I've been asked a number of times about the books that I was referencing in the last session with Cs. I have hesitated to write about it for a number of reasons, the main one being that not everyone can weed when they read and some people miss the crux of the matter by focusing either on the forest or the trees. So, what I am going to try to do is be as explicit as possible and explain the sequence of events that led me to certain speculations about how reading certain fiction can help to focus the mind and emotions in such a way that it might possibly facilitate a reality shift.
When I finished writing my latest book, "From Paul to Mark: Paleochristianity", (which is still in editing, stay tuned), I was utterly, totally, comprehensively, exhausted in body and particularly in mind. The last couple of years of massive effort to try to whip many years of research into some kind of comprehensible form just took a HUGE amount of energy. At the end, I just wanted to read something light and relax my brain.
In the past, when I wanted relaxing reading, I would turn to Agatha Christie and her ilk (early 20th century detective story authors), OR Georgette Heyer who wrote light historical romances. I wasn't quite in the mood for the detective stories, but light romance seemed appealing - you know, some clever dialogue, a little comedy, happy ending. I found a few Heyer books on amazon kindle that I hadn't read, and they were cheap, so I got them. (My favorite is "The Quiet Gentleman"; "Sylvester" and "Devil's Cub" are next favorites; but all of them are highly entertaining for a mind desiring light, somewhat comedic, romantic entertainment).
But it is not the Georgette Heyer books that I was referring to in the session.
What happened was this: after purchasing a few Heyer books on kindle, amazon began to recommend "similar" books. There were two or three on the page of recommendations. I was very put off by the cheesy covers and titles but the description of one looked interesting, so I thought I would get it in spite of my revulsion toward the covers and titles.
The book in question was entitled “The Beast of Beswick” and appeared to be a spin on the “beauty and the beast” idea. By the cover, it looked just like a “bodice ripper”, as such literature is often described. Well, what the heck, I thought… it might be relaxing.
It wasn’t relaxing; it was, in fact, rather steamy. Nothing like Georgette Heyer’s relaxed comedic romances that were well-researched and historically accurate. The “Beast of Beswick” was rather short on historical accuracy and full of anachronisms. That was quite irritating. However, I noticed one thing: the plight of the protagonists was rather engaging, tragic even, the hero having been badly scarred both outwardly and inwardly by war wounds. I couldn’t help but feel enormous sympathy for the character. And I realized that, as a character in a book, a cheesy book for all that, the hero was rather well-developed, if unusual. I also realized that I was emotionally engaged on behalf of this poor guy and quite glad for the happy ending (all such books have happy endings).
At the end of this book, there was a preview of another book by a different author, a book that I never, ever, would willingly have read based on the UBER-cheesy title. But I idly read a few words, and was hooked. The title was (shudder): “My Darling Duke.”
What the heck? What’s with all the dooks?
Anyway, this book had an even more tragic hero: a man so badly injured that he had been a paraplegic for years after his injury, but had struggled to regain some mobility by sheer will-power; nevertheless, he was impotent. How the heck can you have a romance about an impotent guy? So, I clicked “purchase.”
This second book was very strange. Some aspects of it were so badly written that my irritation levels went to “dangerous irritation overload”, but at the same time, other parts were utterly haunting. And, while the subject of handicapped sex was really pertinent to the story, I thought that the final sex episode was a bit gratuitous.
In any event, after reading that harrowing story (with happy ending), and being very emotionally engaged with the hero’s plight (didn’t like the heroine very much), I noticed that I thought about the main story line quite a bit, wondering how much better it would have been if a more attentive writer had taken it in hand. ‘
I looked around on amazon kindle a bit and noticed that there appeared to be a whole sub-genre of these types of stories, so, I began to sample a few from different authors. What I found was that not all of them were dealing with physical injuries, but also with apparently emotional issues. I noticed a few other things. The stories were all about love conquering difficulties; about men acting the way men ought to act toward strong women; about faithfulness, love of home and children, family, honor, honesty, not being ashamed of emotions, and so on. I realized that a lot of the behaviors depicted in the stories were actually good role models for anyone (and the villains were usually pretty well described, too). And all of them were emotionally engaging, some more than others I guess depending on whether or not I really liked the protagonists. I realized that the values represented in these books were actually quite elevated; possibly the historical element had something to do with that; it was highly idealized.
I began to wonder why this sort of thing was apparently so popular with at least a goodly number of readers? There was, apparently, enough demand for it that some publishers had a stable of authors turning these things out, some of them even a bit formulaic. But then, there were other, more independent authors, who were producing some darn good stories, cast in often ridiculous “dooks and earls” settings of the pre-regency, regency, and post-regency eras.
It occurred to me that people must find such stories a good escape from a horrible reality, either their personal lives or the world-at-large. But then, I also thought about the fact that, if people weren’t just escaping into such literature, but rather LEARNING from it, and putting some of what they learned into practice, a very different result would be obtained than just going off into la-la land. Because, it sure appeared to me that many of the problems that were set up as the plot of the stories were problems that many people deal with in one way or another, and a few of the authors were darned good psychologists with excellent insight.
One of the books that stood out was “The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie” which is about the romance of an autistic guy with a phenomenal memory who was locked in an institution by his father as a child and then later taken out by his brother when the father was dead. The story was harrowing, extremely emotionally engaging, and, again, with a happy ending. That book was the first volume of an entire saga about that family and each one dealt with different problems and had a lot of adventures along the way. The characters were very well developed, and even their sex lives reflected their characters which I thought was an interesting touch. And speaking of sex lives, men and women both could learn a lot about a healthy sexual relationship from these books.
It was later when I was pondering the emotional engagement that I made the connection with “hyperkinetic sensate” which was how the C’s described the Wave’s effects on human beings. I began to wonder what if people were engaged in stimulating the RIGHT emotions during this process? And thus, my reference to the books in the last session.
Now, by this time, I’ve sampled quite a few books by a dozen authors or so. I will say that there were some that were so bad, I deleted them from my kindle after reading just one page. Some of them are little more than porn and I don’t think that reading porn is at all beneficial. But there are so many others that are really amazing stories despite some of the cheezy titles and awful cover art!
Authors are Mary Balogh, Jennifer Ashley, Anna Campbell, Anne Gracie, Alice Chetwynd Ley, Elisa Braden, Emily Hendrickson, Jess Michaels, Scarlett Scott, Dorothy Mack, Laura Kinsale, Georgett Heyer, of course, and a few others. Several of these authors have written series books where the characters and some of the situations overlap in the set of books, and reading them in order is best.
So, that’s the story of my recent experiment in generating beneficial emotional states.
I am reminded of a dream I had once long ago and mentioned in the sessions that may be related to this idea I have of stimulating positive emotional states via reading:
So, it seems that it might be possible to assist in altering reality by undertaking activities that remove fear, intimidation, inhibition and even entering into such realities via positive dissociation. These books, with all the qualities I’ve described above, appear to be a darn good way to do that. It’s not “heavy” literature, but entertainment of a very specific sort that engages emotions and depicts very positive role models and behaviors.
Note: All the suggested books are in the Romance novel List sheet.
Also:
When I finished writing my latest book, "From Paul to Mark: Paleochristianity", (which is still in editing, stay tuned), I was utterly, totally, comprehensively, exhausted in body and particularly in mind. The last couple of years of massive effort to try to whip many years of research into some kind of comprehensible form just took a HUGE amount of energy. At the end, I just wanted to read something light and relax my brain.
In the past, when I wanted relaxing reading, I would turn to Agatha Christie and her ilk (early 20th century detective story authors), OR Georgette Heyer who wrote light historical romances. I wasn't quite in the mood for the detective stories, but light romance seemed appealing - you know, some clever dialogue, a little comedy, happy ending. I found a few Heyer books on amazon kindle that I hadn't read, and they were cheap, so I got them. (My favorite is "The Quiet Gentleman"; "Sylvester" and "Devil's Cub" are next favorites; but all of them are highly entertaining for a mind desiring light, somewhat comedic, romantic entertainment).
But it is not the Georgette Heyer books that I was referring to in the session.
What happened was this: after purchasing a few Heyer books on kindle, amazon began to recommend "similar" books. There were two or three on the page of recommendations. I was very put off by the cheesy covers and titles but the description of one looked interesting, so I thought I would get it in spite of my revulsion toward the covers and titles.
The book in question was entitled “The Beast of Beswick” and appeared to be a spin on the “beauty and the beast” idea. By the cover, it looked just like a “bodice ripper”, as such literature is often described. Well, what the heck, I thought… it might be relaxing.
It wasn’t relaxing; it was, in fact, rather steamy. Nothing like Georgette Heyer’s relaxed comedic romances that were well-researched and historically accurate. The “Beast of Beswick” was rather short on historical accuracy and full of anachronisms. That was quite irritating. However, I noticed one thing: the plight of the protagonists was rather engaging, tragic even, the hero having been badly scarred both outwardly and inwardly by war wounds. I couldn’t help but feel enormous sympathy for the character. And I realized that, as a character in a book, a cheesy book for all that, the hero was rather well-developed, if unusual. I also realized that I was emotionally engaged on behalf of this poor guy and quite glad for the happy ending (all such books have happy endings).
At the end of this book, there was a preview of another book by a different author, a book that I never, ever, would willingly have read based on the UBER-cheesy title. But I idly read a few words, and was hooked. The title was (shudder): “My Darling Duke.”
What the heck? What’s with all the dooks?
Anyway, this book had an even more tragic hero: a man so badly injured that he had been a paraplegic for years after his injury, but had struggled to regain some mobility by sheer will-power; nevertheless, he was impotent. How the heck can you have a romance about an impotent guy? So, I clicked “purchase.”
This second book was very strange. Some aspects of it were so badly written that my irritation levels went to “dangerous irritation overload”, but at the same time, other parts were utterly haunting. And, while the subject of handicapped sex was really pertinent to the story, I thought that the final sex episode was a bit gratuitous.
In any event, after reading that harrowing story (with happy ending), and being very emotionally engaged with the hero’s plight (didn’t like the heroine very much), I noticed that I thought about the main story line quite a bit, wondering how much better it would have been if a more attentive writer had taken it in hand. ‘
I looked around on amazon kindle a bit and noticed that there appeared to be a whole sub-genre of these types of stories, so, I began to sample a few from different authors. What I found was that not all of them were dealing with physical injuries, but also with apparently emotional issues. I noticed a few other things. The stories were all about love conquering difficulties; about men acting the way men ought to act toward strong women; about faithfulness, love of home and children, family, honor, honesty, not being ashamed of emotions, and so on. I realized that a lot of the behaviors depicted in the stories were actually good role models for anyone (and the villains were usually pretty well described, too). And all of them were emotionally engaging, some more than others I guess depending on whether or not I really liked the protagonists. I realized that the values represented in these books were actually quite elevated; possibly the historical element had something to do with that; it was highly idealized.
I began to wonder why this sort of thing was apparently so popular with at least a goodly number of readers? There was, apparently, enough demand for it that some publishers had a stable of authors turning these things out, some of them even a bit formulaic. But then, there were other, more independent authors, who were producing some darn good stories, cast in often ridiculous “dooks and earls” settings of the pre-regency, regency, and post-regency eras.
It occurred to me that people must find such stories a good escape from a horrible reality, either their personal lives or the world-at-large. But then, I also thought about the fact that, if people weren’t just escaping into such literature, but rather LEARNING from it, and putting some of what they learned into practice, a very different result would be obtained than just going off into la-la land. Because, it sure appeared to me that many of the problems that were set up as the plot of the stories were problems that many people deal with in one way or another, and a few of the authors were darned good psychologists with excellent insight.
One of the books that stood out was “The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie” which is about the romance of an autistic guy with a phenomenal memory who was locked in an institution by his father as a child and then later taken out by his brother when the father was dead. The story was harrowing, extremely emotionally engaging, and, again, with a happy ending. That book was the first volume of an entire saga about that family and each one dealt with different problems and had a lot of adventures along the way. The characters were very well developed, and even their sex lives reflected their characters which I thought was an interesting touch. And speaking of sex lives, men and women both could learn a lot about a healthy sexual relationship from these books.
It was later when I was pondering the emotional engagement that I made the connection with “hyperkinetic sensate” which was how the C’s described the Wave’s effects on human beings. I began to wonder what if people were engaged in stimulating the RIGHT emotions during this process? And thus, my reference to the books in the last session.
Now, by this time, I’ve sampled quite a few books by a dozen authors or so. I will say that there were some that were so bad, I deleted them from my kindle after reading just one page. Some of them are little more than porn and I don’t think that reading porn is at all beneficial. But there are so many others that are really amazing stories despite some of the cheezy titles and awful cover art!
Authors are Mary Balogh, Jennifer Ashley, Anna Campbell, Anne Gracie, Alice Chetwynd Ley, Elisa Braden, Emily Hendrickson, Jess Michaels, Scarlett Scott, Dorothy Mack, Laura Kinsale, Georgett Heyer, of course, and a few others. Several of these authors have written series books where the characters and some of the situations overlap in the set of books, and reading them in order is best.
So, that’s the story of my recent experiment in generating beneficial emotional states.
I am reminded of a dream I had once long ago and mentioned in the sessions that may be related to this idea I have of stimulating positive emotional states via reading:
So, it seems that it might be possible to assist in altering reality by undertaking activities that remove fear, intimidation, inhibition and even entering into such realities via positive dissociation. These books, with all the qualities I’ve described above, appear to be a darn good way to do that. It’s not “heavy” literature, but entertainment of a very specific sort that engages emotions and depicts very positive role models and behaviors.
Note: All the suggested books are in the Romance novel List sheet.
Also:
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