Light, senses that she's walked the Camino before as a coffee-colored, dark-haired woman of Charlemagne's time. Visited in dreams by a spiritual guide, she connects her various lives and soul mates, revealing that her former lover (in this life) was Olaf Palme, the assassinated Swedish Prime Minister. As the journey progresses, she revisits the origins of the human race in the edenic Lemuria, then the dawn of Atlantis and on to ADAMic civilization. On the earthly plane, MacLaine seems to enjoy evading the press, which she compares to fearsome dogs, and whose pursuit escalates as she gets closer to the end of the journey. Though she completed the Camino in 30 days instead of the planned 40, her arrival in Santiago lacks a Hollywood finale. Instead, she slips into the famous cathedral and leaves immediately for Madrid. Major ad/promo; author tour; 20-city TV satellite tour; 20-city radio satellite tour. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 320 pages
  • Publisher: Atria Books; First Edition edition (April 1, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0743400739
  • ISBN-13: 978-0743400732
  • Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (145 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Shirley MacLaine, Oscar winner, three-time Emmy winner, and ten-time Golden Globe winner, has appeared in more than fifty films, has been nominated for an Academy Award six times, and received the Oscar for Best Actress in 1984. A longtime outspoken advocate for civil rights and liberties, women¹s rights, and spiritual understanding, Shirley MacLaine has sold more than 20,000,000 copies of her nine international bestsellers, which include her acclaimed work The Camino.

Customer Reviews

I also have this book on tape read by the author and it is just as enjoyable. Ivy  |  13 reviewers made a similar statement
You don't have to preach to the converted. S. Joseph  |  4 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
83 of 89 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The Camino June 2, 2000
By Kelly
Format:Hardcover
One of my friends at work gave me Shirley's new book, and I was thrilled. In the traditional Christian world, Shirley MacLaine is one of those people who would be on the "LIST"---forbidden to any God-fearing, Bible believing Christian. I used to carry Shirley's books around in brown paper bags and pull them halfway out and read them when nobody was looking. Our preacher would be talking about how "Shirley MacLaine has lost her mind," and I'd be reading her books under the pews and thinking, "She makes more sense than the preacher." In Christian college, I got called on the carpet when somebody decided to investigate one of my brown bags to see if I was sneaking alcohol. GOD FORBID, he found something WORSE--one of Shirley MacLaine's novels, which would surely send me to hell faster than booze. Needless to say, my days in the traditional Christian experience were short-lived.

I think Shirley MacLaine is amazing! I think she's one of the bravest women alive. She has never been afraid to share her spiritual journeys for the benefit of those who can "receive" them and at the cost of personal ridicule from those who cannot.

People are criticizing this book and saying it was not about the Camino but about her own inner journey. I would have been disappointed had it not been. I don't care if Shirley walks the Camino, the Appalachian Trail, or walks to the corner drugstore. I want to know what happened to her spiritually along the way.

This is a wonderful book for all fellow "Pilgrims" and "Sojourners in a Strange Land."

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156 of 172 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars More Steps on the Road To Enlightenment April 30, 2000
By Mdi
Format:Hardcover
"The Camino", Shirley Maclaine's new book, covers a 500 mile walking trip she completed along the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. Blisters and body pain, loneliness followed by relentless press who heard she was making the pilgrimage, vivid dream/recollections and synchronicity are shared in this journal. 40 pages into this book, I announced to my family that I will be making this same trek. Ms. MacLaine is an excellent writer; clean, intelligent, free of the need to prove anything to anyone. She's just saying what she experienced. We come away with a glimpse at the history of the trail from the days of Charlemange. We see her experience of the possible origin of three dimensional human life, Atlantis, Lemuria, ancestral connections to ET's and genetic engineerring that very possibly got us where we are right now. Skeptics will scoff. Students of Spirit will nod. (Remember, in spring 2000, scientists JUST found out that dinosaurs had four chamber hearts that show they were WARM blooded, not cold blooded like the "fact" they have "known" for years.) Whatever your level of listening, believing or remembering, "The Camino" is a wonderful journey that leaves us feeling renewed. Ultreya, Ms. MacLaine!
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46 of 50 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Quest! July 31, 2000
Format:Hardcover
"There are many ways to experience one's spiritual education." This quote from Shirley MacLaine sums up this incredible book perfectly. This is Shirley's journey of one finding themselves, or re-discovering themselves on the centuries old Camino - a 500 mile spiritual trek across Spain.

I found this book to be wonderfully enlightening, illuminating, and I applaud Shirley for the courage to complete this journey of the Spirit. Shirley says, "The Camino itself helps facilitate the resolution of emotional issues."

The reader is treated to flashbacks of Shirley's past lives as she once lived along the Camino, including an amazing past life in Lemuria and Atlantis. I found Shirley's honesty and candor refreshing, and many of her insights hit directly home with me. I do believe that the reader will also gain as many insights as I did and stop and let it all sink in. We are treated to her lessons and fears that she has to conquer as well.

I really resonated with her thoughts on fear: "Never ask yourself what it is you fear - instead ask yourself what it is that concerns you. A fear thought, put out, will return, because all energy returns to the sender. Any energy always makes a loop until it regains the source. A concern thought will return also. A that moment discern why you're concerned."

I began my spiritual questing with Shirley's first book and have devoured everything she has written. She is not afraid to speak her truth and she is not afraid to seek to deepen her spirituality and then share the rest of that with humanity. I am sure that I am not the only one who she has deeply and positively affected....

Another wonderful quote, "I had walked the Camino in order to understand what we were capable of as human beings - such spiritual magnificence and such destructive fragmentation of our own souls. Were we all repeating such dramas even today because we hadn't remembered what we came from?"

I urge everyone to read this fascinating book. You too, will want to trek the Camino after finishing the book. Read more ›

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109 of 130 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars The Camino May 31, 2000
Format:Hardcover
I recently completed the Camino de Santiago and when I learned of Ms. Mac Laine's newest book I enthusiastically sought to buy a copy. After all, we are both now Peregrinos, kindred spirits who have survived the rigors of The Way and savored its many joys. What was revealed to her fertile imagination and how would it compare to my own experiences. On a less spiritual level, how did a Hollywood celebrity deal with the many daily inconveniences which are so much a part of pilgrimage. Finally, what route did she actually travel; which villages or cities did she stop in each night and what were her recollections regarding these locales.

I've finished the book and my inescapable conclusion is that it does not represent the enlightened musings of a fellow Peregrino but is, instead, simply another airing of Ms. Mac Laine's very creative perceptions of her prior existences.

This book should be bought and read only by those who are interested in the author and her unique perspectives on life and spirituality. It really has little to do with The Camino except that the latter provides a stage upon which this popular actress can continue to articulate her, arguably, entertaining metaphysical balderdash--any or all of which is no better or worse than you or I might conjure up. By her own admission, she cherishes her role as actress. As an actress she "creates reality."Which, as any good actress knows, is the name of the game. I have no problem with any of that. I simply contend that this book is not about The Camino. It is very much about Shirley MacLaine.

This work is really a celebration of celebrity. A status which bestows on its members a right to opine, for profit, on all manner of issues without the normal encumbrances of other writers, i.e....

To anyone who is seriously interested in The Camino, I would only offer the thought that Ms. MacLaine's experiences are the product of her own very talented and creative mind. To view her musings as a cause and effect model of what The Camino imparts to those who trod it is simply wrong. There is very little of value in her book to the aspiring Peregrino. If you so aspire, look elsewhere. In the final analysis, however, The Camino experience will be a unique one for each pilgrim. As the days pass and the experiences multiply, there will be an increasingly clear sense of the development of the deepest of personal truths. This intensely satisfying awareness is the essence of the solitary, unencumbered environment that is The Camino. Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars Not her best work
I read this book when it was first published back in 2000, (borrowed from the public library) but recently purchased it because I had forgotten what she had written and a friend of... Read more
Published 2 days ago by R. Michaux
3.0 out of 5 stars Shirley MacLaine's pilgrimage in Spain
I have read other SM books, but honestly, I was disappointed in this one. I do believe, myself, in past lives and recall, but this book had much too much recounting of her visions... Read more
Published 10 days ago by songbird
2.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing
Too much about Shirley and her crazy ideas and not enough about the Camino and the great people on it.
Published 22 days ago by Rellrog
2.0 out of 5 stars Boring!!!
I wanted to enjoy this book so bad, but was severely let down by it. There are plenty of other books about people's experiences on the camino...buy those, do NOT buy this book!
Published 25 days ago by Natalie Enck
4.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Another great spiritual journey by Shirley MacLaine, The Camino takes us through her adventure on a trek that leads her to new revelations about life and spirit. Bravo! Read more
Published 1 month ago by Deborah Greenspan
4.0 out of 5 stars Walk With Shirley
Anyone who is studying metaphysics and wants to broaden their knowledge, I recommend this read. She is very funny at times and takes you through deep experiences without a lot of... Read more
Published 2 months ago by L. Townsend
5.0 out of 5 stars Kindred Spirits
I'm drawn to all of Shirley McClain's books because they are so honest. Honesty is always the best policy, and I enjoy her vivid spiritual accounts. Read more
Published 2 months ago by A. Customer
3.0 out of 5 stars Memoir of one person's journey
If you're interested in reading what it's like to walk the Camino de Santiago Compostela, this is an interesting book about one person's experience. Read more
Published 3 months ago by b.a.
5.0 out of 5 stars good
excellent
nineteen more words not required, all i need is my personal opinion of this product still need more words. this form is why more products are not reviewed
Published 3 months ago by Joseph W. Smaltz
5.0 out of 5 stars thumbs up
it was a great, fast read and very informative for me since i am doing my own camino on september!
Published 4 months ago by Ava M. Jahoda
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