Lynn V. Andrews

This book was over-hyped as a never-before-inside-look at whatever it was. ... highly disappointing. It was an insiders look into a cult which might have been, once upon a time, a credible group of Shaman. It's anyone's guess as the details remained under the veil of the hyped elusiveness of the "group".

The author recounts her stay with a "group" of Shaman whom she never encounters. When I say recount I mean that she recalls the parts of her stay which she can vaguely remember due to being show more in a drug induced stupor for what is, evidently, most of the year. I would wager this book was written based on flashbacks rather than genuine memory.

This comes across more as time spent with a drug cult than anything interesting for people who are genuinely interested in this sort of thing.

I say "group" and "cult" but the author only ever reveals encounters with two people, the guru and the cook. For all I know this was just some guy who picked up some drunk chick, drugged her and brainwashed her into thinking she was on a spiritual journey. After using her body for a year and sent her packing when she withered too much to be attractive to him anymore. Seriously.

She doesn't transform, she doesn't grow, she doesn't have an epiphany, and she doesn't awaken. What she does do is loll around in her own spittle in an attempt to clear her head.

This book, filled with words, left me saddened by the fact that the author has effectively raped a market of people looking to share enlightened experiences.

It's an embarrassment to anything which remotely resembles Shaman. show less

When I first started reading Lynn Andrews, I thought how pretentios of her to think we would accept some rich white lady becoming a sort of saviour to the Native Peoples. It took a lot of introspection to finally come to terms with the underlying moral of the writing. You have to put aside the feelings of race, etc., and just accept her writing as her way of telling the world how she came to own her feelings, the struggles she faces overcoming emotional dependancies, and how to live her life show more true to her beliefs. Her writings always emphasize the power of being a woman, and the responsibilities that woman have as givers of life. Her journeys involve Native Peoples, for sure. But she is not one dimensional in that regard. Other books travel to the Himilayas, Austrialia, and even the original tribes of England. So, people need to get over their feelings that she is using Native People's culture to sell books. Every race was a native at some point in the millenia.

Read the book as fiction, and try to get something out of the deeper message. Her books are simply written and quick to read. Enjoy them for what they are, and stop putting so much political correctness into them. show less

When I first started reading Lynn Andrews, I thought how pretentios of her to think we would accept some rich white lady becoming a sort of saviour to the Native Peoples. It took a lot of introspection to finally come to terms with the underlying moral of the writing. You have to put aside the feelings of race, etc., and just accept her writing as her way of telling the world how she came to own her feelings, the struggles she faces overcoming emotional dependancies, and how to live her life show more true to her beliefs. Her writings always emphasize the power of being a woman, and the responsibilities that woman have as givers of life. Her journeys involve Native Peoples, for sure. But she is not one dimensional in that regard. Other books travel to the Himilayas, Austrialia, and even the original tribes of England. So, people need to get over their feelings that she is using Native People's culture to sell books. Every race was a native at some point in the millenia.

Read the book as fiction, and try to get something out of the deeper message. Her books are simply written and quick to read. Enjoy them for what they are, and stop putting so much political correctness into them. show less

Flight of the Seventh Moon is the sequel to Medicine Woman, which was first marketed as a true story, then as a novel, although I didn’t know that when I began this, and hadn’t read it. The words on one of the prelim pages of Flight of the Seventh Moon state ‘this is a true story’, but from the first page I had my doubts, which quickly turned to incredulity then annoyance. The author, supposedly continuing her shamanic teaching with Agnes Whistling Elk, is in fear of her life from show more Red Dog, with whom she seems to be engaged in some sort of struggle to do with the power of the sacred feminine. The book is subtitled ‘The Teaching of the Shields’, and Agnes and Ruby, another shamanic woman, guide her through the process of creating these, alternately testing and rewarding her with a sort of ‘good cop’ ‘bad cop’ method and helping her experience extraordinary manifestations or visions that advance her path to realizing her innate power as a woman. I must say I did wonder what was in that tea they were always drinking.

As a novel of a spiritual quest it works on some level, although most of the text details the making of the shields and the experiences of the initiate, and I guess that anyone interested in the shamanic path of the North American Indian might find the rituals and practice useful for their own quest, just supposing they felt secure in the knowledge that the information contained in the book was not merely a product of the author’s imagination. I’m afraid I couldn’t, and even as a novel it fails to be as good as it could have been due to the lack of a decent plot – Red Dog is pretty threatening at the beginning but doesn’t play a consistent part in the story, and the author’s supposed trickery of him and his dark arts at the end almost made me gag – women have been practising this for millennia without shamanic teaching, but it’s hardly empowering. As a work of non-fiction, not only did Red Dog make the whole thing unbelievable but the author herself seemed a pretty poor subject for the shamanic journey, and never knew when to shut up and listen to Agnes.

Teaching imparted through storytelling is an age-old tradition, teaching masquerading as real experience leaves one feel cheated. I was reminded of Marla Morgan’s Mutant Message Down Under, also marketed as a true story, later discredited and disowned by the Native Australian Elder the author had persuaded to endorse it, but that was more believable than this, more enjoyable too. show less