CALL ME MAGGIE

By and large, Talat’s story shares with the reader two distinct possibilities for our contemporary culture: transformation and healing. The two coincide: one wave piles over the other as it recedes, unveiling the shadows, traumas, and shifting world views necessary to cross the gulf of Dark Night – or Robert Anton Wilson’s “Chapel Perilous” – that fine line between madness and mysticism. His story begins with initiation and ends with a calling, extending to the reader the same possibilities in his or her own life.

This journey – of transformation, trauma, and healing – is one shared by hundreds, perhaps thousands the world over. In the prologue, Talat tells us how he asks a group: “How many of you feel that you are personally experiencing some initiatory or healing process?” To which many raised their hands in solidarity. If I understood Talat correctly, this is the point of the whole book. We are, in…