Inscendence/Embodiment EEs/EHEs Record Type: Review   ID: 167
The Black Butterfly: An Invitation to Radical Aliveness Moss, Richard
The heart of this book, or perhaps it is better to say the "health" of it, is the concept of radical aliveness. As evidenced by the 60 or so books I review in each issue, I read everything I can about specific exceptional human experiences and their aftereffects. This book transcends in all directions the other books I have read and any book I might write at this time. Moss, who is a physician, had a knock-out EHE when a black butterfly landed on his forehead. He has been a changed person ever since, and an increasingly healthy one. For to be human is to become more human as a result of how we respond to what comes from within and without. In "radical aliveness" I have adopted Tom Berry’s term inscendencedoes this, ishere is where we must be to know radical aliveness. He is an experiencer, a teacher/facilitator, and a scholar. The primary concept of the book is energy. His work is a form of Western yoga. He has evolved a method of freeing energy through group singing and dancing, though as he points out, many other activities could lead to similar results. He does not so much think in terms of levels of consciousness as levels of energy. This is because what he writes is a product of total body-mind knowing; it is not simply cerebral. It is more even than heart knowledge. It is a product, in his words, of "actualizing any belief within the body" (p. 109). At the close of the book he applies the concept of radical aliveness to the concepts of war and conscious dying. He also provides a very useful glossary. This is a book I will return to again and again. His books and tapes may be ordered from Three Mountain Foundation, P.O. Box 1180, Lone Pine, CA 93545. (619) 876-4702.
Publisher Information:	Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 1986. 306p. 2 figs; Glossary: 290-300

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