The Edge of the Abyss

J. E. Ketchel's deep soul-searching journey is a riveting tale of adventure. She grabs you at the first line and takes you into her world as she seeks to discover and connect with her lost self, a journey that she first revealed in The Man in the Woods. Her second book, The Edge of the Abyss, based on diaries she kept during her three-year-long journey, takes us still deeper into her encounters with evil of unfathomable proportion, processed through the ancient shamanic practice of recapitulation. In her quest for truth and knowledge, the familiar solid world that Ms. Ketchel had lived in and upheld her entire life unraveled bit by bit. Meanwhile, pieces of her fragmented self were brought back into consciousness and assimilated as a new sense of self developed. As she writes in The Edge of the Abyss: ..".I've been quietly complacent my entire life, thinking it was just the way life was and that I should accept what was dealt me. Did I really think that men had a right to abuse me? Did I really think that I had no other recourse but to just let it happen? It's only now, as I do this recapitulation, that I realize my splintered, traumatized self could do nothing else. She was totally cut off from reality, caught in the nightmare world of fear and survival... two dominating forces in my life, holding my fragmented self together in delicate, tenuous balance. It's also only now-in my fiftieth year-that I understand that I don't have to take abuse. I don't have to give in..." Even as unknown memories assaulted her, even as she perched on the edge of the abyss of the great and mysterious unknown and faced her greatest fears, life was slowly but surely changing. In dreams and in reality, new energy was entering the picture and there were hints of vibrant life to come. This most gripping memoir of an ordinary woman's search for knowledge, stability, and freedom from the demons that haunted her is also an enlightening and magical story, a courageous inquiry into who we are and what has created us. In The Recapitulation Diaries, the ancient shamanic practice of recapitulation is presented for its value as a means of healing from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as well as a process offering profound spiritual exploration and transformation. It was introduced to Ms. Ketchel by a psychotherapist and practitioner of Carlos Castaneda's Tensegrity, who recognized the benefits that recapitulation could have in a clinical setting. During her three-year-long recapitulation, Ms. Ketchel proved his hunch to be more than true. Recapitulation provided Ms. Ketchel with unique tools to face the challenges of an ever-deepening psychological journey into the deeper unconscious, a journey that few have dared to take. As her story unfolds the reader is offered a rare and intimate glimpse into the evolution of a human being willing to go the distance to fully heal from the deepest of traumas. Exquisitely written and deeply stirring, The Recapitulation Diaries are rewarding reading for anyone, but especially for those wishing to understand the unconscious and how it works, for those seeking a shamanic perspective for life's deepest issues, for those in search of healing and meaning, as well as for the professional at a loss for how to help those who suffer. Like many other ancient healing practices, handed down through generations of practitioners, recapitulation is imbued with the intent of the ancients. It is a powerful process, a pathway to a changed perception of the self and the world. As Ms. Ketchel's books underscore: everything we need to transform ourselves lies within The Edge of the Abyss is Volume 2 in The Recapitulation Diaries series. A Note of Caution: Adult material dealing with sexual abuse, entities, and deep explorations of the human psyche. May be disturbing and fear inducing. Books in the series (4 out of 5 published so far): The Man in the Woods The Edge of the Abyss Into the Vast Nothingness Place of No P