The Corona Transmissions

This stimulating book consists of alternatives for engaging with Covid-19, 'from physical to metaphysical.' There are 35 contributions consisting of stories, poetry, inspirations, medical information and healing modalities, and interdisciplinary analyses where the standout essays are by Richard Grossinger and Charles Eisenstein. Richard weaves together multiple and conflicting narratives and his message is to seek common ground on the basis that the virus has brought to light many long incubating crises as well as the limits and hazards of dominant scientific and medical approaches. Some readers may already be familiar with Charles' essay The Coronation – rereading it a year on reinforces its importance and originality; it can be found online on his website. Two of the main themes are the reflex for control and the war on death.

Charles points out that Covid-19 is a crisis for which control ostensibly works, with an identifiable enemy, but more interesting is his contention that progress 'is a matter of extending control onto the world', in pursuit of which we now have much more sophisticated technology permitting technocratic totalitarianism. A second trend is the obsession with safety, security and risk reduction for the separate self – yet we live in a matrix of relationships. And a focus on reducing numbers of deaths raises the question of other values such as freedom and community, especially with the danger of temporary emergency measures becoming permanent in the name of protection. The fundamental question is whether we opt for a path towards 'greater insulation, isolation, domination and separation' – based on fear – or turn to 'a path of reunion, of holism, of the restoring of lost connections, of the repair of community and the rejoining of the web of life….building an intentional society on the love already shining through the cracks of the world of separation,'