The Journey Across Forever: A Magical Provocative Odyssey Across the Ages, Around the World & into the Great Beyond

Poet Saalman (The Dream Illuminati) takes readers on an unconvincing tour through parascience, parapsychology, and paraspirituality in this scattershot essay collection. One entry probes the possibility of reincarnation, touching on Buddhist views of enlightenment, near-death experiences, and the possible existence of “mysterious, shapeshifting” extraterrestrials; another wends its way from the inevitability of death to the importance of satire and irony in dealing with life’s “complex issues,” to the idea that the soul is embodied in the world to learn some undescribed lesson. Elsewhere, he ponders the value of thinking “outside the box” spiritually, considers near-death experiences and UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomena), and raises “the possibility that we are all ‘psychic’ to some extent.” While Saalman’s underlying belief that humans would be wise to examine their received reality and spiritual assumptions is worth considering, his technique of collecting bits and pieces of evidence from various spiritual, religious, and scientific traditions doesn’t do much to fortify his case and generally leads to a less than coherent line of reasoning. Even those perpetually on the spiritual searcher’s path will be puzzled. (July)