When I first saw the title of this book, I was as excited as a kid on Christmas eve. Teleportation has been a personal holy grail for me for as long as I can remember, and information on this ability is scarce.
My excitement faded quickly once I started reading. When the entirety of chapter one consisted of excerpts from "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" I was worried.
When Chapter Two set out to explain what Teleportation is by defining everything from Alchemy to Telekinesis and saying teleportation is not any of those, I was fairly sure this book had nothing to offer. Devoting Chapter three to reasons why you might want to teleport confirmed that opinion. It felt to me a lot like their book contract had a page requirement and they desperately needed to fill space.
I was quite impressed by chapter four however: I didn't think it was possible to be more disappointed than I had been up to this point, and yet they managed. Chapter four was devoted to the question of "Who can teleport", and it was filled with a list of "Movers and Shifters". No, not names, case studies or historical references to people who can or have done teleportation... Names of people in Music, Law, Business, Education and Civil Rights who did things differently from their contemporaries.
I'll concede to the be successful at teleportation you need to change your paradigm and learn to start thinking in a different way. Maybe that was their point, but I can't be sure. What I was sure of is that by now was half way through a 125 page book and the only thing I have gained is a lack of confidence that the authors have any clue at all on the subject. This suspicion was later confirmed in a story of two supposed "Teleporters" who were surprised to encounter one another, but as soon as I read the one say to the other "You are not supposed to be able to see me", and the other said "Not unless we are both teleporting" I seemed to me that this particular excerpt was describing Astral Projection, not teleportation. If the authors can't tell the difference, they shouldn't be writing a book on the subject.
I was willing to forgive all of this if Chapter five "How Do You Teleport?" provided even a single useful clue to the art and act of teleportation because that chapter is the only reason that I bought the book, but there was no substance here either. The ten steps they listed are absolutely useless. While I'm sure some of the things they recommend actually play a part in the act of teleportation, advice like "Know and Go, "State your intentions" and "see yourself already there" are not particularly helpful to the uninitiated.
The color plates in the center of the book continued a firmly established trend of irrelevance. I'm fairly certain that the pictures of dolphins, Stonehenge, Hawaii and the Bimini islands were included so that the Authors could write off the expenses from their vacations.
This book is quite easily the weakest in my occult collection. For more useful, practical information on learning to teleport, Jonathan Livingston Seagull really does have much more to offer. |
