Marvin X on his book of essays Beyond Religion, toward Spirirtuality

I never imagined I would live long enough to have grand children. I never imagined grandchildren, period! I imagined nothing as a revolutionary, except victory. This was the worst imagining of all because it called in the powers of the State: they crushed us totally, a military defeat in Oakland. We succumbed to military defeat by the USA in Oakland.

Oakland is thus a city of resistance, like Felugha in Iraq. Oakland had to be destroyed like Felugha, a city of resistance. Look at Oakland, look at the people, broken, mentally. physically, spiritually. On a visit from the East Coast, my daughter said, "Dad, all these people look like derelicts."

Marvin X just released his book of essays on consciousness, Beyond Religion, Toward Spirituality  .   Available from Black Bird Press, 339 Lester Ave, #10, Oakland CA 94606.  280 pages, $19.95. *   *   *   *   * Marvin X has done extraordinary mind and soul work in bringing our attention to the importance of spirituality, as opposed to religion, in our daily living. Someone—maybe Kierkegaard or maybe it was George Fox who—said that there was no such thing as "Christianity." There can only be Christians. It is not institutions but rather individuals who make the meaningful differences in our world. It is not Islam but Muslims. Not Buddhism but Buddhists. Marvin X has made a courageous difference. In this book he shares the wondrous vision of his spiritual explorations. His eloquent language and rhetoric are varied—sophisticated but also earthy, sometimes both at once. His moods are both reverent and irreverent: at times he consoles, other times cajoles with biting mockery. At times amusing but always deadly serious.   Highly informed he speaks to many societal levels and to both genders—to the intellectual as well as to the man/woman on the street or the unfortunate in prison—to the mind as well as the heart. His topics range from global politics and economics to those between men and women in their household. Common sense dominates his thought. He shuns political correctness for the truth of life. He is a Master Teacher in many fields of thought—religion and psychology, sociology and anthropology, history and politics, literature and the humanities. He is a needed Counselor, for he knows himself, on the deepest of personal levels and he reveals that self to us, that we might be his beneficiaries.   ] ] All of which are represented in his Radical Spirituality—a balm for those who anguish in these troubling times of disinformation. As a shaman himself, he calls too for a Radical Mythology to override the traditional mythologies of racial supremacy that foster war and injustice. It's a dangerous book, for it reveals the inner workings of capitalist and imperialist governments around the world. It's a book that stands with  and on behalf of the poor, the dispossessed, the despised, and downtrodden.     Marvin X has found a way out of our spiritual morass, our material quagmire. We are blessed to still have him among us. If you want to reshape (clean up, raise) your consciousness, this is a book to savor, to read again, and again—to pass onto a friend or lover. —Rudolph Lewis, Editor, ChickenBones: A Journal