[Main Blog Post] [Book] Thoughts on The Book of the New Sun

[jprussell]

I'm continuing to make progress on the massive second chapter of Kvilhaug's The Seed of Yggdrasill, but I've not finished it, and there hasn't really been a satisfying break point to divide the chapter up into multiple posts. So, instead, I've shared my thoughts on Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, which I just finished reading the other night. The short version is that it's very good and has a heck of a lot going on there. If you like epic, sweeping speculative fiction with great scope that is nevertheless well-written and full of well-realized characters who grapple with genuine moral issues, you'll like this book. Strongly recommended.

Comments

[betwixttheworlds]

Thanks, Jeff! That makes a lot of sense. It's identical to Pathworking where a tarot card is used as the doorway onto the Cabalistic Path. Comparing it to Jung's Active Imagination also makes a great deal of sense.

I'll certainly use your technique. I had made some crazy assumptions that I needed to buy a mirror, or to stare into a crystal or a bowl of water.

Thank you very much.

[jprussell]

Exactly! Tarot/Cabala pathworking is one flavor of the kind of scrying that JMG teaches. Again, to be clear, it's not "my" technique, it's JMG's :)

As for the mirror/bowl of water, that's one of those other things called "scrying" (W.E. Butler in How to Read the Aura and Practice Psychometry, Telepathy, and Clairvoyance gives a technique using a "black mirror" (a piece of convex glass painted black on the back). From what I can tell, some people have an easier time seeing things astrally (visualizing) with their eyes open, looking at a suggestive surface of some kind (mirror, crystal ball, bowl of water, etc), whereas others do better closing their eyes. The end result seems to be "learn to perceive things astrally" either way, so experimentation might be in order.

I made a black mirror but haven't had much chance to practice with it, being up to my eyeballs with exercises to do already with DMH, The Dolmen Arch, and The Modern Order of Essenes!

[betwixttheworlds]

Many thanks. I'm going to get Butler's book and learn his techniques.