cover image Initiation: A Woman's Spiritual Adventure in the Heart of the Andes

Initiation: A Woman's Spiritual Adventure in the Heart of the Andes

Elizabeth B. Jenkins. Putnam Publishing Group, $22.95 (273pp) ISBN 978-0-399-14326-7

In a mud-brick room in a poor Indian neighborhood of Cuzco, Peru, mountain spirits called apus manifest themselves as condors with human heads and offer spiritual guidance to followers of Q'ero mysticism. Or so reports family counselor Jenkins, who says she encountered these spirits in the late 1980s during a break from a strenuous doctoral program in psychology, and who recounts in this first book her conversion to the highland tradition. The Q'eros, who today number fewer than 400, are the keepers of Incan mysticism. Theirs is an animist religion based on principles of nature's fundamental unity. Their prophecies claim that in 1993 humanity entered a period (due to end in 2012) with auspicious possibilities for collective spiritual evolution. In a unique guide to the region of Cuzco and Machu Picchu, Jenkins describes her arduous 12-day pilgrimage to Incan temple sites where, under the tutelage of a Q'ero priest, she perceived powerful transformative energies and encountered the spirits that bring to mind nature-based deities of the pre-Christian era. Although she concedes that silencing the critical mind and allowing intuition to guide her were prerequisites for entry into the spirit word, in this well-written account of her adventure, filled with recreations of her dialogues with her guides and the spirit world, she employs her rationalist, academic background to evaluate her paranormal experiences. Circumspect readers may doubt the validity of her perceptions (""Then I realized it wasn't me, rather I was relating to very tall, silver, female beings that said they came from the stars""), but likely neither the courage of her convictions nor the value of the teachings she transmits. (Sept.)