(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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Imagine wandering through an ancient landscape wrought in earth and stone, exploring the sacred sites of peoples long ago and far away in time and history. The mounds and barrows whisper legends of heroes and magic, and painted walls sing of saints and miracles.

Now imagine that the lens of the camera captures a magical light in soft blues and misty greens and gold. A light that seems to have no cause in physical reality. What would you do? If you were open to the possibility of deeper realities, perhaps you would wish to explore this strange phenomenon...something two people came to know as sacred chromatography.

The Initiate is the story of just such a journey beyond the realms of our accustomed normality. It is a factual tale told in a fictional manner. In just such a way did the Bards of old hide in the legends and deeds of heroes those deeper truths for those who had eyes to see and ears to hear. As the veils thin and waver, time shifts and the present is peopled with the shadowy figures of the past, weaving their tales through a quest for understanding and opening wide the doors of perception for those who seek to see beyond the surface of reality.

Stuart France – ‘lunatic’, writer and mystic, possibly in that order. Stuart has a deep and practical knowledge of the Western Mystery Tradition, having followed a Path that has taken him hopping through the branches of the Trees of Knowledge and Delight. His astonishing work with symbolism and the interpretation of myth comes from a profound understanding and love of life, humanity and fine cheese! After gaining his BA in Philosophy and Literature, and his MA in Writing, this Child of Light studied with OBOD, AMORC, and the Servants of the Light and is a founder member and integral part of The Silent Eye School of Consciousness. He declines all responsibility for this introduction. “I blame Wen…..”

Sue Vincent is a Yorkshire born writer, esoteric teacher and Director of The Silent Eye. She has been immersed in the Mysteries all her life. Sue maintains a popular blog, sharing life’s rich experience and is co-author of The Mystical Hexagram with Dr G.Michael Vasey and recently published Sword of Destiny. She lives in Buckinghamshire, having been stranded there some years ago due to an accident with a blindfold, a pin and a map. She has a lasting love-affair with the landscape of Albion, the hidden country of the heart. She is currently owned by a small dog who also blogs. The Silent Eye School of Consciousness is a modern Mystery School that seeks to allow its students to find the inherent magic in living and being. With students around the world the School offers a fully supervised and practical correspondence course that explores the self through guided inner journeys and daily exercises. It also offers workshops that combine sacred drama, lectures and informal gatherings to bring the teachings to life in a vivid and exciting format. The Silent Eye operates on a not-for-profit basis. Full details of the School may be found on the official website, where there is also a forum open to all: www.thesilenteye.co.uk

Review:

Firstly, this is a deeply unique book and very few analogies for it spring to mind. I like analogies, because, deep down inside, I like to classify and label things up neatly. Those analogies that I can think of would be books like ‘The Zelator’ and perhaps even ‘The Da Vinci Code’, but it is a stretch. ‘The Initiate’ defies being boxed, labeled or classified and probably rightly so as it is a work of brilliance.

The book follows two partners in crime – Wen and Don – as they visit some ancient sites in a rural part of England. Engaged in the formation of a new school of consciousness at the time, their minds and souls are open to the spiritual and the miraculous. As they conjecture about the function and usage of various ancient stone circles, white horses or dragons, and mounds, they begin to notice birds of prey – namely Kites. The behavior of these birds leads them to a small church and then another and another. In each of these chapels, they discover symbols, artifacts, and windows with shared themes, which they spend some time attempting to unravel. However, it is the discovery of the ‘light’ in these chapels along with the Kites that frequent the locations of these ancient sites that begs for answers on both a spiritual and energetic level. Don and Wen attempt to answer.

Intertwined with their journey of discovery is a variety of almost ‘path workings’. These are deeply poetic narratives that are interspersed with the main text to shed more light on the antics of Don and Wen and their discoveries that work very effectively. One begins to gain hints of concepts and ways of thought that have been largely lost to humanity via these narratives. Indeed, in a sense, they pull it all together and present to the consciousness a picture of times when the land’s energies were sanctified, defended and protected as precious channels of power to other worlds and to other states of consciousness.

As Don and Wen work their way through these sites of wonder, their insights and discussions are shared with the reader and there is a level of inner knowledge of the Mysteries that does remind me of The Zelator. The quest itself from place to place, always guided by the Kites, with the discovery of various symbols and potential meanings along the way is a little reminiscent of The Da Vinci Code. However, this is a work of Art and it is very definitely unique.

I will need to read this book several more times, as I suspect that there is much more to unlock and ponder about between the words and bound in the poetry and riddles placed throughout it too. The book is illustrated beautifully with color photographs in which one can really see the tints of colored light that speaks to the presence of a precious energy that still lights the heart of Albion like a network of energy motorways.