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I asked @beardedeldridge a few questions about Entering the Desert, and they extremely kindly uploaded the book and shared it
Having now read it* I can answer my own questions for anyone who's interested
(Maybe don't read this yet if you don't want my views to colour your own experience)
* it's short, and also a Saturday in my part of the world. I would read it again in a more paced way if I decided to work with it as a text, but I didn't skim or anything
None of that is present - the author is at pains to make it clear that rejecting the corporeal is sacrilege, that the body and material world is what is available to experience divinity in
His criticisms are not wrong but they're mostly fairly simplistic and kind of.... You know the person who sees someone on their smartphone and goes "I bet they're tweeting what they had for lunch, kids today are so shallow" when actually that person could be messaging their grandmother or reading Ovid's Metamorphosis or drafting a poem - it could be anything.
I'm also not sure who this stuff is FOR - he's writing contemptuously of what other people do, and if you also don't think much of other people, then you might enjoy this is a fun rant. But what's that doing in a spiritual book. If he wanted it to help the reader avoid those traps, he would have had to write it very differently. With more compassion, and describing the subjective experience of falling for this traps ("you might find yourself thinking x - that's a sign that you should do y") rather than what it looks like from the outside, because that just encourages the reader to join the writer in feeling smug about not being like those other people.
Like, he repeatedly describes modern people as "worshipping the Techno-God". No one thinks they, themselves, worship a techno god, that's something you only think OTHER people do. So what is the purpose of the framing, in the context of this book?
This takes up a lot of the book and has been handled badly. Presumably because he doesn't actually use technology, he doesn't have much insightful to say about it. You would get a lot more out of reading Cory Doctorow's critiques - someone who is very familiar with the tech world and understands what the positives could be has much more interesting criticisms.
He says that only 1:1 in-person communication is of any value (dude you wrote a book, that is mass communication not in person) and as with other stuff, he's right that people can fall into the habit of thinking posting to Facebook is the same as genuine social connection, but he goes overboard. A deeply thought through message can be way more meaningful than an in-person "so how's work... Yeah not bad...you?"
He makes the mistake a few times of not being aware of neurodiversity (I don't mean people with ADHD or autism, I mean the broad spectrum of different ways that people's brain works). For example: some people think, then speak. Some people think by speaking. Once they say it like loud, it becomes something they can question and challenge and work with. (Many's the time I've said something out loud and gone "hm no that's definitely wrong" but if I'd kept it to myself, I'd never have questioned it).
He's clearly the former sort, so he believes anyone speaking quickly is being "mindless", not realising that speaking is part of their thinking, not replacing their thinking.
I'm obviously the second type, but I recognise we just have different thinking styles. I don't call the people who have to think and formulate thoughts in their head first "slow-witted" - because I know they're smart, they just have a different process to me. The writer does not seem to be aware of these differences.
Despite what I said about point 1, and the author does repeatedly say that one should live an embodied, active life, not isolate yourself from society, he really comes across as not liking other people or the outside world very much. To which I can only say: get better friends. If the people around you suck, move.
(I know, it's not that easy. But if I only ever listened to Top 40 radio and concluded "music is bad" you'd rightfully tell me I need to look outside the mainstream to find the good music. "I don't have time/energy/money to seek out good music" is a very different and more accurate proposition than "music basically sucks") (I'm going off on a tangent sorry)
Just to add - his description of "the cell" doesn't actually require isolation in nature, which one reviewer interpreted it as. It's more accessible than that. It would require a permanent corner or nook where you won't be disturbed, but that would be enough)
But the guru tradition has been so prone to corruption and abuse that I'm not convinced "do what the teacher says even if you're uncomfortable with it" is the answer either. However, this question is only a small part of the book, so there's no real need to debate its merits.
Holy Guardian Angel stuff
This would be appropriate for anyone currently seeking out conversation and knowledge of the HGA. He doesn't use that terminology in any way, ever, but he talks a lot about walking towards the Solar part of your soul, plus stuff like this:.
Deep within the darkness of the Desert of the Soul and the gnostic isolation of the Cell rests an ancient self-luminous Flame. This sacred fire is the eternal companion throughout all phases of incarnated existence, as well as the protector at the mysterious time of departure from the corporeal realm. Luciform in essence, liberating in resonance, this sacred Flame grants specific blessings and empowerments ranging from unique visionary encounters, far beyond simple imaginative visualizations, to the discovery of mystical maps and esoteric keys hidden deep within the mind-space and corporeal soil.
The overall aim of the book is connection and integration with the above, so you can see why I would think it was at least supportive of HGA work
Ritual language
The language of the rituals doesn't speak to me, although it's not awful. There's a bit of that nursery rhyme quality to it.
"Tumty-tumty-tumty night
Tumty-tumty-tumty bright"
(The tumtys are filler text I put in to demonstrate rhythm! It doesn't say tumty in the book!)
But these aren't words of power, you could tweak them. Anyway this is so subjective. It's definitely useable, not cringey.
The imaginary vs the imaginal
Another strong focus of the book is he says that practitioners have become obsessed by and deluded by imaginary images (eg stuff you might see in guided meditations or pathworking etc) and lost track of the imaginal (real things encountered in the astral. Not like remote viewing, still encounters with spirits or deep mind or whatever, but these ones are real. Like much of the book, his criticisms are valid (the new age movement has got swept up in imaginary saccharine daydreams) but his conclusions are too narrow and self-oriented. You can't help but come away with the impression that he thinks "the things I imagine are real aka "the imaginal", the things other people imagine are illusions aka "the imaginary".
But he also has some interesting philosophical things to say about the nature of imagined vision that are worthwhile
I want to be clear that I don't need every writer to put in "this is just my opinion, just what works for me, you do you" at the start of every chapter. That annoys me, and readers should be capable of hearing about another person's experience without getting mad because it doesn't match theirs.
But Craig is specifically going on a lot of "what is wrong with the world" rants which are a combination of valid criticism and , I don't know, cognitive solipsism
Overall
Despite the negativity of the above, I think there's some really good stuff in here. I think the practices seem worthwhile. His explanation/version of Lectio Divina would be of value to anyone, regardless of how interested they are in the rest of the work. It's just negatives tend to create more word count than positive, because the positive doesn't need picking apart. The good bits are good!
The ugly streak I mentioned left a sour taste in my mouth, but I think there's a very good book underneath/intertwined with that.
He says the whole book is crucial (that it's
written to induce and trigger certain ideas) but if I was working with it, I would probably need to strip all that out
A warning: if you're thinking "that all sounds fine, I don't like people much either" - consider that that makes you MORE vulnerable to misanthropia, not less. Read it with an awareness of how it's colouring your perceptions
I'm very grateful to beardedeldridge for sharing this work, because it had been on my radar for a long time, but I'd been hesitant for reasons that turned out to be roughly correct
wizardforums.com
Having now read it* I can answer my own questions for anyone who's interested
(Maybe don't read this yet if you don't want my views to colour your own experience)
* it's short, and also a Saturday in my part of the world. I would read it again in a more paced way if I decided to work with it as a text, but I didn't skim or anything
None of that is present - the author is at pains to make it clear that rejecting the corporeal is sacrilege, that the body and material world is what is available to experience divinity in
Yeah this is really all throughout it. More the anti-modernity bit than pro-nature. (He definitely sometimes says "modernity" when he means "capitalism" - the shortening of attention spans and clickbait content is due to the need to generate increasing ad revenue for investors, it's not intrinsic to the technology).
His criticisms are not wrong but they're mostly fairly simplistic and kind of.... You know the person who sees someone on their smartphone and goes "I bet they're tweeting what they had for lunch, kids today are so shallow" when actually that person could be messaging their grandmother or reading Ovid's Metamorphosis or drafting a poem - it could be anything.
I'm also not sure who this stuff is FOR - he's writing contemptuously of what other people do, and if you also don't think much of other people, then you might enjoy this is a fun rant. But what's that doing in a spiritual book. If he wanted it to help the reader avoid those traps, he would have had to write it very differently. With more compassion, and describing the subjective experience of falling for this traps ("you might find yourself thinking x - that's a sign that you should do y") rather than what it looks like from the outside, because that just encourages the reader to join the writer in feeling smug about not being like those other people.
Like, he repeatedly describes modern people as "worshipping the Techno-God". No one thinks they, themselves, worship a techno god, that's something you only think OTHER people do. So what is the purpose of the framing, in the context of this book?
This takes up a lot of the book and has been handled badly. Presumably because he doesn't actually use technology, he doesn't have much insightful to say about it. You would get a lot more out of reading Cory Doctorow's critiques - someone who is very familiar with the tech world and understands what the positives could be has much more interesting criticisms.
He says that only 1:1 in-person communication is of any value (dude you wrote a book, that is mass communication not in person) and as with other stuff, he's right that people can fall into the habit of thinking posting to Facebook is the same as genuine social connection, but he goes overboard. A deeply thought through message can be way more meaningful than an in-person "so how's work... Yeah not bad...you?"
He makes the mistake a few times of not being aware of neurodiversity (I don't mean people with ADHD or autism, I mean the broad spectrum of different ways that people's brain works). For example: some people think, then speak. Some people think by speaking. Once they say it like loud, it becomes something they can question and challenge and work with. (Many's the time I've said something out loud and gone "hm no that's definitely wrong" but if I'd kept it to myself, I'd never have questioned it).
He's clearly the former sort, so he believes anyone speaking quickly is being "mindless", not realising that speaking is part of their thinking, not replacing their thinking.
I'm obviously the second type, but I recognise we just have different thinking styles. I don't call the people who have to think and formulate thoughts in their head first "slow-witted" - because I know they're smart, they just have a different process to me. The writer does not seem to be aware of these differences.
Unfortunately this was correct. The language he uses about "the virus of modernity" and "the vapid mundane landscape" is not just critical, it's contemptuous. You get the impression he's seconds from using the word "sheeple". Contempt is an ugly emotion, and it means this book has an ugly streak running through it that undermines the contemplative and meditative atmosphere it is going for (and otherwise succeeds at creating).
Despite what I said about point 1, and the author does repeatedly say that one should live an embodied, active life, not isolate yourself from society, he really comes across as not liking other people or the outside world very much. To which I can only say: get better friends. If the people around you suck, move.
(I know, it's not that easy. But if I only ever listened to Top 40 radio and concluded "music is bad" you'd rightfully tell me I need to look outside the mainstream to find the good music. "I don't have time/energy/money to seek out good music" is a very different and more accurate proposition than "music basically sucks") (I'm going off on a tangent sorry)
Just to add - his description of "the cell" doesn't actually require isolation in nature, which one reviewer interpreted it as. It's more accessible than that. It would require a permanent corner or nook where you won't be disturbed, but that would be enough)
It's not that heavy a focus. I think the author's point that people expect teachers to make them feel good and motivate them rather than challenge them is valid. Look at all the heat Josephine McCarthy gets for saying things like "Quareia requires sustained effort; if you cannot put in sustained effort right now, you shouldn't do Quareia right now".
But the guru tradition has been so prone to corruption and abuse that I'm not convinced "do what the teacher says even if you're uncomfortable with it" is the answer either. However, this question is only a small part of the book, so there's no real need to debate its merits.
It's not extensive, but it's appropriately in support of the message of the text. (I haven't practiced any if it if that isn't obvious). They are largely meditative, inviting in certain experiences.
Holy Guardian Angel stuff
This would be appropriate for anyone currently seeking out conversation and knowledge of the HGA. He doesn't use that terminology in any way, ever, but he talks a lot about walking towards the Solar part of your soul, plus stuff like this:.
Deep within the darkness of the Desert of the Soul and the gnostic isolation of the Cell rests an ancient self-luminous Flame. This sacred fire is the eternal companion throughout all phases of incarnated existence, as well as the protector at the mysterious time of departure from the corporeal realm. Luciform in essence, liberating in resonance, this sacred Flame grants specific blessings and empowerments ranging from unique visionary encounters, far beyond simple imaginative visualizations, to the discovery of mystical maps and esoteric keys hidden deep within the mind-space and corporeal soil.
The overall aim of the book is connection and integration with the above, so you can see why I would think it was at least supportive of HGA work
Ritual language
The language of the rituals doesn't speak to me, although it's not awful. There's a bit of that nursery rhyme quality to it.
"Tumty-tumty-tumty night
Tumty-tumty-tumty bright"
(The tumtys are filler text I put in to demonstrate rhythm! It doesn't say tumty in the book!)
But these aren't words of power, you could tweak them. Anyway this is so subjective. It's definitely useable, not cringey.
The imaginary vs the imaginal
Another strong focus of the book is he says that practitioners have become obsessed by and deluded by imaginary images (eg stuff you might see in guided meditations or pathworking etc) and lost track of the imaginal (real things encountered in the astral. Not like remote viewing, still encounters with spirits or deep mind or whatever, but these ones are real. Like much of the book, his criticisms are valid (the new age movement has got swept up in imaginary saccharine daydreams) but his conclusions are too narrow and self-oriented. You can't help but come away with the impression that he thinks "the things I imagine are real aka "the imaginal", the things other people imagine are illusions aka "the imaginary".
But he also has some interesting philosophical things to say about the nature of imagined vision that are worthwhile
I want to be clear that I don't need every writer to put in "this is just my opinion, just what works for me, you do you" at the start of every chapter. That annoys me, and readers should be capable of hearing about another person's experience without getting mad because it doesn't match theirs.
But Craig is specifically going on a lot of "what is wrong with the world" rants which are a combination of valid criticism and , I don't know, cognitive solipsism
Overall
Despite the negativity of the above, I think there's some really good stuff in here. I think the practices seem worthwhile. His explanation/version of Lectio Divina would be of value to anyone, regardless of how interested they are in the rest of the work. It's just negatives tend to create more word count than positive, because the positive doesn't need picking apart. The good bits are good!
The ugly streak I mentioned left a sour taste in my mouth, but I think there's a very good book underneath/intertwined with that.
He says the whole book is crucial (that it's
written to induce and trigger certain ideas) but if I was working with it, I would probably need to strip all that out
A warning: if you're thinking "that all sounds fine, I don't like people much either" - consider that that makes you MORE vulnerable to misanthropia, not less. Read it with an awareness of how it's colouring your perceptions
I'm very grateful to beardedeldridge for sharing this work, because it had been on my radar for a long time, but I'd been hesitant for reasons that turned out to be roughly correct
Book – PDF - Entering the Desert: Pilgrimage into the Hinterlands of the Soul - Craig Williams
DOWNLOAD LINK The landscape of the Soul is a feral hunting ground of shadows and light, each morphing into translucent bodies of nourishment or destruction, depending upon the topographic Vision of the desert dweller. Entering the Desert explores the Terra Incognito of the Soul and reveals a...
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