THE VISIONARY SPIRIT

This is the sequel to the author's The Unselfish Spirit of 2014 and is subtitled 'awakening to the imaginal realm in the Transformocene Age' - an apposite neologism for the times in which we live and proposing an existential mutation of the Anthropocene. The book itself is a transformational tour de force inviting readers to expand their ways of knowing beyond hyper-rationalist scientism and reconnect with the neglected and hidden imaginal realm through dreams, visions and synchronicity. This is all more important, since our predominant paradigm has repressed other ways of knowing embodied in the mythic, the sacred feminine and in indigenous traditions.

The book is very clearly structured in three parts: the imginal lineage, covering a critique of hyper-rational and epistemologically arrogant scientism, the mythic journey including the story of Parmenides, the sacred feminine, also in relation to the Earth, and what he calls eco-imaginal energies embodied in the relational worldview of indigenous cultures. The second part is entitled the redemptive quest, and deals with the global crisis in relation to the unexamined shadow as well as more generally with the nature of evil (we see the shadow every day on the news); also the thought experiment that we are all future ancestors, and working with the daimon – like Jung - towards a life of eudaemonia. The third part - the emancipatory edge - investigates the significance of the life review in the near death experience, Jung's active imagination in relation to imaginative action, the interaction between what he calls daimonic fate and angelic destiny, and finally 'the spiritual art of wu wu' - this is a nice transformation of the generic scientistic dismissal 'woo woo' to a new version of the traditional Chinese concept of wu wei representing work with least effort. Wu wu 'leads to a dynamic equilibrium between stillness and movement, where we are connected in wholeness to our ways of doing-being' (p. 243)

We often need to reach a crisis point before we ask more profound questions. The speed of modern life uproots us from the inner depths of the soul, distracting us with endless trivial diversions, so that we do not often hear life speaking to us from within and in synchronicities, of which Mick gives many personal examples, including some from his clients. Perhaps none is more telling than the synchronicity between a parade in Berlin for Mussolini and a lecture by Jung on the same day, especially given the theme of the shadow. The din of the procession was so great that Jung was obliged to stop speaking. When he could once again make himself heard, he remarked that 'world history and just passed beneath the window'. Mick also describes a very special synchronicity on a visit to Jung's Bollingen Tower on the shore of Lake Zürich.

Mick gives readers the tools, not only through his exposition but also in practical reflections and exercises (especially pp. 259-60), to make a personal contribution to this redemptive quest by engaging in shadow work, recognising human moral evil in ecocide, and accessing the daimon within in order to move beyond the cult of individual satisfaction to a 'more profound culture of collective awakening' (p. 253). His work is one of re-imagination, deepening and sacralising our relationship to nature. Importantly, he recognises the need to integrate the transpersonal with the transhuman in technologies of transformation that go beyond the robotic to a deep soul connection. This theme will become increasingly important, as Martin Rees also highlights in his recent book reviewed on this issue. It probes the very nature of the human being and reality, and the contrast between the terms transpersonal and transhuman highlights this. Manipulative instrumentalism must be kept in check by ethical review and deep reflection on human values.

It is clear that our overall human challenges are unprecedented and that our institutions are inadequate and unfit for purpose. As Mick inspiringly suggests, it is possible for each of us to exercise our visionary and redemptive capacities in the necessary passage through the birth canal from the Anthropocene to the Transformocene, an intense process of rebirth. Here we can become rainbow warriors: 'we can all play our part in a vision quest that awakens our visionary energies and connects us to a visionary spirit. This is the mythic actuality that gives birth to the Transformocene Age, which is ours to co-create. It starts right here, right now as love in action' (p. 261). This means being aware of the collective dimension of our individual lives and actions in this overall process of co-creation through more conscious, soulful and relational living.