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The Pathby
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The Path
(August 2002) (self-published trade paperback)
This is Whitley Strieber's most moving, most powerful and most important
book. It reveals and explains the inner path that he has been using since 1976.
Based on an interpretation of the ancient Tarot of Marseilles that has been
kept secret for a thousand years, the path shows a way to wisdom that works.
It was Whitley's main tool of communication during the nine years he spent in
contact with the visitors, and it stands at the center of this remarkable and
gentle man's message of hope to the world. 160 pages, illustrated. Ship date
August 20. All copies ordered before that date will be autographed.
Pre-publication notes:
Whitley Strieber announced in his December
14, 2001 Journal that he would be starting a new book that will share the
guidance that he received from years of inner work, and will express his hope
for the future, “the purpose of which,” he says, “will be to
help focus us on the path outward.” In his journal entry he explains: “Looking
back over these seventeen years, all I can say is that I have worked faithfully
for a good outcome for mankind. I have sought to do everything in my power to
further our cause, which could not be more clear: the introduction of mankind
into the cosmos as a free and independent species, able to express itself in
every appropriate way imaginable, and, over time, in many ways that are probably
far beyond our present imagination.”
To reach this brighter future, Whitley feels we
must work to overcome limits in our perceptual abilities. “We have conditioned
ourselves to concentrate only on physical-sensual inputs—what our bodies
tell us. In so doing, we have actually filtered out and blinded ourselves,”
he explains. Referencing his own alien encounter experience, he continues, “I
was privileged, on that night of profound shock, to be awakened—in a small
way—to the reality of the world as it is. I lost the illusion that the
soul and the body are somehow different, and that we cannot see into realms
into which we choose not to look.”
Whitley shares the consensus of most people who
have studied alien encounters that the experiences are traumatic to nearly everyone
who was raised in a culture that subscribes to this blindness. In his book,
Whitley will share the tools that are needed to take a path away from this blindness
and towards the light of reality—a light that Whitley likens to“the
advent of the sun.”
Whitley will attempt to explore not only the best
ways for our culture to prepare, but also the ramifications of what will happen
to the world when our way of seeing changes.
Whitley expanded upon the description in late
April 2002: “I am also working on The Path, which I have been doing
off and on for years. It is about the inner path I have been following since
the seventies, that is based around the Tarot. In all these years, I have never
found anything like it, despite all the stuff that is written on the Tarot.
Writing it all down, after having lived it for so long, is a very powerful experience.
As I write it, I'm really taking stock of my life. What have I done? Has this
experiment in communication that has been my life worked in any way? I know
that it has. Of course it has. The Path will be out on the website as
soon as I finish it. I'm close. A month, two.”
Earlier (on March 9, 2001), in reply to an inquiry
about whether he would be writing any more books about his contact experiences.
Whitley replied, “I can never be sure. I want
to write one more, which is about the Tarot. I have been getting ready to write
it since 1972. I'd hate to leave life without having done so.” The
Tarot was nearly discussed in Whitley Strieber's last non-fiction book, The
Key, which detailed a strange meeting that occurred in Toronto; in 1998
he remarked that the Toronto encounter rekindled a memory of the Tarot: “When
I was with him, I remembered a similar meeting at the age of nine, and one in
1971 when he taught me a new way of approaching the Tarot that has nothing to
do with fortune telling.” Whitley's interest in the Tarot was first cited
in the biographical sketch included in the hardcover edition of The Hunger
in 1981, which read: “In recent years, in addition to writing fiction,
he has been developing a new theory about the origin and true purpose of the
Tarot.”
Whether there is more to say about alien encounters
may depend more upon the visitors than upon Whitley; Whitley has said that his
contact experiences essentially ended when he left upstate New York in late
1993. Many experiencers have reported a sense that the abduction project has
concluded; the question now is whether open contact will occur, and whether
humankind's perceptual abilities will expand in a meaningful way.
