Shikasta: Re, Colonised Planet 5 (Vintage International)

The Nobel Prize winning author Doris Lessing wrote a series of novels that are illuminating insights based on the idea that we here on planet Earth are but one of hundreds of planetary colonies. By the 1970s Lessing was influenced by Sufism and these sci-fi novels reflect her considerable and highly intelligent spiritual wisdom. Lessing's 'Canopus in Argos' series are captivating tales that can open our modern minds to a profound understanding of the deeper meaning of life.

Doris Lessing's first novel in the Canopus in Argo series, 'Re: Colonized Planet 5 - Shikasta' offers her readers crucial insights into our existence here on planet Earth, which is but one of hundreds of the planetary colonies guided by Canopus. Johor is the emissary who writes his reports back to Canopus to be used as instruction for first-year students of Canopean Colonial Rule.

Johor: "I have known more than once what it is to accept the failure, final and irreversible, of an effort or experiment to do with creatures who have within themselves the potential of development dreamed of, planned for ... and then -- Finis! The end!"

We understand that mistakes are made, that there is a certain element of randomness in the universe, which brings about sudden and very destructive catastrophes, or perhaps a blast of radiation from an unknown unexpected source. This is a polarity universe - there are many others - and in such a polarity based structural environment there must be negative forces that of necessity interplay with the positive in order to generate movement and the evolution of forms.

Johor: "This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to sudden reversal, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes." Hinduism's concept of God's Play as the Divine Lila is surely described by "with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes." Lessing is our Muse, Sibyl, and Prophetess. She is not only giving glimpses into our future, she is revealing the very nature of the temporal illusory holographic universe.

Johor: "I am a small member of the Workforce, and as such do as I must. That is not to say I do not have the right, as we all have, to say, Enough! Invisible, unwritten rules forbid. What these rules amount to, I would say, is Love."

Even the best of emissaries become worn down by the tasks they face, but what keeps them from giving up, is simply Love. For Love is what holds the universe together. Love is the one force, the substance that generates all Life in this universe. Love is the essence, the creative and all pervasive permeating power of the Oneness, manifested and unmanifested. Love is what lies beneath the "curtain of each atom" as the Sufi poet Mahmud Shabistari says.

The planet Shikasta is our planet Earth, and Lessing ever so accurately and brilliantly weaves our plight into her fictional tale. This is a polarity universe and thus there are dark tyrannical forces that find ways to infest even the most flourishing of planetary colonies. Shammat is the darkside rogue outpost that was rumoured to have been "colonised by criminals fleeing" yet another empire. Shammat can "succeed only where there is disequilibrium, harm, dismay." Shammat had placed a transmitter that changed the `air' [vibrational frequencies of consciousness] of Shikasta. These transmissions were working only because of "an unexpected malalignment among the stars that sustained Canopus" [the overseeing empire, benevolent and highly evolved].

Lessing reveals the essence of the sphinx-like mysteries of our world and how Life in this universe is perceived on multiple levels and layers of consciousness: "We are all creatures of the stars and their forces, they make us, we make them, we are part of a dance from which we by no means and not ever may consider ourselves separate."

Lessing's profound genius conveys the barriers in consciousness between the emissaries and the evolving colonists. The emissary Johor is attempting to explain to the [benevolent] 'Giants' who have served as an intermediary caretaker race to assist in the evolution of Shikasta's civilization and the human race living and evolving there. But even as Johor speaks, the terrible mind-numbing effects of Shammat's sinister and malevolent transmitter are taking over their consciousness.

Johor: "I saw then that it had begun. The Giants were affected, too ... and I [Johor the emissary] understood that in fact I had been changed without knowing it. I could see that soon I would be the only individual on Shikasta with the power of judgement, of reasoned action."

Johor endeavours to explain to the Giants what will happen and that the ships from Canopus are coming to take them off the planet. "And yet the Giants did not know their state ... there had been a real and drastic change. ... more restlessness, and moments too, when it seemed as if everyone there had lost themselves: their eyes would glaze and wander, and they spoke at random."

Shammat is feeding off Shikasta. These are now familiar ideas that we have heard and read over the last 30 years. Lessing foresaw and wrote it all out brilliantly in 1978.

Johor: "... the more the Natives [the human race apart from and under the benevolent guidance of the Giants who are about to leave the planet] degenerate, the more they will weaken and lose substance [rather like a connecting force, shakti or chi], the better that will be for Shammat ... Shammat cannot feed on the high, the pure, the fine. It is poison to them." This is a primary Law of Magnetism in spiritual practice and occultism. Like attracts like. If our consciousness is pure, the dark forces cannot attach to us. As long as we are in anger, fear and even apprehension of impending catastrophes, these demonic forces can weaken us, interfere with our intentions, and literally eat our energies.

Johor: "The level of the Lock [which connects Canopus to Shikasta and sends strength and harmony to Shikasta via the planet's Ley lines] in the past has been far above the grasp of Shammat. They are lying in wait, for the precise moment when their nature, the Shammat nature can fasten its nasty force onto the substance of the Lock! They are already withdrawing strength, they are feeding themselves ..."

Perhaps Lessing is only speaking metaphorically, which would be powerful enough. Or perhaps the lady Lessing too had visions. I cannot speak for her, I can only point out the amazing accuracy of her writings and especially in regard to the sheer number who came to experience and finally understand what Lessing said over 30 years ago!

Johor explains that within the Canopus empire the very essence of The Degenerative Disease is to "identify ourselves as individuals" and that "every one of us in the Canopean Empire is taught to value ourselves only insofar as we are in harmony with the plan, the phases of our evolution."

I realize that this kind of language gets into political machinations that can easily be misconstrued, and used to manipulate and control. But I believe what Lessing is talking about here is not some off-world form of communism. She abandoned that sort of tyrannical control-based propaganda many years ago. Doris Lessing is a Sufi, a mystic at heart. What she is evoking here is the Oneness, our inherent inter-connectedness, the fact that beneath all our differences in form, we are One.

Perhaps one who does truly understand is the great writer, Noble Prize winner, and Sufi, Doris Lessing. Was Lessing privy to some secret knowledge in her London days with Idries Shah, her good friend and teacher for 30 years? Did Shah's "reintroduction of an ancient teaching" impart an understanding of the cosmic plan that became her five Canopus in Argos novels? I doubt the lady Lessing, who is both Sphinx and Seer, will ever tell!

I tried very hard to like this book. Failing that, I tried very hard to appreciate it. I failed at that, too. The only reason I finished it was that I was on a long Greyhound bus trip and had nothing else to read.

A fundamental flaw in the design of this novel is that most of it deals with events from the point of view of George Sherban, who is an alien reincarnated as a cloying human saint. He's not a believable character, and I don't care what happens to him. The magnitude of this poor, dramatically nonviable choice of protagonist becomes especially apparent by contrast when we get some long passages that are instead related by Rachel Sherban. Rachel is not an extremely well realized character, but she's at least a depiction of a human being rather than a plaster icon. The parts told from her point of view were the only ones in which I could suspend my disbelief and pretend that the puppets on the stage were real people.

The main subject of the book is the question of why evil exists in the world. Lessing has a fictional answer, which is that love can't grow naturally on earth. Instead, it has to be imported through a supernatural ray-o-love from someplace where our alien benefactors produce it (a love factory, I assume). I could be interested in a dramatized naturalistic explanation for the origin of evil (Darwinian, psychological, ...) Not being a theist, I'm less interested in stories about the origin of evil that originate in a specific religious tradition such as the Abrahamic religions, but I can see why such a depiction could be interesting to a theist, or to someone immersed in a theistic culture. But I can't imagine why anyone would be interested in Lessing's invented supernatural premise of love-only-available-by-import. And even if I put aside the fact that it's silly, it's the kiss of death in dramatic terms. The human race is reduced to a bunch of heroin addicts lolling around on the living room couch wondering if their alien pushers are ever going to show up with a ziplock full of good lovin'.

An added irritant is that so much of the science-fictional material in the book is laughably dumb. Cities are built in special geometrical patterns so as to tune in to the love-beam's mystic vibes. Old Testament myths are treated as depictions of history, Von Daniken style.

Sometimes when you're reading a didactic novel, you just have to grit your teeth and suffer through its failure as fiction. But that only works if the ideas being presented are interesting enough to make the suffering worthwhile. The ideas in this book are just plain silly.

I don't read a whole lot of novels, and truth be told I've never been able to read anything else of Lessing's. Yet this book remains indelible and forever in my heart. Lessing herself said that this work felt born through her as much as from her, and considering the discrimination and intellect of the woman, I take that as a powerful statement.
And truly visionary this work is- it's able to zoom into the heart and process of darkness in our contemporary world without comprimise, then give the reader a view from above without sentiment or easy platitudes, with compassion and true insight.
This is a true work of spirituality- that is bringing the heart and the intellect together, without resorting to easy answers. May each one of us aspire to the dedication and tireless compassion as does Johor in order to benefit beings.

Shikasta is one of those rare creations that defies classification, a gripping novel which through the medium of fantasy reveals deep truth. For its rich humanity, its scope and its uncanny perceptions of the human condition, this work is sure to last forever.

Shikasta is one of those rare creations that defies classification, a gripping novel which through the medium of fantasy reveals deep truth. For its rich humanity, its scope and its uncanny perceptions of the human condition, this work is sure to last forever.

Shikasta is one of those rare creations that defies classification, a gripping novel which through the medium of fantasy reveals deep truth. For its rich humanity, its scope and its uncanny perceptions of the human condition, this work is sure to last forever.

In Shikasta Ms. Lessing writes about a planet's misfortune, that started as a planetary potential for Human Evolution. An experiment that could have gone right or wrong. This book starts with a series of story's about the beginning and present states of a planet called Shikasta (earth ) that fell from grace after a galactic miss- alignment, and a tampering from a malignant force. Canopus ( a civilized planetary intelligence within this sector of the Universe, given permissible action to help stranded Planets gone backwards, or to seed new planets with potential for growth and evolution ) Is overseeing the progress made by their agents being sent to Shikasta in different time periods.

Ms Lessing goes on from Story to Reports to human behavior in a moments notice. Be prepared to jump from one subject to the next just like a student attends a History class at 9:00 AM to Sociology at 10:00 AM to Psychology at 11:00 AM.

Shikasta is a marvelous work of literature, giving us examples of human creation and miscorrelations. Perhaps the biggest impact is the similarity to our own planet earth's history. Makes me wonder is fiction really a meager attempt at explain the little truth we know about our own planets evolution. In my opinion Ms. Lessing comes dangerously close to what really happened on a small little planet called earth.

I'll confess. I didn't finish it. I just found the whole concept of 'advanced races' helping the primordial races on their proper path rather eugenic.

Even though technically this is sci-fi, parts of it come across more as mythology, and a lot of it - though couched in fiction - is disturbingly TRUE. This isn't so much a "novel" as a collection of documents pertaining to the science project being undertaken on the planet Shikasta (Earth) by a race of advanced aliens from Canopus. The Canopians are very spiritual, and they are the figures generally interpreted in human myth as gods and angels. Messiahs and prophets throughout history have tended to be agents of Canopus in disguise. At the start of the experiment, the planet is called Rohanda and everything is going fine, but then disaster strikes. The stars go out of alignment and it becomes impossible for any but a tiny amount of spiritual energy known as "SOWF" (Spirit Of We-Feeling) to be sent from Canopus for the sustainment of balance and sanity on Rohanda. An evil planet called Shammat exploits the catasrophe in order to plunder Shikasta, turning it into a violent chaos that will generate the negative energy which Shammat needs to sustain itself. The Rohandan natives start to degenerate and everything goes wrong. The planet is renamed Shikasta, and the middle part of the book chronicles its deterioration, as the natives manifest types of behavior that religion labels "sin." This section amounts to a relentless critique, no, a sorrowful CONDEMNATION of human society from the perspective of a being who is outside the human condition and observing it in near-disbelief. What we take for granted, Johor finds intolerable, unbelievable. Human sins are so succinctly and perfectly described, there is such power in these passages, I felt as if my eyes had been opened. I was alternately excited, dismayed, and terrified with each page. It almost knocked the breath out of me, as along with the sense of shame came the realization that Johor is right; our behavior really _doesn't_ make sense. We don't have to sit idly and accept evil by calling it "human nature." The one resounding note of hope in the book is that evil is NOT our nature. We have been perverted by Shammat, but we can choose to resist. The problem is that most of us don't. It is easier to give in to the influences around us and let ourselves slip into the mess...
The second half of the book consists of journals and notes by natives of Shikasta, and develops into more of a conventional narrative. This part seems weaker than the first half, but it does mitigate the intensity of the reader's own guilt and provides an upbeat conclusion to the whole experience. I really want to read the rest of this series, but most of it seems to be currently unavailable...
I would call this a "must-read" for anybody interested in spirituality, morality, Gnosticism, or who wants to gain a wider, clearer perspective on the human condition than that offered by established religions. This book will make you think. This book will make you tremble.

This is, simply, a masterpiece. Each time I read this book it feels as if I am reading a factual history of the earth.