The Body of Myth: Mythology, Shamanic Trance, and the Sacred Geography of the Body

In a philosophical corner of the universe somewhere in the same quadrant as David Abram's The Spell of the Sensuous and Joseph Campbell's Power of Myth shines this brilliantly original, if somewhat confounding, investigation into the origin and meaning of myth. Never again will the reader be forced to ponder, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" Sansonese spells it out so that even the least enlightened among us can understand--that is, if we have enough power of concentration to follow his highly complex explanations. The clapping of one hand is the sound of our own listening--the actual noises of outer space and inner place. An exploration of shamanic trance and pranayama yoga unravels mysteries of consciousness leading Sansonese to discover the sacred geography whence myth arose--it is in priopreception (subconscious physiological self-perception) that we first heard the stories and the allegories. The bulk of the book is devoted to Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian prehistorical legends as they sprang from our ancestors' anatomy. This is a fascinating read for the epistemologically curious among us, and certainly for the self-absorbed. One imagines Pogo commenting, "We have met the origins of our mythology, and he is us." --P. Randall Cohan