Rachel Reads (Book Review): 'What Lies Beyond the Stars' by Michael Goorjian

I really enjoyed this spiritual novel and especially its, in my opinion, main theme of spiritual awakening being mistakenly, or deliberately, diagnosed as mental illness.

The book takes a very straightforward look at Adam, the main protagonist’s overriding feeling that the life he is leading is very wrong for him, that he has left behind a life that he was really meant to live. The character is full of fear of the implications of this, but mainly that he will never get back to that truth.

The story begins with Adam painted as a highly successful member of western-society. He is well-off, with a career that is highly relevant to today’s economy (computer game programming), with a nice house, a nice wife and two children. Outwardly he leads a healthy life – being fed lots of protein shakes by his yoga-mad wife, for example. But inwardly he is lost. Anxiety and fear rule his life and it seems that no matter how hard he tries he cannot escape the life-story that he has been told to live. Told to live by his business partner and his wife, his step-mother and his psychiatrist.

Adam begins to have more regular ‘moments’ – the attempts of his soul to alert him to the imbalance of the life he is leading. It is the powerful push of a soul’s longing to connect with more meaning and more purpose. These moments are scary for Adam, but more so for the people around him who depend upon his programming productivity to keep them in the lifestyle that they so desperately want!

It all stems from a significant soul loss incident early on his Adam’s childhood. A moment that the author handles with deftness and around which the story cycles. It is at this particular moment that Adam splits into two. Soul loss is a significant part of disease (dis-ease) in life. These are moments of great trauma to either oneself or to another, where a part of one’s soul splits away and cannot, or does not, wish to return to the whole. Adam’s subconscious works hard to remind him of this moment in his life and to call him to reunite with the lost portion of his soul, if he is to be whole once more.

The story asks us to consider the message that each of us should choose carefully whom we choose to live our lives alongside and where we allow our attention to be placed.

The book deals well with the picking apart of what society defines as ‘success’ versus what our souls and spirits know it to be. So many people in today’s world live their lives ‘effectively’ only because they are medicated with some pharmaceutical drug – the high prescription rates of antidepressants are one signal of this.

What would happen if instead of medicating to suppress or remove the emotions we fear, we embraced them, explored them, experienced and moved on from them. This would take great courage on our part; to face fear and joy with equal attention and, as Adam did, follow these emotions all the way down in order to rise in awareness, peace and freedom.

I would definitely recommend this book as a thought-provoking challenge to where the ‘madness’ in our society actually resides.

If you enjoy books like 'What Lies Beyond the Stars', then you will love my 'Beyond Veils' series. 'The Truth of Her', Book 2, is published on 29th July 2019. Pre-Order it here.