Books (September 2007)

Freddy Silva. Secrets In The Fields: The science and mysticism of crop circles, Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads 2002.  332 pp $19.959 pp refs  Richly illustrated

Freddy Silva was an art director, writer and photographer who worked in graphic design by profession, and an avid student of Earth Mysteries. In 1990 he was smitten with curiosity when he saw a photo of a crop circle. He has devoted much of his time since then to a passionate study of these fascinating messages from as yet unidentified sources.

Silva is keenly aware of the general skepticism that many hold about crop circles. The media have trumpeted the claims of a few people that they have created these patterns in crops in England and elsewhere, generating doubt and leading many people to dismiss all of the crop circles as hoaxes. Silva goes to great lengths to dispel these doubts. He marshals a host of facts and arguments that provide very strong support for his contention that these are mysterious creations of as yet unknown sources. Challenging the credibility of hoaxers’ claims are the following observations:· 

• The numbers (many dozens each year), sizes (some 700 feet in diameter), precision and complexity of designs of many of the crop circles in England make it extremely unlikely that any person or group of people could produce them.

     (See more in IJHC, September 2007)

Tess Castleman. Threads, Knots, Tapestries: How a tribal connection is revealed through dreams and synchronicities. St Paul, MN: Daimon Verlag  2004.

Threads, Knots, Tapestries was a great delight to read and savor. Castleman has the courage to explore and report upon collective consciousness with her clients in dream group therapy like no one else I have ever known. Where most dream therapy groups have the participants discussing and analyzing each others’ dreams, Castleman’s participants actually dream each others’ dreams – not just each other’s issues.

Castleman recommends groups of 7 clients, meeting in one of three formats:
Once weekly for 1 hour – allowing one client to share a dream and then others relate to it;
Once every 2 weeks for 3 hours – allowing processing of up to 6 dreams; and
Once monthly for 7 hours – only for therapists, as this is a very intense format, in which each participant usually shares in some depth at every meeting.

Castleman finds that the depths of intimate disclosure and sharing of personal, individual psychological processes brings group participants very close together. They begin to find that they are dreaming each others’ dreams. That is, one or more clients at a given session and/or the therapist may have dreams that clearly reflect the content and process of another group participant’s life situation and issues. Often, personal and intimate details of the other person’s life – both recent and past – appear in these dreams. Castleman’s metaphoric style is lively and engaging.

Tess Castleman. Threads, Knots, Tapestries: How a tribal connection is revealed through dreams and synchronicities

It takes some time on the potter’s wheel before the vessel is ready to sit on the fire. Dream group is much like crafting a cauldron; it needs to be watertight, able to withstand high heat, and ultimately fulfill its purpose of being able to “cook the stew.” (p. 4)

In addition to collective dreaming, group members begin to find they have remarkable coincidences in their lives that link them even more closely to the group. They may encounter each other unexpectedly outside the group in highly unlikely places; discover that they have acquaintances and occurrences appear simultaneously with a frequency that suggests more than random, chance interactions and overlapping of separate events.   

  (See more in IJHC, September 2007)