Contents
Foreword by Richard Tarnas x–xi
Preface xii–xvii
Chapter 1 What I do is Me 1–14
Anne-Marie and the importance of every human story. Growing up and growing down. Memory and forgetting. Tappings from ‘the other side’.
Chapter 2 Quest and Questions 15–26
Listening to the inner voice. Our sense of the truth. Awakeners. Glimpes into the work of Leo Tolstoy, PierreTeilhard de Chardin and Rudolf Steiner.
Chapter 3 Take One 27–44
Early films with John Betjeman. Celebration of the ordinary. Inspiration, doubt and certainty.
Chapter 4 Footprints 45–55
Tilting at windmills. Road to a legend. Frankenstein. The Little Prince meets the desert fox. New horizons and a shift in consciousness. Creativity and vision at the BBC.
Chapter 5 A Fork in the Road 56–65
Confrontation with death. ‘Nothing can come out of nothing’. Inspiration without dependency. All Men Are Islands.
Chapter 6 Seen and Unseen 66–78
Steiner’s two worlds. Geometry, Goethe, and the herb gatherer. A philosophy of freedom.
Chapter 7 In Need of Special Care 79–90
Special needs, special children – a Camphill school in Scotland. Vienna meets Aberdeen. Relationships and empathy.
Chapter 8 Seeds for the Future 91–100
Adult life in a Camphill village. Work without wages. ‘A new Heaven and a new Earth’.
Chapter 9 No Ordinary Light 101–118
The end of an era, and a new vision. Gandhi’s life and work. Faith in our human potential.
Chapter 10 Worms and Angels 119–135
Schumacher’s A Guide for the Perplexed. The fourfold human being. Sleeping and waking.Correspondences between heaven and earth.
Chapter 11 Archaeologist of the Soul 136–149
Laurens van der Post on the life and work of C.G. Jung. Science, intuition and the psyche.
Chapter 12 The Pattern of God 150–163
Jung’s ‘memories, dreams, reflections’. His journeys into the past, and concerns for the future. The mystery that heals.
Chapter 13 Tolstoy’s Russia 164–183
War and peace. From riches to rags. Confession. Shoemaker, artist and conscience of the world.
Chapter 14 In Defence of the Stork 184–195
Myth and science. Physical birth and spiritual birth. The embryo, Creation, and the birth of Jesus.
Chapter 15 No Language but a Cry 196–209
Silence and the death of God. Betjeman ‘in quest of mystical experience’. The Management. Hope, doubt, and Sunday in London.
Chapter 16 Free to Love 210–222
Mythology of the bushmen with Laurens van der Post. A Golden Age – memory or premonition? Alienation, compassion, and the redemptive power of love.
The colour plate section can be found between pages 222 and 223
Chapter 17 Midstream 223–233
Challenges of mid-life. ‘Gate-crashing heaven’ in the Himalayas. Death of a Japanese admiral.
Chapter 18 Alone in the Desert 234–248
Medieval mysticism. The interconnectedness of God and Man. Alchemy and self-knowledge.
Chapter 19 Faith versus Reason 249–265
Astronomer Bernard Lovell’s telescope. ‘As a man is, so he sees’. Limits to knowledge? The devil in action, and that ‘disgusting paradox’ – a selfless self.
Chapter 20 A Question of Balance 266–278
Ying and Yang. Confucius and Lao-Tzu. Lucifer and Ahriman. The Long Search in Taiwan.
Chapter 21 The Living Earth 279–288
The Chinese earth god T’u-ti Kung. Clairvoyant consciousness and the supersensible world.
Chapter 22 Orthodox and Unorthodox 289–306
Easter in Romania. Old rituals, and the new physics. Is God dead, and did science kill him? Counterculture in California.
Chapter 23 The Everlasting Now 307–320
‘Making sense of our yesterdays’. Living in the moment. Only through time is time conquered.
Chapter 24 Ancient and Modern 321–335
Malcolm Muggeridge’s heaven. Disillusionment and faith. ‘Only dead fish swim with the tide’. Conversations with Solzhenitsyn, and with Stalin’s daughter Svetlana.
Chapter 25 The True Wilderness 336–347
John Betjeman in old age. ‘Eternity is around us all the time’. Idealism in India with Mark Tully. Harry Williams on loneliness, acceptance, ‘and the miracle of resurrection’.
Chapter 26 The Holy Fool 348–370
Life and work of the visionary artist Cecil Collins. ‘The saint, the poet, and the fool are one’. Walking among dragons.
Chapter 27 Seven Ages 371–390
Phases, turning-points, crises, triumphs and failures – the human journey with Ron Eyre. All the world’s a stage …
Chapter 28 Laughter and Tears 391–405
Does God have a sense of humour? Ask Alan Bennett or Posy Simmonds. Human creativity. Ups and downs at Camphill – fifty years on.
Chapter 29 The Emperor’s Clothes 406–428
The mystery of physical life. Evolution: God, Darwin and the exploration of new frontiers. The human being as microcosm of the macrocosm.
Chapter 30 Light in the Darkness 429–440
Another Christmas. Kings and Shepherds. Light and enlightenment. The tale of two healers.
Chapter 31 Inner Journeys 441–452
A search for meaning. Work and prayer. So Long to Learn. In the company of angels.
Chapter 32 In Search of Arcadia 453–474
A missionary in India. A voice from the bundu. By rail from London to the Peloponnese. Is travel an escape or a quest?
Chapter 33 Time to Learn 475–493
Amusing Ourselves To Death. The erosion of childhood. Education as a journey not a race.
Chapter 34 Our Ancestors were Us 494–511
Karma and reincarnation. One chapter in a longer story. Slaves of the past, masters of the future.
Chapter 35 Dying and Becoming 512–528
The Enduring Melody. Sleep as the little death. ‘Decay is the midwife of very great things’. Communion outside time and space. Guardians of the threshold.
Chapter 36 Heaven and Earth 529–542
Blessed Unrest – a global humanitarian movement. Compassion and eternal life. Individuation. Love as harmony made conscious. Christ’s sacrifice – ‘He made the earth his heaven’.
Acknowledgements 544–547
Bibliography 548–557
Index 558–566
