SPI - Recent Reviews

It would not be wrong to say that Matthew Sullivan, who died recently, was one of Subud's foremost literary exponents, perhaps the foremost. His book Living Religion in Subud is SPI's highest seller after Bapak's talks, and is regarded by many Subud members as the best presentation of Subud to the rest of the world that we have. It's always difficult, this business of defining what we are and what we're up to. Many of us find it too difficult and prefer to keep silent. Matthew never did. He was always looking for ways to bring Subud and non-Subud together, to 'make Subud make sense'. It was a constant challenge for him, one that he felt was really his own internal challenge too. It was out of this perceived need that Living Religion in Subud emerged.

Matthew wrote a great many books apart from his several books on Subud (all available from SPI), some of which have attracted international admiration; particularly his historical study of German prisoners-of-war in Britain, Thresholds of Peace, for which he was awarded the Bundeskreuz, or Order of Merit, by the German Federal government. He wrote two volumes of poetry and the recent short appreciation of Varindra Vittachi, Fruitful Droppings, an 'outcrop' from his work on a major biography of Varindra which he had not completed by the time of his death, although he was working hard at it right up to that moment.

Dirk Campbell

A quiet note from the Vatican Library

When Istimah Week's The Man from the East was published last year she felt she ought to send a copy to the Vatican Library. To her pleasure and surprise Leonard Boyle, Director of the Vatican Library, wrote back: "This is to thank you very much for your fascinating and uplifting The Man from the East." It was some time before Istimah felt that this letter might be included in her collection of book references. Finally she sent Leonard Boyle a fax asking him: "Thank you for your note of appreciation ... Would you mind if you were quoted (with others) in comments on the book?" He faxed back her letter, endorsed: "Not at all! Leonard Boyle."

The Man from the East sold well at the Tenth Subud World Congress at Spokane, USA and was referred to in the front page story on Subud in The Spokane Review and The Inlander, the two major Spokane newspapers, and several copies were purchased by the Spokane Public Library. Due to interest in Subud by the public, it was third on the bestseller list at Auntie's Bookstore, the city's largest bookseller, for both weeks of Congress. Helen Richman, theatre actress and director, gave a public reading.

Aylla Macphail

By and large I enjoyed reading this book. It is a collection of accounts of Subud experiences centred around the life-changing events of childbirth. Editor Adrienne Campbell explains in her introduction that she hopes with this book 'to celebrate the insights that we have in Subud into such worlds, and bring together some kind of collective understanding.'

In one way, this makes it an unsettling read. Subud experience is intensely personal and unique for each person, and in a very real sense cannot be shared. Words summon up only a shadow of the meaning of the event to anyone reading about it - and words may often give rise to misunderstanding, to feelings of ridicule or superiority, of envy, of failure and worthlessness - and indeed also to feelings of empathy, closeness and love. My unease about this book is that it might raise expectations in those awaiting childbirth: and what if there is no blissful latihan experience then, no support with testing and extra latihans? It would be a sad outcome if this book only added to the burden of self-set standards and ideals already imposed by many women on themselves as they approach childbirth.

That said, I found myself moved by several of the stories. Some are heroic. Some are reassuringly ordinary. In a Subud culture laying great importance on 'being in a holy state' when conceiving a child, it is heroic to share the uncertainties and the humiliation of in vitro fertilisation. In a book largely celebrating the spirituality and wonder of children it is courageous to talk openly about miscarriage, abortion and neonatal death.

One of the most valuable insights here is the clear message that parenting involves inner work as well as outer preparation, and that the readiness to progress our own personal journey during pregnancy and childbirth can facilitate the physical process enormously. There are midwives in the UK and other parts of the world who are very aware of this dimension, and are skilled in assisting women with the process of self-realisation - even if they are not themselves in Subud.

I work as a midwife and, like Rhea Dempsey, can bear witness to many instances of 'contemplation, grace and blessing' attending non-Subud births. It seems to me that childbirth opens the gateway between everyday life and the spiritual in all of us. If we also have the capacity to be aware of this, it may add another dimension to what is already an overwhelming and unforgettable experience. The exchange traffic passes through the gateway anyway, whether we are aware of it or not. By all means let us celebrate the shared power of the latihan for change and progress, but please let us not make the mistake of thinking that only Subud people experience the spirituality of giving birth.

Secret Journeys asserts the power of shared prayer and latihan. I wish I had felt connected and supported in this way when I was pregnant. I was told to stop doing the latihan three months before the birth - it never occurred to me to ask for testing or support, or to do latihan on my own. As one of the accounts relates: 'I felt pretty earthbound during my labours... Pregnancy was not a condition I enjoyed, and childbirth is pretty low on my list of favourite things to do.'

I hope this book gains wide circulation. Specifically, I hope that it will inspire the timid and unadventurous to ask for or to offer their Subud sisters support through special latihans and prayers around that very special time of transition and change when a new life enters the world.

Melanie Milan

Dominic Rieu

In this refreshingly straightforward narrative, Marcus Bolt reflects on his thirty years in Subud with humor, affection, insight, courage and delightful candor. There is nothing pretentious or preachy. It's all straight stuff, but straight from Marcus. And that's what makes it work.

I remember a talk Bapak gave a long time ago in Cilandak. He wanted someone to come up from the audience and explain Subud to Bapak as if Bapak were an applicant. A loud silence filled the hall! Finally, one man from South America had the courage to come forward. He stood there, and with a quiet shyness, gave a really good paraphrase of Bapak's explanation of what the three words, Susila, Budhi, Dharma are about. We all felt he had acquitted himself very well. But Bapak started to laugh. "If that's what you tell people," he laughed, "they'll feel very confused!"

Why? The man was saying what he thought he was supposed to say -- what we all thought he was supposed to say. And with no ego. So what was wrong? He wasn't connected to himself. He wasn't sharing his own experience. Or Marcus might say, his little 'i' wasn't connected to his big I. So with all his trying to say the right thing, the man had put a layer of unreality in between himself and his listener. And it's always that layer that gets in the way. We have to speak from ourselves without anything in the way. Yes, share Bapak's words by giving out Bapak's talks or quoting him directly. But speak from our own experience, our own self.

That's what Marcus does in Saving Grace - and with some considerable courage. He's very upfront, and there's a lot of pretty direct soul-searching right in front of you. There's no separation between you-the-reader and Marcus-the-story-teller. The best part of the whole book is that when you finish, you know it's not over, that this wonderful story is ongoing - with Marcus, with his family, with all of us in Subud. For somehow in telling his own story, he acknowledges ours. Maybe because the whole book is very much alive.

Saving Grace is a great book to give to your older kids who are beginning to wonder whether or not they want this Subud themselves. It's a great book to give to friends and family who aren't in Subud bur are genuinely curious why you dedicate so much time to this thing called Subud. It's a good read, in Subud or out. As the book jacket explains, "the transformative process of Subud, based on surrender to the power of God through a spiritual exercise called latihan (Indonesian for training) is explained in a readable, accessible style using personal anecdotes and extracts from talks by the movement's founder."

Latifah Taormina USA

'GRACE' IN FAVOUR - A review by Laurence Clark of 'Saving Grace' by Marcus Bolt.

"From anxiety depressive to O.K. bloke" is how Marcus Bolt describes his personal journey from his opening in 1968 at the age of 26 to the present day in his new book 'Saving Grace'. The subtitle 'Thirty Years in Subud' is misleading, though, because the story actually starts well before this, tracing his background, parentage and the early years leading up to his opening, a theme he returns to many times throughout the book as a means of illuminating his spiritual learning curve.

'Saving Grace' has a 'couldn't put it down' readability and immediacy that earns it a unique place in the Subud canon, a page-turner that owes more to the accessible, anecdotal style of the Vittachi books than the more prosaic, expository tomes of most other publications.

Entertaining and instructive by turns, Marcus writes in an easy, flowing conversational style that gives the reader the feeling of being personally addressed. Unpretentious and refreshingly free of sanctimony, there is a generosity and a warmth of spirit about his narration that quickly befriends the reader and invites positive participation. Every chapter contains telling and thought provoking insights, particular to Marcus in specifics, but bearing many echoes of our common lot that compel us to look again at our own journeys for fresh enlightenment.

The book is an interesting amalgam of interconnected but self contained essays from straight autobiography to elucidative chapters on Subud history and the whole gamut of Subud practice, latihan, testing, fasting and the like. There are sections too, on Marcus' often painful brushes with therapy and running an enterprise and his personal angles on old chestnuts like Art, Religion, Marriage, Illness and Death - a kind of 'little bit of everything' spiced up with rich anecdotal seasoning.

Precisely who Marcus is addressing, however, is not always entirely clear. It would appear at the outset that his main message is directed towards the seeker or the applicant. In these pages we are presented with Marcus as Everyman, a pre-Subud lost soul fumbling blindly in the dark for the meaning of his existence, leading gradually on towards and into the light. He describes a life pattern with which the non-member can readily identify and in the account of his 'crossing over', joining Subud is made to seem the logical next step. The tone of his narrative is disarmingly self-mocking and he avoids any hint of the didactic or the patronising. These early reminiscenses build a bridge from the outer world of chaos to the inner world of the latihan and thus provide a fitting introduction to Subud for the questing novitiate.

Inevitably, as we are led on through the years, the probationer is left behind. Although Marcus remembers from time to time throughout the rest of the book to address himself to his original audience, not much of what follows the opening chapters is likely to mean a great deal to the uninitiated, the prequisite for a full understanding being experience of the latihan itself.

At other times one has a sense that Marcus is really talking to himself in a cathartic spring clean and tidy up of his ancestral lumber room, trying to make sense of his own experience. But, whatever the voice, he never loses our interest. His sincerity, his honesty and his ever-endearing fallibility exerts an irresistable charm. At one point, examining what went wrong in his business partnerships, Marcus observes, "Vulnerability in an inappropriate setting makes others uncomfortable". Marcus is nothing if not vulnerable in this book. Sometimes, indeed, he speaks of personal weakness with such startling frankness that one almost feels one is intruding into private matters. But this readiness to lay himself bare in print ultimately escapes producing discomfort in the reader. In fact, it is one of the most impressive features of this book and, in some curious way, has the effect of encouraging us to be less fearful of examining our own demons more openly.

There is something for everyone in this pilgrim's progress, whether applicant, new member or old campaigner. Bapak regularly urges us to support one another by writing down our experiences and sharing them. This book does just that and there will be few who are untouched by it. It's well written, too. Whatever you do, don't miss it.