This Month's Book Reviews

The Long Journey Home

by Dr. George Catlin. DeVorss & Company, 2007, 96 pages, $9.95.

Where are you headed? Is that really where you want to go?

In his second small but potent book, psychologist and educator Dr. George Catlin gives us this homework assignment: stop! meditate! answer these two essential questions – if you can!

Catlin’s experience is that most of us don’t know where we’re headed, nor even where we came from (besides the obvious “New York,” “LA,” etc.). Yet it is the latter – remembering who we really are and where we came from – that is the very purpose of life.

“Home” is our Source and “life” is the long journey back to it. How soon we get there and what we endure along the way is our choice and our challenge.

Catlin employs a blend of modern psychology and ancient wisdom teachings to steer us to the path of return. From the mainstream psychological angle, he explains: “All the pain and all the beliefs we have built up about ourselves and the world, as a result of the pain, keep us from the soul. We have to let them all go.” Today, there are a number of techniques that can help us to eliminate this “backlog of sorrow” and clear the way for real spiritual progress.

From the ancient wisdom teachings we learn about the ultimate goal of human experience; the unity of all life and what that means in today’s global village; the seven energetic streams that qualify all life and give us different skills and temperaments; the role of meditation and service in transforming our personal lives; how to use the Law of Invocation and Evocation to bring positive, uplifting energies into the world-at-large; teachers, ancient and modern, who offer us tried and true methods of understanding ourselves and the Path; and the One who comes now as a World Teacher for all humanity to guide us through the present chaos into a golden age.

The final chapter might be considered our first-semester exam, as we answer a series of questions dealing with the central points of each chapter – designed to convert information into commitment and action. “The first step is to commit consciously to the journey. Once we have done that, all that is needed will be provided.”

Reviewed by Lynne Girdlestone

Past phenomeNEWS Book Reviews