Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth: An Introduction to Spiritual Ecology [Paperback]

I have always found what John Michael Greer says thought provoking, and this book is no different. The premise itself is intriguing. He sets out to derive laws from ecology that are in harmony with modern mystery school traditions, hence the title of the book.

He begins the book by detailing seven laws drawn from the world of ecology and shows how they can be applied to personal development. Each law comes with a meditation to help readers to see how the law applies to themselves and the objects around them. I was especially struck by the Law of Limits and its claim that power and beauty come from limitation. My marriage, for example, is an exercise in limitation.

He goes on to describe ritual magic (not the stuff of stage magicians and fantasy novel wizards). His explanation of the mechanisms of magic and what real-life mages do helped even me, an avowed materialist, to see how magic might be something I would want to do. He piqued my interest.

Later he dispels some of the misconceptions surrounding the mystery schools. He details some of their methods - such as meditation, initiation, and the keeping of secrets - and how these methods foster personal evolution.

In his last chapter, he applies mystery school teachings to the evolution of human societies as a whole.

The Afterward offers a helpful list of books for any bibliophile interested in learning more about the mystery traditions.

My strongest criticism is that throughout the book the author presents the mystery schools almost as if they speak with one voice which incidentally agrees with what the author has to say. I have no expertise in this area to contradict him, but I suspect that he has oversimplified a diverse tradition.

The book also left me wishing it said more about specific mystery schools, but as the author points out, there are thousands of them. It might be difficult to cover just a few while leaving out many others. Maybe it was better to keep that genie in the bottle.

This was a quick read that will be provoking thought for a long time to come. It probably lives in an odd niche in the book world, but it hit a sweet spot for me.

John Michael Greer has authored a remarkable collection of some twenty books and many articles over his decades-long career. As a peak-oil historian, novelist, longtime blogger, archdruid of an American-based Druid order (the AODA), practicing mage and cultural critic, Greer continues to deliver deep insight and uncommon sense, salted with his own wry brand of humor. This latest book is a worthy addition to his growing body of work, and its comparative brevity (140 pages) should in no way obscure its value. In a very real sense, what is left unwritten here is for us to fill in with what we actually do with his provocative ideas.

Greer draws on tested hermetic and mystery traditions (hence the title) and more recently the text of W. W. Atkinson's book The Kybalion (1912) to recast seven ancient principles of spiritual law in ecological terms. (It may not be mere coincidence that this year is the centenary of that earlier book's publication.) With an explanatory section and accompanying meditation for each law, Greer expands on each principle to demonstrate how it plays out in daily experience. These deceptively simply principles have not changed in millennia, and civilizations including our own ignore them at their own peril. With environmental degradation at an all-time high, Greer's revisioning of these principles as the underpinnings of ecology is insightful, timely and valuable.

Just as valuable, given the current hype and hysteria over the supposed 2012 apocalypse (how quickly we forget all the previous ones that didn't happen!), is how Greer takes apart the misunderstanding and half-application of some of these principles in poorly-founded New Age thinking and careless interpretations of end-time mythologies. In its place these principles continue to offer sound (though less sensational) guidance.

Finally, in three chapters on the spiritual ecology of magic, initiation and history, Greer links the limits and potentials expressed in spiritual law to inherent human capacities for development and change. As Greer observes, "the laws of nature are the laws of spirit." As we come to terms with the hard limits of industrial civilization and a finite planet, ideas like these point the way to surviving and thriving through both the easy and rough times ahead.

Ecologist and Druid John Greer believes that in today's world we can most easily find the ancient secrets of the universe by observing the workings of the natural world. Detaching from nature has caused an imbalance which has resulted in a mass search for deeper meaning. Greer teaches that putting that search back into the context of natural systems will produce more answers than trying to force natural systems to accommodate our intentions.

According to Greer, the true mystery schools are, and always have been, small groups which meet quietly to pass on the secrets of raising consciousness in order to further universal spiritual evolution. They are not, he says, large, profit-generating organizations offering quick fixes and instant gain. The true laws of the Universe, he tells us, are natural not human-determined. We don't create reality. We were created by the reality in which we live. We can make changes to that reality by changing our consciousness, but changing consciousness requires work, lots of work, and it must always take into account the balance of the system within which we function. When someone focuses on accumulating money rather than on the natural flow of money through their world, it creates an imbalance that will eventually circle back into their life. The recent cycle of bubble and bust has been a perfect example of that.

If all this makes the book sound like a downer, please know, that it is just the opposite. While reading it, I began to feel as if a great weight was being lifted off my shoulders. It's a great comfort to be told that you are part of something that grows and changes and heals itself as it moves everything within itself to a higher level. Our world has a natural order -- Greer describes it as the Laws of Wholeness, Flow, Balance, Limits, Cause and Effect, Planes, and Evolution -- which will carry us along no matter how we participate in it.

This book is a gentle gift -- filled with insight, meditations, and affirmations -- which can quietly put the reader onto a path that will truly change his or her life.

(InannaWorks.com received a free review copy of this book.)