Book Notes to Renting the Veil

                 

               Shamanic trance, Paroll, <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

You may practice some offshoots of New Age philosophy, like mindfulness, setting an intention or visualization.  These are explained or sometimes marketed as they can be, in the ways they are best accepted, whether as part of a martial arts workout or a Fortune 500 business seminar, using the most acceptable vernacular.  

You probably have come across more of the concepts referenced in this novel than you realize.  The book is not about a particular practice, its pros or cons and does not espouse any particular belief system.  It's just a story about life after death. Or life outside the parameters we generally perceive.

This story is the individual journey of one lost man, seeking solace where he can find it. Many of us have heard of for instance, a shamanic journey, but have not personally taken one, and so do not truly grasp what that might involve or mean. I have been asked to explain the concepts Joe encounters in a bit more depth, hence the book notes.

I will include all of these posts under the label Renting the Veil as that is where they belong.

The Dalai Lama once said that there really should be seven billion religions, one for each person. That would be over eight billion now. We are all hardwired a bit differently and we all have different experiences that shape us. Ultimately, we each come up with our own concept of what this life is all about, if anything.  Sometimes our concept is an unquestioning belief in the religion we were raised in.  Sometimes not.

The approaches I have written about, for example, using a pendulum or Medicine Cards to assist in decision-making should be understood not as revealing an objective truth.  These are what they are: divining rods to one's own personal subconscious. What one reads into it, how he or she interprets the results are just signs along the way of a landscape known intimately only to the traveler.

It is the explorer's own adventure and the approach she selects based on her understanding of the road she is on.  It is objective only in the sense that it belongs to her and no one else.  

Some may... and do claim a higher objective knowledge and statement of facts about our universe, but that is not at all the intent of this novel.