Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

  (Prince George, BC, Canada: Dimensionfold Publishing, 2021). ISBN: 9781989940020 We live in an increasingly humorless world, where language is increasingly regulated (and manipulated) and, should you say what is deemed by a certain sector to be the wrong thing , you might just be “canceled” by the swiping, judgmental (read righteous) left thumb of the judgers on social media. In such a sensitive, unsophisticated world, novels such as Munchausen by Proxy for Fun and Profit —written by a father and son—are essential reading. They take on serious subjects (in this case, the illegal sale of prescription drugs) and invite us to see them in a different, nuanced way—through the motivations of the often simple-minded everyday people who deem these courses of action as their only means to participating in Rabid Capitalism. A Cash-Grab Extravaganza from which they imagine everyone else on the planet but them is benefiting. In “real life,” if these dreaming schemers’ stories are inte...

(Burdett, NY: Larson Publications, 2020). ISBN 978-1-936012-92-3 As I type this review—my 198th—I do so in the midst of an America (and a world) in crisis. We are in day three of a contested, contentious election. England has locked back down for at least a month, and people were leaving Paris in droves ahead of a second lockdown because the pandemic is once again spreading at alarming, and in some places unmitigated, rates. Colleagues, clients, and just about everyone I talk with feel a Pressure. A dark, invasive Cloud of Worry, Fear, and Stress. We don’t yet understand the extent to which the world has changed in the past seven months. Let’s start with the hundreds of thousands dead, and those who have survived COVID-19 but will live with its effects for the rest of their (potentially shortened or diminished) lives. How about the many industries, businesses, and livelihoods that have been irreparably damaged or people displaced from their homes? How many twenty-somethings have mo...

(Ithaca, NY: Delok Publishing, 2020). ISBN: 979-86293322732 (paperback) It has been my privilege as a reviewer over the past twenty years to have the opportunity to track the growth of a handful of writers whose new works I have been sent year after year by themselves or their publishers. For a mind like mine, that looks at all things—most especially narrative—through myriad, multilayered lenses, it is instructive and often inspiring to see psychological growth, refinement of perspective, and narrative skill with the written word develop over time. William Douglas Horden is one of those handful of authors. Since returning home eleven years ago to find a package from Horden’s publisher on my porch with one of his first books, The Toltec I-Ching , coauthored with Martha Ramirez-Oropeza, I have read, on average, one of Horden’s twenty-plus books every year. Sometimes two or three. Many I have reviewed, although review has become, at this point, an inaccuracy. It has become my chall...

(Ithaca, NY: Delok Publishing, 2020). ISBN: 978-1670496751 (paperback) Before I begin this book review, some background on the author is essential. For several decades, William Douglas Horden has focused on the I Ching. Of his more than twenty books, nine are part of a series that concludes with the book being reviewed. The others—directly or by way of energetic and experiential connections—further explore the ancient tool of divination and spiritual practice called the I Ching. Interested readers should read my previous reviews of Horden’s works for details on his background and training, which are extensive and impressive. The Art of Divination is a handbook for those who are diviners and those whose path may be leading them there. My wife, a psychic medium, makes her living in large part as both a diviner (with tarot, other readings, and communications with the dead) and when using aspects of divination in her work as an energy healer. As for those who may be consideri...

(Ithaca, NY: Delok Publishing). ISBN: 978-1794535985 (paperback) Modern life is admittedly complicated and complex. I am just old enough, having turned 50 last November, to say that it wasn’t always like this. Not to this degree. Ubiquitous technology, overpopulation, climate change, and shrinking resources have resulted in a fast pace, profound changes lurking like subtext between the sure-faced politicians assuring Business as Usual, and multiplying reasons to not be hopeful for the future. Tools of divination and insight—such as runes, astrology, Tarot, the Kabala, and the I Ching—can be helpful as organizing principles. If you listen closely and take what is useful, they have a way of burning away the blinding, disorienting, low-lying fog the artifacts of the twenty-first century have produced. Given, as stated in this book, that we take in much more information than we can process, tools such as these are essential to creating Stillness and taking stock of where you are. Gl...

(Ithaca, NY: Delok Publishing, 2017). ISBN: 978-1544629834 (paperback) “You’re not cool, you’re chilly. And chilly ain’t never been cool.” [George Carlin, from one of his HBO specials] You best get ready—this isn’t your (normal? regular?) traditional review. I am not even sure, after reading The Tao of Cool , that a review is even a COOL thing to do, nontraditional or not. Nothing about this book, which is [loosely] (as in, shares a common word in the title and the same number of chapter-poems) based on the Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu is presented in an expected way. For instance, the subtitle is on the back of the book, and reads: “Deconstructing the Tao Te Ching [:] from the Notebooks of Snafu Trismegistus [,] Bodhisattva of Universal Cool.” Now, (normally) I would question such a statement. In one of my other lives as an academic editor, at least once a year I edit papers from a writer who promotes himself as a “thought leader.” That always makes me cringe. But, in this case...

A Review of In the Oneness of Time: The Education of a Diviner, by William Douglas Horden (Burdett, NY: Larson Publicans, 2015). ISBN: 978-1-936012-76-3 (paperback) By Joey Madia It is said that, when you are “following your bliss,” as Joseph Campbell would say, or walking the Good Red Road of Native American spirituality, the teachings you most need in the moment will find you. Six and a half years ago, this maxim was made manifest in a book co-authored by William Douglas Horden titled The Toltec I-Ching (also from Larson Publications). When it arrived in the mail with a request for review, I was in the midst of opening an arts education center that would house the social justice theatre company of which I am the founding artistic director. As with any big endeavor, there were endless meetings with political and community leaders, business groups, educators, potential donors, and prospective teachers and it seemed that everyone had a different idea of what the arts education ce...