A frequent visitor to Gornahoor, Lydia Bisanti, asked me to make her novel Transmutation: A novel about Eternal Love available in the Gornahoor library. This is how she describes herself:

Lydia Bisanti’s interest in metaphysics started in the seventies when she discovered the writings of Rene Guenon, a French metaphysician who presented oriental doctrines in a form that westerners could understand. She immersed herself in these studies and chose to put them into practice by becoming an astrologer. Astrology is a sacred science, fully metaphysical in nature.

Lydia Bisanti lived on three continents: Africa, where she was born, Europe and the United States. After she moved to New York, she experienced a spiritual awakening which manifested itself in the form of dreams. It is from these dreams that Transmutation was born.

Tradition is intimately tied to art. Ananda Coomaraswamy was the curator of the Oriental Section of the Boston Museum of Art. Julius Evola began his career as a visual artist. The cubist Albert Gleizes was an associate of both Coomaraswamy and Rene Guenon, and employed Traditional themes in his paintings. We need to encourage art and artists in our time, also. What follows is a review of Transmutations that Lydia asked me to post.

A good spiritual story, January 23, 2006
Reviewer: S V SWAMY “swamy-reviews” (Hyderabad, India)

Transmutation is about transformation of the individual man to a Universal Man. The hero of the novel, Rene Eagle goes through a series of personal catastrophes (as seen through normal eyes) which push him over the precipice and help his ego to refine/ dissolve/ sublime.

Transmutation is used in alchemy and in nuclear science. It means changing one element (a base metal like lead or iron) into another noble element (like gold). The Philosopher’s Stone is a ‘mythical’ object which is supposed to help the alchemist to transmute a base metal like iron and lead to gold.

Philosophically, it is the transmutation of an egoistic soul (which because of its limited vision is naturally selfish) into an Universal Soul (a soul which becomes the whole universe and thus has no scope for being selfish). The purpose of each soul is to transmute itself into the Universal Soul. To achieve that, the ego has to achieve a sacred union with that missing complement soul, to which it is compellingly drawn. Till then, shadows of such soul (egos that have some semblance to that real mate) will attract the individual, resulting in infatuations, addictions etc. The objectives of various prayers, meditations and other rituals is to prepare the individual ego for this sacred union, which is the real fulfilling union. Eternal Love is the natural result of such an union. Till then, the ego goes through several planes of existence.

The author succeeds in bringing out these concepts well, which are not really new to eastern minds. The story is well told and grips the reader through out. Rene becomes Siva, the three-eyed God (the third eye representing true knowledge and wisdom), though the author doesn’t use that specific name.

The book could have been edited better, but fortunately the communication comes through. I strongly recommend this slim volume if you have any leanings towards spiritual matters. Even without the spirit, the novel is a good read.