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 The Ecstatic Journey by Sophy Burnham.
(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com) This book examines Burnham's personal spiritual journey. Raised Episcopalian, she slid into atheism to be more like her husband. During 20 years of marriage, her secret attachment to prayer led to a yearning to "know God." Then a journalism assignment sent her to a sacred site in Peru where she had a revelation that merged her briefly with God and showed light pouring off people and the landscape. Returning home, she ended her marriage and devoted herself to further progression on her spiritual path. I respected the book for its collected information on the mystical experience. Also, aside from Sinetar's book Ordinary People As Monks And Mystics, there aren't many books about contemporary mystics living in today's society. On the other hand, I found aspects of this book hard to like. Some of my uneasiness centers on her falling "intensely, violently, passionately" in love with an Englishman she met on her Peru trip even though she and he were married to different people - and she saw no problem with visiting him later in England. She doesn't include the reactions of anyone else but her: not the Englishman, not his wife, not her husband, not her children, not his children if he had any. She does mention in connection with her children that she left out their reactions to protect their privacy, which excuses the book's solipsistic feel. Even so, it avoids exploring material that could have been extremely comforting and valuable to other spiritual seekers: what happens when your loved ones don't understand the "new you" after a mystical experience? I wish she had given us some sharper details on her own experience: some of her journal entries perhaps or some actual anecdotes or conversations. Instead she kept the book kind of "academic" with summary bits of her own life intruding only to shape the collected information on mysticism. So, yes, I recommend the book. But with some reservations. You can find it on Amazon through this link:
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