Grace, Gaia, and the End of Days (More An Aftermath than a Book Review)

About a month ago, I went to the local Really Really Free Market and picked up Stuart Wilde’s Grace, Gaia, and the End of Days. I’d not read Wilde’s work before, but since I’ve lately been reading all the 2012 and apocalyptic prediction books I can get my hands on (to see if any of them “got it right”, so to speak), it seemed like a good one for the pile.

I cracked it open and started reading this weekend. It wasn’t long before it was obvious something was glaringly wrong. (Hello, paranoid schizophrenia, long time no see.) Here was a fellow ho was obviously wrestling with his own demons (or ghouls, if you like) but not recognising that–instead, he was quite soundly insulting Australians, gays, the majority of the human population–they were Evil and given into ghouls, and Earth was a place of punishment for everyone, except those here to be heroes, I think. So much of this seemed like self aggrandizement, projection, paranoia and a bad trip, not to mention self-contradictory. (Were people evil BECAUSE of the ghouls running them? If so, didn’t it make the ghouls evil, and humans victims? So who’s being punished? Where was the grace mentioned in the book title, what with the author putting down entire countries and creeds? Who was reading this stuff? How did Hay House decide to publish this?)

There seemed to be no protection against the ghouls. The ghouls, the ghouls, the ghouls. Stuart Wilde kept going on about them, and how women should never sit (even with clothes on) on bare ground or floors without a mat or pillow beneath, and I’m sorry, but even with all the sexuality-fearing taboos from my grandmother’s generation, I’d never heard that one before, nor that ghouls would climb up my cooch if I didn’t. Fear, fear, fear came off the pages of the book. I realised that while I had been sucked in somewhat by the introduction, the rest of the book came from a fear-filled bad place. To try reading this book before bed was a mistake, because now I couldn’t get ghouls out of my mind. (I recognise my own responsibility in this, despite everything.)

I cleared my mind the best I could before I went to bed. That night–you guessed it–I had a nightmare. It was one of those nightmares that had its own false awakenings to carry on the scary, and the only thing that really got me awake was when a HUGE WALKING ONION on human feet ambled into the dream, and looked so ridiculous that I realised the dream and forced myself awake. (I think I’ll have to partly credit Terry Pratchett for getting me out of that one.) The nightmare that had scared me was predictable–maybe not ghouls in the plural, but a “head” ghoul, one that wouldn’t leave when I willed it, and so required some “big guns” to be called in on my behalf. (I hate doing that, in real or dream world. Obviously I’ve got things to work on–but at least I have friends!)

The next day, I was torn about what to do with the book. I don’t know what was worth “saving” in it (irony again), except as a teaching lesson on what not to buy into. There is nothing it covers that other books don’t do better. It’s definitely unique in its paranoid projections, but in that sense, like an anti-gay or racist rant on the Internet–educational in an unintended way, not a particularly nourishing; on the contrary, potentially harmful.

I looked for information on the author, and was more than relieved to read and find the following reads:

Stuart Wilde is Dead–And That is a Good Thing (I do love how the Lipstick Mystic always gets to the point quickly.)

RIP Stuart Wilde–A Cautionary Tale (So heartening to find a  generous and balanced treatment that still managed to make the pitfalls of Stuart Wilde’s later life and works quite clear.)

I’m curious as to Stuart Wilde’s early books now, but not enough to make a special effort to find them. As for Grace, Gaia, and the End of Days, well, let’s just say I’ve left my copy, with love, to Gaia.