Customer Reviews

The World Behind the World

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Meade once again takes us into the territory of myth and story with The World Behind the World. The idea that the world is ending is woven throughout our culture. Meade explores the idea that science, religion, and culture are surprisingly agreeing that the world is ending. Viewing this notion through the lens of myth, Meade displays his ability to synthesize the collective views of the end-times of many cultures and many eras of human thought into a cohesive theory that the world cannot end unless it runs out of stories. Meade finds the common threads that run throughout creation and re-creation stories from all corners of the human experience. The end result is a reassuring reminder that we may be at one of the many "ends" of time, not the literal "end" of time. He explores similar ideas in The Ends of Time, the Roots of Eternity.

More so than in The Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul, Meade has found a way to weave the natural rhythms and flow of his storytelling style into his writing. Anyone who has seen him speak will instantly recognize this voice within the book. Overall, The World Behind the World is a very approachable and enjoyable read; neither too scholarly, nor overly simplified. It places the reader squarely in the story of our times, serving as a reminder that many cultures have faced "the end" before, but that the "ends" exist to lead to renewal and new beginnings.

I'm a big fan of Michael Meade's work. I think he is arguably one of the most important teachers of our time. His ancient and pluralistic vision of hope is refreshing in a weary and jaded world. However, I find this book actually too poetic to effectively explicate Meade's ideas. It's an enjoyable read, but I find it very much lacking in the impact and immediacy which characterize Meade's in-person lectures. Those who are already familiar with Michael Meade's work will probably get the most from "The World Behind the World." But those seeking an introduction to his unique perspective may be better off starting with his audio CD, "Holding the Thread of Life."

Michael Meade's The World Behind the World is a solid mix of ancient story and contemporary perspective. A prescription for healing and revitalization in a time of confusion. Wisdom and clarity abound.

The great American poet William Stafford found his poems in the fragments of language that shyly presented themselves to him in the early morning hours when he wrote. It was following these literary threads that shaped his poetic life.

Michael Meade, using a poetic artistic palette, reveals a way of discovering meaning while being led by the mysteries of folktales and mythic stories that he finds in studying archival books, artistic images, and the revelations woven into his dreams.

Whether it is Markendaya finding himself in the despair of swimming in a vast limitless ocean, the myriad sureties of old blind men describing an elephant, or the quandary of a mullah looking for lost keys. Meade builds an imaginal vocabulary that maps a path to an understanding of the complex beauty and layered architecture of mythic images. He encourages us to catch sight of a place for ourselves in these stories, by using our own language, in our own time, without losing the ancient veil that keeps our ideas from becoming the destructive literalism of modern thought.

He breathes life into these stories and they, in turn, give guidance, healing, and discovery to all who struggle to be found in them, a profoundly magical read.

Is there wisdom for the modern world to be found in the ancient world's myths and legends? There is, claims author Michael Meade in "The World Behind the World: Living at the Ends of Time". Examining the ancient world of mythology to use as a commentary on the modern world, and providing insights that many readers would have never connected before, "The World Behind the World: Living at the Ends of Time" is a deftly researched and recommended piece of writing. An ideal acquisition for academic and community library Cultural History and Mythology reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

More people need to know who Michael meade is: a brilliant, soulful, grass roots author, a gifted storyteller, and a rare anthropological psycho-mythologist who sees the whole field.

This is not a review of this book but a commentary on a previous review. I was thinking about buying The World Behind the World but because of this review I bought the audio CD Holding the Thread of Life instead. Having listened to it, I find this review a bit strange. Meade reads several poems on the CD (William Stafford, William Blake, etc.) so it's a puzzle to me how the book could be too poetic.

I understand that Meade is a storyteller, but not the type of storyteller I am used to. I am more used to story telling as a performance art. He says um more than I expect from a storyteller. He also says, "Know what I'm sayin'?" a lot. He has a strong New York accent so there are a few things I can't catch on the CD. Also, my experience of story telling is that the teller typically tells the tale and mostly lets it stand on its own. Meade is very much about talking about the meaning of the tale or even gently pounding it in, in case you missed it. He often speaks in aphorisms, which, since they have layers of meaning, tend to go by too quickly verbally and are more easily savored in written form (like poems often are).

I did enjoy the CD and would recommend it. I appreciate that he recognizes the personal suffering involved in things that are of a mythic nature and differentiates what he is talking about from that suffering. I could never make it through one of Joseph Campbell's books because he does not acknowledge the individual perspective in that way, so much of what he writes can sound sexist and racist.

One problem of the CD is that there is no copyright date anywhere on it, but it was obviously recorded not long after 9/11 because that is a topic of discussion. And, of course, more can be said in a book than on an audio recording so I am curious to see if his books have rather more explication than the CD. I don't think that those who are familiar with Jungian or shamanistic perspectives will find Meade's concepts strange or unique.

I decided to buy Fate and Destiny instead of The World Behind the World. I am enjoying it but it is dense reading and the author teases us with unelaborated stories of his own life, e.g., he tells of refusing to obey orders when he was in the military during the Vietnam War. That event must have had many ripples in his later life, but he does not discuss them. Since there are so many in our society who have not recovered from that war, this lack of commentary seems very strange to me. Perhaps he discusses it in his other books, but since he spends much of the book discussing the meaning of myths in great detail, the lack of detail on this personal story strikes me as odd.