Original Date: July, 2009

To be or not to be - that is the Quest

Review of "The Quest of the Radical Spiritualist: The Journey Home through Metaphysics, Sacred Energies, Spirits and the Universal Mind." by Robert Egby.  Three Mile Point Publishing. Chaumont, NY. 2009.

Book review by Richard and Deseree Rowley

To be or not to be? - when life comes to an end and death overtakes us. Life for each of us is a personal journey of experience, development, and progress, hopefully with a positive contribution to our society and a self-assessment along the way, rather than afterwards, when it is too late to make amends during the current journey. Most of us believe naturally that at no point do we lose our individual personality, with its skills, qualities and humanity. However, modern science and religion leave us in fear, trepidation and doubt as to what happens at death, and so our brief life here seems to have no meaning and purpose.

This is why Robert Egby's book, "The Quest of the Radical Spiritualist" is so readable, true and reassuring. Some spiritual teachings suggest we banish the selfish ego, which Robert calls the False Self, and our foibles and fancies and merge with the universal mind, or aim to go straight to God or Heaven to rest in bliss without further effort But that I think is misleading us into believing that we are taken care of in some sort of spiritual welfare system. That would be a bleak or rather bland situation. Robert Egby, an award-winning journalist and photographer before becoming a Spiritualist minister and therapist, points us in the right direction. If we become radical Spiritualists and look at the reality of our spirit's existence, we can live a more meaningful life with prospects of more splendid things to come. He guides us along the path of our personal journey, illustrating his account with his own personal experiences.

Seventy-five years ago another journalist, Paul Brunton, set out to write about his spiritual search, which took him out East and led him to study comparative religion, mysticism and philosophy, and he became a follower of the mystic yogi, Ramana Maharshi. Among the many books he wrote between the 1930s and 1960s were "The Quest of the Overself" and "The Wisdom of the Overself." One thing is missing from his writing, however, and that is personal experience of the gift of mediumship. We can read his books as a valuable introduction to the spiritual search, or quest, but to complete the journey we need first-hand expert guidance into second sight, and for this, Robert Egby points the way.

Robert explains how he gradually developed his second sight, or skills in clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience, and now he is able to use these in his work as a medium, and as a counsellor, teacher and writer on Spiritualism and self-development. "The Quest of the Radical Spiritualist" is full of exercises and advice for the developing medium as well as for the general reader. It is the second book he has written on self-development and spirituality, the first being "Cracking the Glass Darkly". These two books complete the spiritual quest started by Paul Brunton, and the reader is in safe hands if he adds Robert Egby's titles to his library's shelves.

Reviewed by Richard and Deseree Rowley