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Summary: Andrew Harvey--Sun at Midnight
Review: Andrew Harvey has long been acknowledged as one of the foremost deep mystics, profound spiritual teachers, and world visionaries of our time. In an early work, he described his encounter with a captivating and charismatic young female guru in India, a seeming "avatar." He become her follower and chief disciple for many years. "Sun at Midnight" is, in effect, the sequel to this previous volume. It details in a totally frank, elegantly written, and compelling narrative his subsequent disillusionment, the suffering he endured as a consequence, and his inner redemption through the path of direct connection to the Divine, especially as that is discovered through human love sanctified in true tantric realization. He presents here, with remarkable honesty and candor, how he was rejected by his guru for his refusal to deny publicly his homosexual love for his beloved husband, Eryk, as well as for his unwillingness to renounce his own inherent homosexual nature for a more "normal" lifestyle. His refusal came at great cost, as he and Eryk were subsequently subjected to intense harassment and intimidation. This book is itself an initiation into Mystery, setting forth the stages of the hero/seeker in spellbinding stages of revelation. First, there is the embrace and then the discovery of the true nature of the "false savior." Then follow the myriad trials and ordeals (the Dark Night of suffering and testing in Christian terms.) At last comes the discovery of the true elixir--love affirmed on the human level through miracle, grace, and rapture; and divine union experienced through the "direct path" (connection unmediated by priest or guru.) Harvey's testimony demonstrates that miracle is possible and shows us the way. This is a breakthrough work, going beyond what any spiritual leader has offered before in this or any prior era. It is a summing up of a lifetime of dedicated service and searching, the culmination of a long, arduous, and utterly transfiguring voyage. Through love and pain, all things are possible. The breathtaking honesty, the elegant prose, the passionate narrative intensity of the account--all captivate and enthrall. Perhaps not everyone will agree with his conclusions, but no one will be bored by his disclosures, and all will benefit immeasurably.
"Sun at Midnight" is essential reading for serious pilgrims as well as for all thoughtful readers interested in the progress of the soul through its many stages toward ultimate fulfillment. It is that rarest of treasures, the pure nugget, the gold, unblemished and unmixed, of a painfully won enlightenment. Gays and lesbians in particular will rejoice that Harvey has dared to break the silence of centuries with such command and grace. Those who have themselves suffered from the exploitations and abuses of the guru system will also be greatly heartened. Andrew Harvey is a wisdom teacher uniquely qualified to deliver this crucial message. In an age when we are beset with false authority figures all around, in virtually all of our institutions, "Sun at Midnight" offers a valuable reminder that we must constantly test the authenticity of every seeming savior. We should all hurry to procure this volume, that we may begin at the earliest moment to ponder its insights and revel in its prophetic wonders. It is must reading for this and all subsequent generations. It will, I am convinced, stand forever as a landmark portrayal of the soul's trials and triumphs on its passage home. Indeed, it is a key volume, a guidebook for all concerned with the unprecedented evolution of consciousness now manifesting across the planet.
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Summary: For anyone wanting the path to grace
Review: Andrew Harvey has mapped a path through the dark night of the soul and the grace that is given when love and honor overcome the shadows of fear and prejudice. "Sun at Midnight" is a beautiful, honest and raw account of his struggle to deepen his love to himself and his partner through almost monumental challenge. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is either seeking a new way or finding themselves doubting the path they have chosen. Harvey screams at us, "Follow love no matter what!" How can this be nothing but the truth?
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Summary: Andrew's Sun
Review: Andrew Harvey is an expert teacher, communicator and storyteller and in his new book "Sun At Midnight" he fuses all of these talents and infuses his grand spirit to take us on an intimate journey through his experience into, and ultimate release from, the occult reigns of the Guru mirage. In "Sun At Midnight", Pandora's box is opened and what is released from that box of secrets can never be shut back in again. As a spiritual pioneer Andrew Harvey exposes the false God (or Goddess in this case) behind the Guru system and also reveals the false face of the "not so" New Age movement. As a man Andrew bares his heart and shows the world, through his passionate and beautiful relationship with his husband Eryk, that true love really does conquer all. On my longtime tour as a Seeker I have often been intrigued with the Guru idea and I found that this book opened my eyes and saved me from the potential of wasted years projecting my ideal of God onto a mere mortal rather than experiencing the reality of Divine Love in my heart. Although filled with spiritual lessons, "Sun At Midnight" is not only a teaching book but also an intensely interesting (and often frightening) true story rich with human courage, suffering, divine guidance, miracles and true love. This book is a MUST-READ for anyone ready to know the reality behind our modern spiritual circus and will serve as a guidebook for all those seekers ready to migrate through the dark night, and into the light, of Divine Truth. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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Summary: Bring God/dess back into our own bodies
Review: Andrew Harvey's powerful story has been life-saving for me over the past few days. The previous reviews and description do a good job of telling what the book is about, but the most powerful piece, for me, is Harvey's radical insistence on the sacred marriage of body and spirit. He lucidly makes the point that what appears to be the emergence of the divine feminine, in the forms of many new female gurus, can actually be a mere continuation of a patriarchal rejection of the feminine, the body and sexuality, in the guise of female expression --jehovahs in drag, as one of his friends brilliantly puts it. The real Mother embraces all and holds all love as sacred, Andrew is saying. Any duality whereby the "spiritual" is held separate from the "worldly" expression of love is actually a manifestation of disdain-- the very opposite of the divine love of the Mother. As Harvey's avatar dissolves before his eyes, he finds himself forced into direct relationship with the Mother, and he is supported in this by his husband Eryk, who is a powerful devotee in his own right, and also a powerful writer (read his book The Road to Guadalupe and check it out!). It's so easy to "play it safe" and go along with the general mood of acknowledging all teachers--as many New Age people do, in order not to offend anyone. But sometimes, as in Harvey's (and my) experience, things come to a head, and a situation demands a stand. I have had remarkably similar life experiences to Andrew, down to some remarkably similar details (guru/betrayal/etc.) and I found that his framing of the ordeals as a dark night of the soul unfolding into the redemptive power of healing was familiar and very helpful for me. I also feel that the power of his story has a more universal appeal, and that many will find themselves in this story, even if the details of their (your?) life and mythology are different. Read this book now.
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Summary: a dark night of the soul
Review: Andrew is a consummate artist and one of the most brilliant mystics of our era. Here he brings the abstract beauty of mystics such as John of the Cross to a new level of understanding by concretely describing an agonizing, prolonged era of pain in his own life. In the process he helps us to understand our own suffering and see that the sun does indeed shine in the face of life's hardest realities whether we seeit or not. I will be grateful to Andrew forever for elucidating and giving meaning and purpose to a period of intense auffering in my own life, and hope that this brilliant book will guide many others to appreciate the great value in unavoidable pain.
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Summary: Sun at Midnight
Review: Andrew's passionate telling of his incredibly courageous and soulful story is consummately engaging. His complete honesty in describing every detail and emotion he and his loving partner, Eryk, share, as they make this journey through a personal and professional hell in the seeking of truth, makes this book a compelling read. No one can turn a phrase or express an emotion the likes of Andrew Harvey. His zest for life, for love, for absolute clarity and goodness, makes his books worth following as he grows to even greater wisdom and consciousness. Knowing the passion of this man, and the high bar he sets for himself in his standards and morality, I know I can trust every word he says in his book. That being so, this is a must-read for every follower, every student of self-proclaimed gurus or spiritual masters who hold themselves as the true pathways to God. Andrew lets us know, God is there, directly available for each of us, not through the prism of the judgments, weaknesses, motives or self-servings of those that would proclaim otherwise.
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Summary: Wonderful, vibrant and healing!
Review: As a Guru-abuse survivor, I totally related to Mr. Harvey's experience. While being a straight woman, I was also told by my then teacher that a life that was not entirely dedicated to HER ideas and concepts was not worth living; What followed were years of self-doubt, torture, depression, therapy- and, like in Andrew's case-harrassing calls and insulting mail.
This book is absolutely indispensable today; Not only this is a great love story, a great thriller and , as always, a wonderful mystical message; This is also a wonderful tool that everyone who is thinking of chosing a religious or spiritual path with a teacher should read ASAP.
Bravo and Thank you for your courage
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Summary: Harvey's newest Masterpiece!
Review: As a longtime personal friend of both Messrs. Harvey and Hanut, I can honestly say Sun At Midnight is Mr. Harvey's best effort yet....I found this book to be an honest, raw and extremely touching read into the human soul....the pain and sensitivity literally leaps from the page....a story of such sadness and tribulation which ends in an ongoing journey to reach an optimistic and joyful conclusion. Bravo to Mr. Harvey's literary talent....this book begs to be read by anyone who has undergone a dark night and awakens to find a spirituality of the soul to be a saving grace....we all can take comfort from this touching and heart-rending work.
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Summary: Exhibitionism
Review: As another reviewer said, the introduction, on the stages the soul must go through on the way to union with God, is excellent, one of the clearest expositions on the Dark Night of the Soul I've ever read. The Dark Night is not just depression, and it is not something that can be avoided or an unfortunate turn of events. It is the proximate cause of fuller awakening, the process through which the already-spiritualized ego now comes apart, to allow something better to take its place. But the story that follows does not qualify as a true Dark Night, though it was certainly painful and humiliating. The evidence that it is not the death of Harvey's ego is the self-absorbed story of his love for Eryk Hanut. Yes, it is amazing to fall in love. And yes, sex with someone you love deeply is awesome. But graphic descriptions of homosexual love are not to everyone's taste (nor would equally graphic descriptions of heeterosexual love seem called for). And the idea that your love and marriage is a Tantric revelation that is part of God's plan to save the planet is, well, it is ego-inflation, not ego-death. The level of detail here is amazing--every twitch, every conversation, every up and down of the roller-coaster ride of a new love affair, every anxiety attack, every act of vomiting, every kiss--it seems like both spiritual and sexual exhibitionism. If it's true that those who say don't know and those who know don't say, then this book says far too much. I like Harvey, and I am reading his other books, and there is a certain fascination in this close observation of himself. But I don't think it is a sign of healthy transcendance of the ego-self. (Leaving Mother Meera, though, probably was a wise step. And his warnings about the danger of gurus and the possibility that spiritual powers possessed by humans may be driven by evil is also worth thinking about.)
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Summary: A love story for the ages.
Review: At its broken and glorious heart that is what Sun at Midnight truly is. And like all great love stories there are terrifying and wrenching obstacles to be overcome. A passionate and devoted man must examine and allow to be shattered his core beliefs, his deep connection to a dark and homophobic guru, and his image of himself. At stake are the emotional, spiritual and physical lives of himself and his true love. He finds what we all seek, but with true cost. A cost so great and real that though the story reads like great literature, it is also an accomplished spiritual guide. The obstacles which are faced with tremendous courage, insight and true vulnerability are internal as well as external; and both are examined with an uncompromising and desperate desire for the truth. It is an unflinching look at human weakness and our capacity for destruction and evil, as much as it is a story of the utter passion and honesty necessary for love: divine and fully human. As it was lived, it is a glorious guide, beacon and hope; but it is also a terrifying example of who we really are and what we may become. It mirrors our dark and our light. Our brutal potential is far too realized for any sentimentality; and Harvey's voice and story resounds too clearly, too timely, and too achingly human not to be heard. God help us all in the battle that rages within and around us. And God bless Eryk Hanut and Andrew Harvey as shining examples of what it will really take to realize the potential of Love at all cost and the dawning of the truly new age.
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