It's a Positive World!
by Constantine
Pronoia Is the Antidote for Paranoia, written by Freewill Astrology's Rob Brezsny, is a nearly three hundred page, positively charged whirlwind of words. Pronoia manages to successfully blend autobiographical account with apocalyptic guidebook, news casts with the New Age, spritual workbook and coloring book, not doings with doings-- in short, Mr. Brezsny gave us a book that we can gleefully break out a box of Crayolas for and yet still come out wiser and more powerful one page at a time.
The journey begins on the very first page of Pronoia, where the reader encounters a friendly list of instructions. Brezsny encourages us to read his book in sequential fashion from start to finish. OR we could start in the middle of his book, reading here and there, trusting our instincts.
It gets better. Brezsny then invites us to regard ourselves as his coauthors, adding comments and doodles along the margins and empty pages that he's thoughtfully included along the way.
How can anyone resisit such a playful beginning? I tore into the first chapter and came up for air a few pages later to grab a sparkly gel-writer and scrawl some footnotes in empty spaces. I ditched the sequential method of reading after chapter two and started randomly finding sections of the book to dig into. I found excercises involving the creation of sacred underwear, a medicine story masked as a tutorial on tantric sex, Homeopathic spells and a section in which to write up your own moral code.
I am loathe to spoil any more surprises, so I'll wrap it up by saying that Rob Brezsny takes 'audience participation' to the limits in Pronoia. He is on a mission to prove that evil is boring, and the book never wavers in its infectious enthusiasm. Compared to this highly creative book, evil is indeed very, verry boring.
Modern shamans, listen up! If you fall somewhere between the tiresomely pessimistic, 'The End is Near' crowd and the head-in-the-sand, New Age love and light crowd-- Pronoia is definitely for you. So, get comfortable, grab some Magic Markers and dive right in.
