The professor Daniel Pennac already indicated it in his book Como una novela: “The verb to read does not support the imperative. This aversion is shared with other verbs: the verb ‘to love’..., the verb ‘to dream’...”. And this is true, that is why the reading-writing processes must develop, more than in democratic environments, in true spaces where the sense of freedom, of loving and happiness are at the center of every meaningful reading experience.
Therefore, the most transcendental books of humanity, such as Don Quixote, the Bible, The Popol Vuh, The Divine Comedy, The Odyssey, The Lord of the Flies, The Magic Mountain, The Metamorphosis, The Leaf That Had Not Fallen in its Fall, Hamlet, The Lord of the Rings, or those of these times, such as Harry Potter, Twilight or Game of Thrones, contain something highly explosive in their stories: the magical, esoteric and mysterious.
That esotericism is the mark that transcends and makes both the book and the reader, whether initiated or fluent, move in universes of experiences beyond their daily life path. Because a book as magical and esoteric as the Bible is not the property of any religion, nor does it have to do with any church. It is, yes, a cultural reference of ancient peoples who tell their stories, myths, fables and even acts of love, as in the “Song of Songs”, a text of absolute eroticism or that passage of high magic and sorcery where the prophet and mystical teacher Moses, facing the Pharaoh who makes a snake appear, extends his staff and makes another larger one appear. These, like others, are acts of high alchemy, witchcraft (in esoteric terms), of experiences and mystical facts that build processes of complexity in the human mind and make the book a true and meaningful reading experience.
Also in books, such as Don Quixote or Harry Potter, where magic is an essential part of the narrative. It is in these extremes where the reader finds meaning, correspondence and lives the experience of freedom as a true fact, where there are no impediments to transcend and transcend and settle in other worlds. Where the ‘impossible’ has no reason to exist. Every realization, every act of creation is offered thanks to the intricate, laborious and complex network of stories that are exposed in total and absolute freedom.
That is why it is so necessary to dare to read, and to read meaningful, transcendent books that allow us to approach the experience of the freedom of being. To understand that the reading of these and other books, where the magic of life is appreciated as the essence that drives towards freedom as fullness, as experience and as a daily fact, are the summary of cultures that affirm the essentiality of that other reason for existence: the mystical, loving, esoteric life expressed in its mysteries as daily facts.
Freedom is lived, both in the daily events of life and in the search for it as we build our stories. We also find it in reading books that are sacred, that summarize part of a culture.
I do not think it wise for a neo-reader to start his reading experience with complex texts, such as The Urantia Book or the enigmatic Codex Gigas (Devil's Bible). In this I have always wished, at least, to have in my hands to caress it, the mysterious, enigmatic and impossible to translate (until now) Voynich Manuscript. A cryptic text or codex that has not been deciphered, only part of its complex and intricate system of drawings and language impossible for scholars to understand.
It would be a pleasure to begin the experience of freedom with a short story, such as La hoja que no había caído en su otoño (The leaf that had not fallen in its autumn), by the writer Julio Garmendia. A story that in its simplicity shows the most complex of nature, from the story of a leaf attached to the branch of a ceiba that does not want to come off and sees its time pass until it reaches its autumn and is taken in the beak of a bird that in its flight responds to the trill of a bird in love and it, the leaf, is ‘falling’ eternally to infinity.
Stories like these show the infinite number of worlds that reflect the mysteries that enclose the readings of splendorous books, like the ones we are quoting. They are examples of loving freedom, construction of universes where reading is fullness and certainty of eternal life.
Juan Guerrero
Teacher
