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Recommended Books

July 2004

"Receiving Divine Messages - Part I"

Joan of Arcadia CBS primetime series

Omens make tricky reading. In fact, they’re so equivocal and dangerous that there’s an actual Biblical prohibition against consulting someone who purports to be an omen reader or any kind of fortune teller (clouds, entrails, bones, etc.).

There are a lot of reasons for that which I discuss in some depth in my nonfiction book, Biblical Tarot: Never Cross A Palm With Silver. The bottom line is that a) it’s impossible to foretell the future, and b) anyone who pretends that it is possible for them to foretell your future is either running a scam or in all goodwill likely to implant their view of the universe into your subconscious and muck up your ability to live your own life.

But that doesn’t mean that the world isn’t filled with messages from the divine creator of this universe. As I see the world, we are awash in a symphony of messages. But those messages aren’t about "the future."

In the Kabalistic view of the universe, humans have Free Will. Human choices matter. They craft the universe we’re embedded in. Your future is not pre-determined, at least not until you’ve lived long enough for past choices to have current consequences.

And those consequences affect everyone around you.

So choices you’ve made and implemented affect but do not totally determine the choices available to others around you. Choices they make, especially as a result of choices you’ve made, affect you and alter the menu of choices available to you in the future. That’s the pattern divination can be used to read – not the future, but available choices in the present as a result of the past.

So does that mean you’re the helpless victim of choices others make? No. Quite the opposite. The principle is that you have Free Will. In Kaballah, there is a basic principle called "Return" (Tshuvah). It basically means that at any time, no matter how you’ve messed up and strayed down some unproductive path, you can turn your life around and return.

Of your own Free Will, you can always choose to climb back up the trail of choices and consequences, unmake choices, un-do consequences, and choose another path, even in this lifetime if you’re willing to pay the price.

Joan of Arcadia is a show about just such a path of return and the price. Joan has made a deal with her God of her own Free Will, to un-make the consequence of her brother’s accident which nearly killed him. She prayed and promised to do anything God told her. Her brother survived, but is paralyzed. So now she does what she’s told.

God appears to her in the guise of various human beings and gives her cryptic assignments. They always cause her much teen angst and incredible adult-sized burdens. Sometimes she messes up, and her God does not interfere with her choices.

Joan has been raised Catholic by a father who doesn’t want anything to do with the Church. She has a Catholic outlook on the world, but comparison shops opinions with a Rabbi when she runs into a very difficult problem. The values underlying this show echo magical principles from many traditions.

This is a show for those not particularly devoted to any one organized religion but who are exploring the theory that the world is more than we see. The show has vast amounts of angst, but delivers great rewards for the suffering. I haven’t seen an episode with a badly written script. Each episode examines a theme of substance from several angles. Joan is definitely a magician in training, possibly a forensic magician like Dion Fortune’s Taverner.

I don’t have any novels here that are comparable to this television show. But the topics and lessons God talks to Joan of Arcadia about can be further explored in many novels and even some odd corners of non-fiction.

Take for example, With Alex By My Side by Joel Davis, 108 pages, $14.95. This is the story, real life, actual fact story – more real than a reality show (trust me, I know the author) – of a man who has a seizure disorder. He discovered that his dog was able to predict the onset of a seizure. This early warning system vastly improved his life, and this is the very real story of this seizure-alert dog.

Fantasy lends itself readily to discussion of a reality which is awash in cryptic divine messages about differences, and the pain suffered by those who are "different.".

Using the techniques of science fiction to tell a purely fantasy story, Marguerite Krause and Susan Sizemore created a universe called The Children Of The Rock. Two long novels in this universe were first published as e-books, and now are available in hardcover (gorgeous volumes, well worth the price), trade paperback as Moons’ Dreaming and Moons’ Dancing.

The Children of the Rock are three diversely talented branches of humanity, The Keepers, The Shapers, and the Dreamers, living in a world constantly threatened by invasion from another dimension.

At first, as you read these novels, you might think these three castes result only from the usual human prejudices forcing people into roles in life without regard for their individual talents. But no. In this fantasy world, talents are really divided by caste, and mere ambition can’t make you become what you are not.

The shape of this world contains a loud spiritual message about prejudice, acceptance, and above all love. For here, the Shapers (Kings, Managers, Nobles) and the Keepers (artisans, craftsmen, businessmen) can mate to produce the third type – the Dreamer. It is the Dreamers (the psychics with magical training) who wage the war that prevents incursion from another dimension.

These two books satisfy the lover of High Fantasy, seekers after the laws of magic, and readers who love a blistering hot love story. Among the Children of the Rock, Love is the fuel that feeds the fires of magick so needed to defend their world.

Scratch a science fiction fan who loves magic and you’ll find a Sherlock Holmes fan. I am a shameless, passionate fan of the great detective. Many sf/f writers moonlight in Mystery under other bylines. Laurie R. King has discovered the formula that twangs the heartstrings of my kind of reader with her Mary Russell/ Sherlock Holmes novels that bring Sherlock into the beginning of the twentieth century. I’ve reviewed them in previous columns.

One element she doesn’t pull her punches on is the essential prejudices of the British culture of that period. Sherlock’s adventures take him and his protégé and now wife, Mary Russell around the world to the various countries of the British Empire, spying for Mycroft Holmes.

In Justice Hall, Mary and Sherlock are called to the aid of the pair of British Agents they worked with in Palestine during O Jerusalem. It turns out the scalawags are actually scions of a noble family and murder is afoot.

In The Game, Mary and Sherlock go to India where they uncover international intrigue and civil war brewing. King brings the India of the waning British Empire alive in a convincing 1924 setting. In this fantasy universe, Sherlock Holmes is real, and so are some of Rudyard Kiplings characters. You’ll enjoy seeing what’s happened to them after the end of Kipling’s saga.

The Russell/Holmes novels are also a romance that progresses into a love story that settles into a firm, solid, and very satisfying marriage. The interesting thing about this fantasy universe is the way two un-prejudiced people manage to keep their values in a prejudiced world.

Think of it this way. Joan of Arcadia is set apart by her direct interaction with God which she can’t discuss with friends and family for fear of being labeled crazy. People trying to work around differing abilities are set apart by realms of experience they can’t discuss with others for fear of being labeled wimps. The psychically talented and Initiated are set apart by their understanding of how cause and effect operate across dimensions, but can’t discuss that with those who believe there are no other dimensions. And the extremely intelligent, such as Sherlock Holmes, are set apart by their quick grasp of patterns formed by myriads of small details.

Of all of these differences, I think possibly sheer intelligence sets one farther apart than anything else. But for all of these kinds of differences, the solution seems to be bonding, love, fellowship.

What messages from the creator of the universe are washing up onto the shores of your mind telling you about bonding, love, dependence, relationship, fellowship?