Are you a person who often longs for world where individuality and diversity are celebrated, poverty is rare, culture is inclusive, treatment is equal, law is just and rehabilitative, families and communities are honored, and the physical and intellectual bounty of everyone's labor was more freely available to everyone? Do you wish there were just a better system than the one that has dominated western cultures for so long with its endless wars and inequities? Have you been taught that such a cultural system is a pipe dream that has never existed and probably never will? Then this is a book you need to read, because you have not been told the truth. This book reveals a history that has been thought to have disappeared in the ashes of the libraries burned throughout Europe during Rome's military conquests and the Inquisition's Religious conquests. But they didn't find all of the libraries, and that is the beginning of this extraordinary historic saga. The Celtic Philosopher's Stone, Volume One: Not Your Father's European History is an astounding book that uses stories and the casual, collegial conversation of a teacher in the style of Thoreau to open up European history in ways rarely seen in the western world. Reading Mr. Gorman's well researched, meticulously presented history is a bit like sitting down with a cup of hot chocolate around the shimmering coals and leaping flames of a campfire and listening to a wise philosopher, historian and wordsmith sharing exciting discoveries with good friends who are eager to explore the nature ofthings. There is an inherent respect in his approach to readers, and a playful razzing of his fellow academics for their love of expounding downward from loftier heights. All of it, in the end, unfolds with a focus on reclaiming the history that has been stolen from us by the vagaries of power, dominion, and politics that would have us ignorant of our true European heritage lest it make us a bit more independent of those who would control our views and actions, and not coincidentally, a bit more connected to people of other traditions around the globe. Mr. Gorman tells of a guest lecture on the Lost History of the Celts at a Western Civilization Class at Sacramento City College in Sacramento, California. Without informing him, the instructor invited a semi-retired Professor Emeritus of Western European History from California State University, Sacramento to come with his class to attend the lecture. When Michael learned of this, he nervously realized that he would be challenging some of the orthodoxy upon which this revered teacher had built his career, not that he was uncomfortable challenging orthodoxy, but he had embraced his Celtic ancestors' deep respect for his elders ("A smaller group every year," he joked.) With five minutes before the class was to begin, he did not have time to temper his lecture for this honored guest, though a good speaker always considers his audience. Nevertheless, he dove enthusiastically into his talk, intrigued to see how it all came out. Michael describes the end of the lecture thus: "The Sac State professor came up to me after the lecture and held out his hand to shake mine. He smiled warmly and said, 'I'd like to thank you, young man (How cool is that!?). You just filled in holes in European History that never made sense to me!' The best part of this was not that he accepted my research and my interpretation of that research, but that he was at the end of his career and was still on a learning curve. I wish we had more teachers like him!" In this book, you will find a teacher like him, and you will find a piece of yourself you never knew was there. Take the journey into these pages and reap rich rewards.
About the Author: Michael R. Gorman, MA, is a poet, writer, artist, musician, Celtic scholar, and mystic who holds an AA in art, a BA in Theater Arts/English, and an MA in Playwriting. He is the author of the 1998 Lambda Literary Award winning, innovative biography, The Empress Is A Man: Stories From the Life of Jose Sarria. Years ago he won a poetry contest and was declared The Poet Laureate of Lavender Heights, the Midtown neighborhood of his beloved City of Trees, Sacramento, California, and the title stuck. He is a founding board member of The Chrysalis Institute, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to exploring green living and the lifestyles and philosophies that are compatible with such living. He was the founder and Executive Director for a decade of The Sacramento Grove of the Oak, Inc. a non-profit focused on exploring and teaching Celtic philosophy, culture, and spirituality. He is now the Executive Director and founder of The Five Rivers Bardic Arts Collective, an arts group created under the Chrysalis Institute to encourage the arts in the traditional, bardic sense of being essential for healthy culture, community, and education. Five Rivers particularly supports those artists, musicians, writers, and performers who explore the innovative fringes of their craft and sometimes make conventional, business centered arts outlets nervous, and who seek to make their dedication to the arts the center of their work and lives. Five Rivers believes that giving artists the financial support they deserve and making the arts available to all regardless of income are goals that are not mutually exclusive. The group sees its precedent in Celtic cultural history. Mr. Gorman is also a teacher of the earth centered philosophy and spirituality of the Celtic peoples, and in 2004 led the first publicly announced and public Druid ritual on Ireland's Sacred Hill of Tara in modern times. He lives in the attic of a downtown Victorian house in California's capital city, a house that he jokes is becoming "Bohemia Central" in the Sacramento's central neighborhoods. His large urban yard has an organic garden, a hanging fire cauldron, a round grove of trees, and a glen dedicated to the faeries in whom he says he very much believes. He is currently working on the second volume of the Celtic Philosopher's Stone, and a project on the life of Irish revolutionary, poet, and mystic Ella Young.