Gordon White's sequel to his acclaimed Star.Ships is a book of adventure and encounter, of optimism and healing. Ani.Mystic: Encounters with a Living Cosmos is, explicitly, a magician's book, a dreaming book, one which aims to fundamentally shift the discourse within the western magical tradition. Gordon explains, 'the sole preoccupation of this book is exploring and uncovering animism as a dangerous category of European thought...' Gordon begins by giving the standard definition of animism as 'the belief that the world is made up of persons, only some of whom are humans,' before taking us with him 'to its farthest epistemological hinterlands.' In dialogue with teachers of Indigenous knowledge, spirits, angels, star people, saints, plants, and beast masters and mothers, Gordon weaves a new story of trans-species collaboration and custodianship. To get to that point, he interrogates and dismantles a series of constructs: materialist-naturalism, the notion of invasive species, the nature-culture divide and the binaries of domestic vs wild and forest vs garden, and the concept of 'animism' itself. We are then shown what it means to think with Deep Time, with Country and in Ceremony. Solutions and best practice are drawn from dialogue with the cultures he partakes in and the disciplines of magic and permaculture. Our journey begins in an airport hotel bar in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and the story unfolds through encounters with forest spirits, shark gods and cities of the dead. From stone altars in Micronesia, ancestral Maori pa, and Aboriginal songlines to lecturing on UFOs at the Guggenheim in New York and avenging angels in London, the journey gathers momentum. We experience songlines, fire storms and rain dragons in Tasmania, and are finally brought into ceremony with Ayahuasca in Peru. In walking in the magician's footsteps, the candour of his heartbreaks and triumphs, we are invited to come into right relation, toward the cosmic aim of mutual flourishing.
✔ Author(s): Gordon White
✔ Title: Ani.Mystic: Encounters with a Living Cosmos
✔ Rating : 4.8 out of 5 base on (78 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1912316579
✔ ISBN-13: 9781912316571
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about Ani.Mystic by Gordon White
Jillian Neel
The author's writing style is so captivating; I couldn't put the book down. Every sentence was beautifully crafted, and the descriptions painted vivid images in my mind. A true literary gem.
Beata Shepard
I loved the powerful messages hidden within the story. The book tackled important social issues and made me ponder the world we live in. It's a must-read for everyone.
Sarah Franklin
The author's ability to evoke a wide range of emotions through their words is truly remarkable. I felt like I was on an emotional rollercoaster throughout the entire book.
