Son of Man

Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ

by Andrew Harvey

J.P. Tarcher, Inc., Putnam, New York        © 1998       320 pp.

This is an amazing book! If you want to focus on Jesus -- both the historical Jesus in the form of social and political reformer/revolutionary based on the latest Jesus scholarship, and the mystical Jesus as Enlightened teacher -- then this is the book for you! Andrew Harvey is a poet, novelist, mystical scholar, seeker, and teacher and is no small mind, and nothing if not positively impassioned by his subject.

As spiritual seeker, Harvey is probably best known for his devotion to and then subsequent falling out with mother Meera, a Hindu Avatar. Later, he came to know and revere the Christian mystic, Bede Griffiths, prior to the mystic’s passing in 1993. Harvey is married to photographer Eryk Hanut, a devout Christian, who made some black-and-white photos of pictures and statues of Jesus for the book.

In the preface Harvey writes: “This book is designed as an unfolding initiatory journey into the full nature of the Christ and into the vision and spiritual practices essential to embodying the Christ directly, without the need for intermediaries, and as completely as possible in the heart of life.” After we have read everything we might ever wish to know about Jesus as Savior of the world and Savior of souls, Harvey teaches us Twelve Sacred Practices we can do if we care to “serve the growing Christ,” i.e., awaken to the Christ-Consciousness within. This book is not simply vastly, didactically informative but also a very hands-on affair, as shown by the 31 “Meditations on the Mystical Christ” by a variety of great Christian mystics, that one can ponder each day of the month.

One other point about the Sacred Feminine should be mentioned, because it is so much an integral aspect of the book. To quote Harvey: “The clue to the birth of the full authentic Christ-force on earth and in history lives in as complete an embrace as possible of the Sacred Feminine.” Also, “it is because [the] divine Motherhood of God has been largely ignored - or even repressed - by the main Christian churches and mystical systems that the Christ-Consciousness has not yet been born with its full revolutionary power, and history has not been transformed.” Harvey posits Jesus as an androgynous figure replete with all the finest male and female qualities and absolutely insists that we must, each and all, become likewise. Hence, Harvey’s failed “love affair” with guru Mother Meera did not sour him to the Sacred Feminine.

Harvey maintains that Jesus intensely meant that we are to transform ourselves so that the Kingdom of God could and would be brought to this world. Heaven was not somewhere to go after death, but a reality we could awaken to right here and now, and then work to make manifest in others and in the world at large, as He did. In this respect, Jesus did not see himself as the son of God but simply as one who Realized this Truth.

Don’t miss this book if you have even the remotest interest in Jesus, and/or if you like to see what a meaningful, authentic Christian spiritual path and practice might conceivably look like in and for our times.  

-- reviewed by Karen Fierman

 To visit the blog and see more reviews and quotes from books in the collection of Center for Sacred Sciences' Library, click here https://centerforsacredscienceslibrary.blogspot.com