Reviews for The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters

The average rating for The Shamanic Way of the Bee: Ancient Wisdom and Healing Practices of the Bee Masters based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-03-24 00:00:00 Ashlyn Zeller Sadly, this book is not just fiction masquerading as fact, it is also a case of plagiarism and intellectual theft. The blurb tells us that it reveals "the ancient tradition of bee shamanism and its secret practices and teachings". It also claims to be a personal "spiritual memoir" which "reveals for the first time" "the secret wisdom of this age-old tradition." If this is the case then why is it that many of the secret teachings of this ancient tradition are in fact lifted word-for-word from writings published in the 1980s of P L Travers, author of - wait for it - Mary Poppins?!! An ancient and arcane tradition with secret teachings that have more to do with a flying child minder than a mystical bee keeper? That can't be right, can it? Well, here's the evidence. (Buxton's publishers and the estate of P L Travers have both been informed of this plagiarism, as has Ashe magazine, from whom Buxton accepted in 2005 an award for spiritual NON-fiction. As I said at the outset, not only is it fiction, it's not even his own fiction!) This is a note from one of the 'melissae' (sic) - i.e. a lady who has invested time and money with Mr Buxton to become an initiate of the tradition his book pretends. I record her comments verbatim: "I was drawn to undertake Path of Pollen workshops and trainings having read The Shamanic Way of the Bee and taken it on trust that the book is, as it claims, an authentic account of the author's initiation into the Path of Pollen. What I have recently discovered has shaken that trust considerably and left me wondering if I have been a) duped and b) exploited. "As you will see, it appears that significant passages in The Shamanic Way of the Bee (TSWOTB), including whole paragraphs, appear to have been lifted virtually word-for-word from the much earlier essays of the late P.L. Travers, who is best known as the author of Mary Poppins but was also a lifelong student of and writer upon myth and fairy tales. Worse still, these key passages are variously presented as either the dialogue between Bridge and Twig in TSWOTB and also the first person narrative. There is no indication that use of the passages in question was authorised by P.L.Travers or her estate and P.L.Travers' work is not acknowledged either in footnotes or the bibliography at the back of TSWOTB. "Some people may not care whether or not there is any truth in TSWOTB or if it is simply one man's eloquent modern fantasy, but to me at least there is something deeply unethical about passing another's words off as one's own and it raises serious questions about the authenticity of the Path of Pollen as a whole. I present some of the evidence below for you to make up your own minds. "The P.L Travers work I quote from is "What The Bee Knows - Reflections on Myth Symbol and Story, foreword by David Applebaum, Codhill Press edition 2010 "P.L. Travers, What The Bee Knows (WTBK) (from the essay entitled What The Bee Knows, first published in Parabola magazine, New York 1981) page 81: "For the Bee has at all times and places been the symbol of life - life as immortality. In the Celtic languages, the Cornish 'beu' the Irish 'beo', the Welsh 'byw', can all be translated as 'alive' or 'living'; the Greek 'bios' has been mentioned above and is the French 'abeille' not akin to these? So, the Bee stands for - or is a manifestation of - the fundamental verb 'to be'. 'I am, thou art, he is', it declares, as it goes humming past. ... No wonder then that mythologically the bee is a ritual creature of a host of lordly ones... To anyone capable of suspending for a moment the cavortings of the rational mind, of accepting myth for what it is - not lie but the very veritable truth - it needs no great inward effort to act upon such advice. It's a matter, merely, of listening." "Pp30-31 The Shamanic Way of the Bee (closing paragraphs of Bridge's first knowledge lecture): "The Bee Master knows the bee as the most remarkable of creatures, a social alchemist and truly nature's most astonishing being," he reflected before displaying his discreet passion for language and linguistics. It has at all times and places been the symbol of life - life as immortality. In the Celtic language, the Cornish 'beu' the Irish 'beo' and the Welsh 'byw', can all be translated as 'alive' or 'living'. The Greek word bios should also be mentioned. So, the Bee stands for - or is a manifestation of - the fundamental verb 'to be'. 'I am, thou art, he is', it declares, as it goes humming by.. if we look to myth the bee is the ritual creature of a host of lordly ones. To anyone capable for a moment of suspending the cavortings of the rational mind, of accepting myth for what it is - not a story or a lie or a corruption of the facts, but the very essence of truth - it should need no great inward effort to access their significance." His eyes bore into me, testing to see if I had yet understood. Then he spoke again, very slowly: "It is a matter, merely, of listening." "P.L. Travers, (WTBK) p86: "When does the old year end?" asks a child. "On the first stroke of midnight", he is told. "And the new year - when does it begin?" "On the last stroke of midnight." " Well then, what happens in between?" The question, once asked, required an answer from those who know what the Druids knew. Long after I had written down this story, I listened to a radio reporter who was describing the ceremonies of an African tribe at the end of their lunar - or solar? -year. At a given moment, it appeared, the chanting and the drumming ceased as the gods invisibly withdrew. For a few seconds - twelve perhaps - absolute silence reigned. Then the drums broke out again in triumph as the gods as the gods invisibly returned with the new year in their arms. 'And' the reporter added 'though I do not ask you to believe it, I can vouch for the fact that my tape recorder, for those few moments of sacred silence, without a touch of my hand, stopped spinning" "p35-36 TSWOB: "The end of the year falls exactly at the beginning of the first stroke of midnight on December 31, and the new year begins as the last stroke ends. But what happens in between?... ... In answer to Bridge's question, I told him a story I had heard as a child that had stayed with me over the years. A correspondent for the BBC World Service was describing the ceremonies of an African tribal people at the end of their lunar cycle. At a given moment, the chanting and drumming ceased as the gods and deities invisibly withdrew from the world... ... For just a few moments, absolute silence reigned in Africa as the gods withdrew. Then the drums broke out again in triumph as the spirits invisibly returned, cradling the new year in their arms. The reason I had recalled the story was that the reporter, a modern western man, had added that though he did not expect his listeners to believe him, he would vouch that during the few moments of sacred silence, his tape recorder had completely stopped working." "P.L.Travers WTBK p86: "Anyone used to yoga practice experiences the ritual pause between the outgoing and the indrawn breath. Between one breathtime and the next, between one lifetime and the next, something waits for a moment." "p37 The Shamanic Way of the Bee "... the Bee Master continued. He reminded me that in meditation working with the breath, there is usually a ritual pause between the outgoing and incoming breath. "Between one breath and the next, between one lifetime and the next, something waits for a moment...." "P.L Travers WTBK p11: "The homeland of myth, the country which in the old Russian stories is called East of the sun and West of the moon, and for which there is no known map" "TSWOTB p98 "To my surprise and delight, on this occasion Bridge continued to elaborate: "The Melissae are women who live in a country that is east of the sun and west of the moon for which there is no known map." "P.L. Travers WTBK P267 From the essay "About The Sleeping Beauty" "The Thirteenth Wise Woman stands as a guardian of the threshold, the paradoxical adversary without whose presence no threshold can be passed." "p102. TSWOTB "Early next morning, I wandered into the garden and found an austere presence dressed in black, awaiting my arrival before the Gate of Transition. She was as the Thirteenth Wise Woman who stands as guardian of the threshold, the paradoxical adversary without whose presence no threshold may be passed" Personally, I had never read Travers, but confronted with a case of plagiarism on such a scale which the author of The Way of the Bee did not even have the grace, it seems, to attempt to disguise, I flicked through Ms Travers' book. You can do the same, very simply, by using the 'look inside' function at Amazon. My cursory glances drew me to a couple of other themes which Ms Travers discusses and which also make an appearance in The Way of the Bee/'path of pollen' teachings: that of "telling the bees" when a death has occurred and the notion of a circular walk which Mr Buxton's girlfriend and business partner was waxing lyrical about (pun intended) in a Sunday newspaper a few years ago as an example of arcane and secret 'path of pollen' teachings. Whatever next? Will they be telling us that the Lambeth Walk and feeding the birds (tuppence a bag) are also secret teachings from the 'path of pollen'? As Mary herself says: The honey bee that fetch the nectar From the flowers to the comb Never tire of ever buzzing to and fro Because they take a little nip From ev'ry flower that they sip Or, in terms more relevant to this book perhaps: "They take their 10 per cent from every gullible reader they entice".

Review # 2 was written on 2012-06-06 00:00:00 Paul Sasso Fantastic!!!