A Story Waiting to Pierce You

This slim volume by Peter Kingsley seems to have one or two possible effects on the reader. The first response is to say "yes" to what it contains, and pass on. The second response is to read the book, and then to read it again, so that you become well and truly pierced. The story pierced me and then became lodged under my skin. Like me, you have probably puzzled as to why ancient Greek civilisation burst forth at the time of Pythagoras in 570 BCE, and why this flowering of ancient Greek culture gave rise to western civilisation. This book follows on from Kingsley's two previous books—In the Dark Places of Wisdom and Reality—in offering a systematic answer to these questions. It, too, reads like a story. But Kingsley has provided an extensive collection of notes which indicate his scholarship and careful research into the source of what he writes about. These notes take up half the book, which is well crafted with delightful drawings at the beginning of each section. This new volume describes a messenger, Abaris from beyond the Altai Mountains in Central Asia, who brings a sacred arrow to Pythagoras and teaches Pythagoras with the aid of Apollo—himself a god of Central Asian origin—the esoteric wisdom from the ancient ones in Mongolia. In the past this arrow was meant to pierce and transform, and in the present the arrow may pierce the reader. Once pierced the reader finds himself or herself compelled to read this book several times, so that this story becomes firmly embedded. I found the story was like a fable, such as R. L. Stevenson's fable "The Song of the Morrow", which lodged in the memory and continues to have an effect upon the reader. For those interested in the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, this book is important. There was once much speculation amongst these groups as to the origin of Ouspensky's and Gurdjieff's teachings. This book reveals the probable source of their esoteric knowledge. In this book there are references to the Green Man and Naqshbandi Sufis. We have a Green Man over the entrance to our house. I once met a Naqshbandi young man in a pub in Oxford. After talking and sharing the Mevlevi turning 'dance', he gave me an eastern empty photograph album. Subsequently, as I filled this book with photographs, I remembered this young Sufi who was a light in the Oxford darkness. What Peter Kingsley describes in this book is a unique kind of magic, which makes it possible for each of us to enjoy a certain kind of remembering. He writes: "Remembering is simply a matter of recollecting the essence of ourselves—of gathering our own finest pollen into the present for the sake of the future. … And this time the surprises arrive from the West instead of the East—although not from the West as Europe. They come from the West as America, where west of west turns out to be east of east." This is perhaps where the next awakening is to be found? All in all, prepare to be affected by this story by Peter Kingsley.