The World: A Magical Flight through the Tarot, and a Modern Quest for Initiation Kindle Edition

This book hit me in the gut from the get go, as I have a friend from childhood that developed schizophrenia. This is a journey of huge imagination - meandering, dark, weird and wonderful.I did, however, in places find it too dream-like for my taste, with sentences morphing too dramatically for me to form solid imagery of what I was reading.This was when Arkin was deep in the magical world, when his mind went completely haywire.My favourite parts were before Arkin entered the magical world, and the times when he returned from it. It was really interesting to see the way he struggled to cope in the real world, and the way he integrated his experienced.

.Rich with imagery and symbolism..it kept me reading. I just wasnt sure what a lot of the symbolism was for and i wanted more connection to reality..but that was probably just my lack of knowledge in this field.

Profound, unique and very deep. The author has a great knowledge of the mythology that is well depicted throughout the journey of the main hero. It's an eye opening book for everyone who is alert enough and ready for spiritual awareness in his, her own life.

The World describes the metaphysical journey of Arkin from initiation to Magus through the structure of the four suits and the twenty-two major arcana of the Tarot deck. Arkin, the protagonist, may be schizophrenic; the voices he hears and the obsessions he has may be related to his emerging schizophrenia, or, they may be the manifestations of power that he is too frightened to embrace.The World can be read allegorically, or it can be read as straight-forward fantasy, although my preference is for the former interpretation. Drawing on Norse, Christian, classical and Yoruba mythologies (those were the ones I recognized, at least), Arkin's journey through the labyrinth of his neurology, or through the labyrinth of initiation and testing, to his ultimate goal, is written in a mix of prose poetry, stream of consciousness, and straight-forward prose, not always the easiest read but one worth pursuing.Just before I read The World I had - coincidentally - been reading about the religious experiences of subjects using mescaline or peyote in Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception. There are strong similarities to parts of Arkin's journey, although I do not think the book is an indictment or an endorsement of the use of mind-altering drugs. Instead, I read The World as a alternative interpretation of differences in perception that the Western world sees as mental illness. I kept thinking of the classic (but very different) work of the 1960's, Joanne Greenberg's I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, which also delved into the mind of a young schizophrenic patient, and how she also communicated with gods and angels.The World will not be a book for everyone. It isn't, as I said, an easy read, and a knowledge of at least the basic symbolism of western – and other - religions is likely necessary to appreciate Arkin's journey. I suspect I missed a fair bit, but understood enough to appreciate the roles that most of the beings that appear to Arkin played. The use of the Tarot deck to frame and structure the story is interesting. Many years ago I read – somewhere – that the purpose of a Tarot deck was to help the person for whom the reading was being done to break out of their automatic ways of thinking and search for new interpretations of what was happening in their life – in very simplistic terms, to help them see that what they thought of as a barrier might actually be a door. That interpretation of Tarot and Arkin's initiatory journey through the card's symbols resonated for me.I'm updating The World to five stars: structural issues that had resulted in a 4 star review from me in January 2016 have been addressed, to the betterment of the book.Review by Marian Thorpe, Amazon Author Empire's Daughter (Empire's Legacy Book 1)The author provided me with a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

In all its unreality, this book is one of the most real I have ever read. It reminded me of The Little Prince and The Magus (Fowles).In the beginning of the novel, the protagonist, Arkin, finds a manifesto called "Initiation". It was this manifesto that made me sure I wanted to read the whole book. I recognised myself in the description of the initiatory crisis.Arkin is diagnosed as being either a schizophrenic or somewhere between normal and schizophrenic. But the more I read and think about it, the more convinced I become that we are all somewhere on that scale, and that anyone who would read and understand this book would recognise him or herself in Arkin's struggle.This book took me through a rainbow of emotions as I lived inside Arkin's head and listened to his sometimes crazed thoughts. He lives so much pain but also beauty, and the humility of standing in front of something far far greater than himself. The image from The Chariot really struck me, as Arkin creates worlds of reality through writing, propelling words from a typewriter whilst his angel supports him from the back of the chariot as they cruise through the night sky together.As another reviewer said, the highest form of using the tarot cards is one of contemplation. I love that each chapter is a tarot card. Each one is a perspective through which you can contemplate yourself. This is a very compressed book, and is a lot to take in. I would recommend people to read even just one chapter and see themselves or something in their life through that prism, because even one chapter can be a lot to take in at one time. This is a short book but so bursting with meaning that I opted to take my time reading it.As the Angel tells Arkin, once Arkin has got to the point when he is ready to hear it:"Be a creator of worlds. Take this World and manifest it in what used to be quotidian existence until you see meaning everywhere, and everything you do is meaningful."