It’s been quite an adventure, but we finally finished writing Real Energy: Systems, Spirits, and Substances to Heal, Change, and Grow. So all of you who’ve pre-ordered copies can relax—it’s really going to get published! 🙂
We had no idea how much we had bitten off a year ago when the publishers first came to us with the idea, “How about a book about all the different kinds of energy that people work with? You know, mana and prana, orgone energy and odic force, reiki and crystal power, chi and ki, divine power and nature spirits, etc.? It would make a great book!”
We wanted to compare all these different sorts of “mystic energies” with what mainstream physicists know about energy, so we could make a stab at determining which of the mystic energies, if any, were properly called “energies,” and which were just relationships between ideas or even metaphors. We thought it would take us about six months to write—hah!
First we had to learn the basics of quantum physics, without any math skills… Then we had to find reliable sources on a dozen different topics and unlearn everything we thought we knew about Chinese mysticism and healing… Then we had to investigate a bunch of historical materials about obsolete energy terms… It turned into a perfect example of the magical law of infinite data!
Finally we turned in the manuscript a few days ago (we’ve been recovering since). We’ll probably have to do some additional bits of writing once the copy-edits are done, but at least the production process can now kick into high gear. The current release date is March 15th, 2007.
In the meantime, I’ll be doing a serious rearrangement and update to Rites of Worship, which Llewellyn will be publishing in late 2007 as Neopagan Rites: A Guide to Worship Rituals that Work. This will have most of the polytheological material moved to appendices and the practical how-to stuff up front. I’ll also be including a new chapter on using music and poetry in ritual (originally published in Witchcraft: A Concise Guide), with sheet music! If this one sells well, there’s a good chance Llewellyn will also consider publishing my other ritual books, Rites of Passage and Rites of Intensification.
In the meantime, meantime, this is the year I’m finally going to make all the Adobe Illustrator files for the divination deck I designed some thirty years ago. This is a multilingual, multicultural collection of archetypal images most useful for practical divination work. No publisher is lined up for this one yet, as the publishers seem to want to see all of the artwork done before they commit—imagine that! 🙂
Those of you who would like pre-order a copy of Real Energy can use these links:
Amazon.com or Walmart.com.
an autographed copy: