The Beguines and the Search for Visionary Consciousness

One day, Davey is a post-modern hunter gatherer criss-crossing the reservation on his vintage Indian motorcycle foraging for cheap liquor and soup kitchen hand-outs, a Vietnam vet with undiagnosed PTSD, whose life is fated to go no where. A few months later, after a blood vessel explodes in the left side of his brain, Davey finds himself in a Convent in northern Sweden where a group of dedicated women are trying to understand the nature of consciousness in order to save the planet. They want to answer the question of whether visionary experiences may help set up the brain's biological platform for awakened consciousness. Led by an indomitable mother superior, Mother Mary, they are seeking the answer to this question through their own consciousness practices and through experiencing the visionary experiences of several extraordinary Beguines. As the novel unfolds we learn the Beguines are the forgotten women of the first women's liberation movement. They began to form communities in the early Middle Ages to have a protected space to pursue their emotional and spiritual journeys outside of male authority. Through modern technology Mother Mary's band of consciousness explorers seek to go back into Dark Age times to see what happened in the consciousnesses of several prominent Beguines, including Christina the Astonishing and Marguerite Porete, who was burned at the stake in Paris by the Inquisition in 1310 because she would not recant her mystical experiences. The CIA is intent on finding out what Mother Mary's group of consciousness explorers are up to. What is at stake they believe is knowledge of how to become enlightened-knowledge they fear will fall into the hands of a terrorist chieftain or the head of a rogue state. If being pursued by the CIA is not enough the Convent is also at odds with the Vatican bank. The seekers in the novel strive to side-step these ominous power-players, while the intensity of their small community throws them into the profoundly human dilemma of needing to understand the meaning of love. The Beguines and the Search for Visionary Consciousness is a novel of adventure, of characters navigating the power pitfalls of our culture, and most daringly a novel of ideas where readers, should they choose to, have the chance to encounter the meaning of love and consciousness in their own lives. Don Carroll is the author of King Arthur and the Consciousness Gene: How Truth Uses Deception and Illusion Masquerades as Truth. He also authored The Consciousness Trilogy: Hacking Toward Consciousness, The End of Democracy and The Armageddon Choice. In addition, he is the author of works of non-fiction, including The 9 & 12 Workbook and A Lawyer's Guide to Healing. More information is available at www.doncarroll.com.