John F. Caddy (SMN)
Reviewed
by: David Lorimer
John
Caddy is a marine biologist who has undertaken his own personal odyssey from
science to spirit, which he describes in this book. His two central
preoccupations are shamanism and the pursuit of vital energy as ways of
directly experiencing spirituality and altered states of consciousness. The
view he describes at the end of the book is essentially shamanic in postulating
‘that a spiritual essence permeates the world, and links us as entities of
vital energy to each other, but also to all the other plants and animals on the
planet’ in ‘Gaia’s Field’. He concludes that ‘subtle
energy is omnipresent in this world, and the space around us is full of subtle
energy, chi, prana, or whatever you choose to call
it. At times, his experiences are difficult to reconcile with his scientific
training, but, as he observes, since his experiences are direct, they are not
easy to discard as an illusion. He can now switch on the capacity to see subtle
energy as required, but observes that ‘acquiring a sixth sense requires
reconditioning the mind through non ordinary experiences.’
This characterises the tension
between subjective and objective approaches to reality, between presuppositions
and experience, between openness and skepticism,
between indigenous and Western perspectives, themes that are central concerns
of the Network. John relates his own procedures for psychic investigations,
using both imagination and scientific observation, along with a rigorous but
open-minded and integrative type of evaluation. He also explores questions of
validity and alternative explanations and describes many personal experiences
and courses attended. He arrives at the position that we all have the capacity
to perceive vital energy directly and have extraordinary experiences. For John,
this means that it is impossible to treat the planet as an inanimate object,
which he thinks means accepting ‘some enlightened shamanistic perspectives into
our belief system.’
At the end of the book, John sets
out in the main components of his theory of nearly everything (TONE) in a chart
consisting of fact, myths, personal observations, axioms and hypotheses. This
provides a consistent account of his overall worldview, many elements of which
will be familiar to readers, and builds on the contents of the book examining a
vast range of topics such as barriers to perception, trance, the energy of
words, visualisation, magic places, spirals and fractals, auras and chakras, seeing and hearing energy, dreaming and Guardian Angels,
and memes. John’s thesis is consistent with much recent work on a participatory
approach or worldview as a means of overcoming the dichotomy between subjective
and objective, which I think provides a more constructive framework than simply
returning to the subjective. Although the content of the book is fascinating,
it does suffer from a lack of outside editing and is hard to follow since it
(intentionally) jumps between theory and personal accounts, with further
additional observations thrown in. There is a bibliography but no index, which
would have been helpful. The book will appeal most to readers who have
undertaken similar journeys, and have struggled to reconcile science and spirit
in their own lives.