David Spangler

Over thirty years ago, a small band of people began an intentional community called Findhorn. They lived by applying principles of attracting to oneself, through love, whatever materials, energy, or help were needed to promote wholeness or further growth. David Spangler, who was one of those early residents of Findhorn, began writing down how those laws worked. In 1975, his writings were first published as The Laws of Manifestation. Spangler shows how we can all transform our lives by working with these natural laws.… (more)

This must be one of Spangler’s best books – at least, it’s the best I’ve read so far. It is so exquisitely written and is thus a joy to read.

He covers all the various angles on blessing and gradually approaches the core of its art. He begins by recounting an episode he experienced at the age of twenty, when a woman asked him to give her a blessing. He had no idea how to do so, but knew he couldn’t refuse. He realized already on that occasion that “what was most needed was simple human caring and presence, a wonderfulness of being present to the other”. He understood that “it required nothing more magical or grandiose than meeting her halfway, for a blessing …. is a two-way street: not something someone does for someone else, but something we become together in order that a spirit may flow”.

In this first blessing of his “there was a sense of opening out to a vastness … a sense of something flowing”. The author himself felt blessed by the blessing.

He explains what is and is not a blessing; he distinguishes between blessings and acts of kindness. He comes to the conclusion that a blessing is a “gift given freely”; it carries a feeling of spaciousness.

He also explains the concept of “unobstructedness”. In the unobstructed world synchronicities abound. It is a condition in which “life and spirit flow in an unimpeded way”. The unobstructed world is also found in the “flow state”. In this world there are no barriers between “my heart and yours, my soul and yours, my power and creativity and yours”. It is this state that the author finds to be at the heart of blessing.

There is no single right way to carry out a blessing, no technique.

He divides the process of blessing into four steps: 1) Identification – where you identify yourself as someone capable of giving a blessing 2) Opening – this is opening oneself to the person to be blessed and to spirit, surrender to what wants or needs to happen. Out of this comes a clear sense of what to do. 3) Synthesis – this involves entering the “blessing place”, the state of mind in which one can give a blessing, where we “garb ourselves in the robes of the Blesser”. 4) The actual blessing.

He discusses what he terms “the empersonal spirit” (not to be confused with “impersonal spirit”). This is “the nourishing and transformative spiritual power that radiates from our ordinary, embodied personhood”.

Much of the book consists of wondrous exercises in the art of blessing, exercises which allow us to practice processes of “atonement and reflection”, which will enable us to enter the numinous state which is a precondition of blessing.

I find it exceedingly difficult to do justice to this book, which seems to have been composed not by the ordinary self of the author but by his Higher Self, if not his Soul. This is particularly apparent in the exercises he, or his Higher Self, has created. In all of these you go into your inner world, into your inner theatre, a place of stillness. Some of the exercises involve lighting candles physically, and finally imagining that you yourself are a candle and light yourself. This teaches you how to shift into an appropriate mood of benevolence and compassion, thus enabling you to enter the state required for blessing.

The exercises become more and more inspired and inspiring.

The book concludes with examples of blessings.

This is on the whole an inspired and inspiring book. I recommend it highly,… (more)

This is the best of Spangler's books I've read in this decade (many years ago I read several of his books and found them good but unfortunately can't now remember their content specifically).

The main content of the present book is David's advice as to how to tackle manifestation projects. This is presented in great detail and with a high level of spirituality.

David's process includes the following: creating a sacred space, invocation, silence, embracing current reality, attuning to coincidence and miracle, attuning to spirit and the sacred, contacting a spiritual ally, engaging in blessing, invoking presence and "boiling" reality, energizing the seed of the new you with love, etc etc. This is an inspiring and transformative process.

You will need to devote a lot of time/energy to the process, but I'm sure that if you prioritize this, you will be rewarded at least by your taking a big step forward as regards spiritual development, and hopefully also by manifesting what you desire.

For me the highlights of the book are where David describes the many instances where he and others were able to manifest what they needed/wanted without going through the somewhat laborious process he describes, but where the manifestation seemed to occur spontaneously by their simply following their intuition and doing what they felt like doing.

For instance, many years ago he was looking for a job but thought he would just take a little trip to Findhorn in Scotland, little realizing that this would lead to the offer of a life-changing job opportunity, which in fact was the case.

This is definitely an inspiring book. David states that manifestation is "about being, not getting". It "makes soul visible". He says he wants to "make the ordinary miraculous, and the miraculous ordinary".

He regards what he calls "presence" as a necessary factor for successful manifestation. I can't really summarize what he means by "presence", but he states: "a thought or feeling, a physical sensation or a mystical experience, a clear intent or a strong need - or a combination of any or all of these - can be the trigger that draws our scattered parts together into a wholeness. For that moment, we are the whole spectrum of our possibilities and realities ... we are wholly present and in presence." He concludes that it is not thought but presence that creates our reality.

I personally have experienced manifestation occurring in two ways: 1) suddenly feeling a deep desire for something/someone, subsequent to which I let go of the desire and in fact forgot all about it 2) in the case of DEEP need (for money) I decided to let go of all worry and negative thinking and simply be in the moment, enjoy life and feel great. In case 1) (two examples) the object of my desire turned up out of the blue a couple of days subsequent to the experience of the released desire. In case 2) I also had two experiences, the one where two bank notes literally flew towards me in the wind and dropped at my feet and the other where I dug up a gold ring in my garden, and was able to sell it for enough money to last me until the end of the month. Unfortunately, such experiences are not easily repeatable, and probably have something to do with what David calls "presence".

If you are willing to invest time and energy in working with this manifestation process, or if you simply wish to be inspired by his various tales of more or less spontaneous manifestation and in general by his gift of himself (since he absolutely proffers the gift of himself in this book, and perhaps in all his books) then I would strongly recommend that you buy/read the book.… (more)