Book Tours: Guest Post for The Goddess and the Great Beast Tour

I’m hosting a guest post today by Adrian Gross, author of supernatural thriller “The Goddess and the Great Beast”. Welcome to my blog, Adrian, and thanks for sharing this intriguing guest post with my readers. Without further ado, I’ll leave the word to author Adrian Gross.

Guest Post: Shamans

When people talk about shamans (I always want to say shamen but I know this wrong on so many levels) one tends to think of Siberian spirit-walkers, whacked out on some kind of poisonous mushroom, lost in an utterly alien world of elemental forces those of us rooted in the modern one can’t hope to understand. I propose, however, that shamans have been right there with all of us in every civilisation and tribal society throughout human evolution. In addition, I say they walk among us still.

Shamans are holy people; spiritual people; seers, prophets and visionaries. They are not uncommon, though we are not all shamans. Not all religious people are shamans, but all shamans are religious in the broader, spiritual sense of the term. Jesus would have been a shaman, as would Mohammed, Francis of Assisi, William Blake, even John Lennon. They take many forms because they speak to many different people in many different ways. We are all spiritual people but we are not all well-suited to the practicalities of accessing our spiritual side. That is what shamans are for.

This brings me to my point. As the world, particularly the West, has become a less overtly religious place, so spirituality has evolved into different forms. Many of us have no need for a church or an organised hierarchy telling us how to commune with the divine; we have discovered other media. For some of us that medium is rock’n’roll. For us, the musician, usually the singer, is our shaman.

The shaman is a conduit, opening pathways between the divine and the mundane. The shaman does not choose this path. He (or she) is chosen. The power is too great to be borne alone, so he must share it with his people. The shaman surrenders himself to the power. He turns off his consciousness, banishes his inner critic/censor, and loses himself in the moment, the force, the zone, the groove. He becomes the spiritual servant of his people, enabling them to access indefinable truth through him.

The rocker is shaman to those who rock. There are many shamans ministering to many congregations. The key is that they surrender themselves to the inexplicable. You cannot be a conscious, reasoning, ‘in control’ shaman. Rockers demonstrate this perfectly. One does not have to be ‘out of control’ to be trans-rational; it is a complex balance.

This is why rock and roll has been, and remains, such a powerful force in contemporary life. Although it has been infiltrated and corrupted by businessmen, many authentic rock bands continue to plough the furrow to which they feel drawn and they keep on being joined by younger generations alienated by the emptiness of the capitalist experience. Going to work, making money and buying things have their place, but they won’t get you closer to God, gods, divinity or eternal truth. Losing yourself in the pure ecstasy of a stonking rock gig just might…if the band’s on fire…that is, if the shaman holds open the elusive doorway to the spiritual mysteries just long enough for you to catch a glimpse of what’s on the other side. It’s a glimpse worth catching.

The Goddess and the Great Beast

Title: The Goddess and the Great Beast

Author: Adrian Gross

Genre: Supernatural Thriller

1942: a bored British soldier in Baghdad; a beautiful Babylonian Goddess; a sacred marriage unconsummated.

Five years later, in a dreary post-war London, the Goddess must be satisfied.

Can anyone save her demobbed consort from eternal torment?

Or eternal bliss?

Can he save himself?

Does he even want to be saved?

And what’s it got to do with the ‘wickedest man in the world’?

Author Bio

Adrian Gross is a British writer. Some bits of him used to be Irish and some others were once Hungarian. He lives close to Glastonbury and likes to bang his little heavy metal head whilst drinking chewy real ale!

He has endured many terrible jobs, including adrenaline-junkie motorcycle courier, record shop dude-with-bad-attitude, and air traffic control disaster limitation assistant.

When his aching bones and throbbing hangover allow, he plays football (soccer) and rides bicycles up and down the Mendip Hills.