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Calls to Mystic Alice: A Psychic & Her "Spooks" Explain Karma, Reincarnation & Everything Else Yo...

Alice Rose Morgan

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Aug 20, 2014 Michaela Osiecki rated it did not like it

Shelves: my-braincells-why, magic-and-mayhem

As a witch who works with spirits of all varieties, I really wanted to enjoy this book. I wanted to enjoy the perspective of an older woman who's been talking to dead people forever - I guess I just didn't expect her 'advice' and expertise to come packaged up with a whole buttload of Christian-inspired fear mongering and guilt tripping.

The first thing that really got me is her overzealous use of the term 'spooks' - for those not in the know, spook was (maybe still is...) a derogatory term used As a witch who works with spirits of all varieties, I really wanted to enjoy this book. I wanted to enjoy the perspective of an older woman who's been talking to dead people forever - I guess I just didn't expect her 'advice' and expertise to come packaged up with a whole buttload of Christian-inspired fear mongering and guilt tripping.

The first thing that really got me is her overzealous use of the term 'spooks' - for those not in the know, spook was (maybe still is...) a derogatory term used to describe a black men who were perceived to be "up to no good". I feel like this term was largely used in the South, and if is still in rotation today, probably only with older folks. Like the author....

Anyways, so that rubs me the wrong way a bit.

She talks a lot about Karma, but seems to have appropriated it from its Hindu roots and then shook it loose of any context. She's also a huge supporter of the Law of Return - which I think is a lot woo-woo s**t. She uses that idea to scare us readers into being afraid to look over our shoulder, in case our 'return' is just about to get us, whether good or bad. She seems to think that the idea of return is literal too - like, if you accidentally run over an animal with your car YOU will get run over someday. It's really not like that - any 'return' is a lot more complex and usually much more internal. If you ran over your neighbor's cat, there's no need for you to suffer the same fate - likely you're already feeling really awful about the whole ordeal and that feeling is going to stick with you for a while until you take action and do something about it. There's the return...

BUT - it was her section on suicide and free will that was really rank with Christian-style guilt, fear mongering, and an absolute display of her lack of understanding when it comes to mental illness and its effects on people. I don't care what she says about "choosing your life path before you incarnate" or "Oh no, you'll disrupt your soul group and make everybody really upset at the change" - NOBODY chooses to live with something like depression, anxiety, bipolar, etc. Nobody. And it is absolutely NOT their fault if they are suffering from something like this - they didn't 'choose' it, its not their fate, and they shouldn't feel like it's their path either. All that does is make people, like me, feel bad about our situation and that it's our fault and we don't deserve help.

You can't just reason people out of wanting to die. It doesn't work like that - most people who are considering suicide have been dealing with their predicament for YEARS and nothing's helped. They're not at a mental place where they can care what happens or to whom. Trying to guilt someone out of killing themselves or trying to scare them away from it is not only cruel, it's insensitive. The author really should have approached this section with more understanding and compassion.

Overall....I did not enjoy this book. Her views were very perpendicular to my experiences with spirit work and the astral. I guess I just have to accept that everyone's perspective while in human form will differ. ...more

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