The Restorative Spirit

The Restorative Spirit is the third in a series of books beginning with The Unselfish Spirit and followed by The Visionary Spirit. This new book is a profound eco-psycho-spiritual reflection and a compelling call to action as we navigate our species-created evolutionary crisis that challenges us to recognise its fundamentally spiritual nature. This entails multi-faceted and systemic responses inviting us to reconnect with the imaginal depths, our conscience, the Divine, the Earth and each other in community. Mick weaves together his personal story with other striking illustrations of divine or metaphysical interventions while drawing on the work of a wide range of thinkers, including of 19^th-century spiritist Allan Kardec, Carl Jung, Peter Kingsley, Amy Mindell, Peter Deunov and St Padre Pio, who makes a number of appearances.

A number of stories make it clear that Padre Pio had clairvoyant insight into the character and motivations of those who came to see him, and acted accordingly in order to put them back on a spiritual track. Sometimes, the information comes from the next world: the spirit of the man gave his name to Padre Pio and said that he had died in room four after falling asleep with the cigarette in his mouth. He asked for Holy Mass to be said for his soul, and when Padre Pio checked up the information, the name and incident were both found to be true. This can also involve family members. Another story involved a man arriving at a monastery with a large amount of olive oil, offering to return a large olive tree located on the border of their properties. The father had died the month before and had appeared three times in great torment with this message. This is an illustration of what Mick calls an illumination of conscience. Another incident involved the stern appearance of a grandfather to his grandson materialising a pile of objects that he had stolen as a burglar. He then has a feeling of asphyxiation and cries out for mercy. Later, he begins to pray and go to church, and his grandfather reappears with a much kindlier expression, recommending him to go to a particular church and pray without ceasing.

The stories are indications of a deeper moral order at work, which is also apparent in the NDE life review and is implicit in any higher spiritual teaching, including from spiritist sources where love is the supreme law and principle. This corresponds to ‘the further reaches of our human nature’ which have to be activated if we are to make a successful transition to a restorative culture. Here we each have a role to play, first in dealing with our own shadow and projections that also have a collective dimension. Mick notes the distinction at the root of the dispute between Athanasius and Arius. The former advocated homoousios where Christ is consubstantial with God, while the latter added an extra letter making homoiousios implying that Jesus was born human but became unified with God; grace versus responsibility and free will but involving a death-rebirth process.

Another important theme related to the illumination of conscience is forgivenes, also involving repentance for past misdeeds. Having just spent a week in Chartres with Eve Ensler, I would add apology to this process, as her own story of abuse by her father dramatically illustrates; this also includes self-forgiveness. Given the extent of accumulated and ongoing trauma in the world, such a psychospiritual undertaking is absolutely essential, all the more so with deep social divisions and projection of the negative on the other. In this respect, Mick takes evil seriously as a force that may ultimately lead to awakening and transformation. Socially, this must involve a process of restorative justice to reach beyond vengeance, and Mick observes that this is based on spiritual qualities such as ‘a common human bond, connectedness, belonging, forgiveness, repentance, rituals and transformation.’ (p. 111, italics in the original)

As with all books are holding out the possibility of spiritual awakening, its actualisation is uncertain by definition, but we do need a positive vision along with a route map towards it, which Mick provides here. This is especially important at a time of such widespread soul loss and the corresponding erosion of moral foundations ‘through fear, greed, selfishness and control, which are the opposites of love, generosity, charity and service.’ (p. 174) He quotes Jung to the effect of that the psyche is ‘always trying to serve our wholeness via restorative opportunities’ so that we achieve ‘a renewed understanding of conscience–consciousness’ (p. 153) in service to the whole. He argues that we should put soul progression at the centre of our existence with a view to tackling both people and planetary degradation, since the outer is mirrored in the inner, and ultimately God is not mocked. We are each answerable to our own deeper nature.

Mick is a wise and deeply humane guide to the necessary individual and collective transmutations that are light years beyond superficial technical fixes based on current trajectories, and he shows us how we can all play our part. Full of inspiring stories and key insights, this is sure to be recognised as one of the most important and inspirational books of the year.