Please open https://hotaudiobook.com ONLY on your standard browser Safari, Chrome, Microsoft or Firefox to download full audiobooks of your choice for free.

Title: Dreamers and Their Shadows

Author: Douglas J. Penick

Narrator: Chiquito Joaquim Crasto

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-03-17

Publisher: Mountain Treasury Press

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Two ancient scrolls, The Secret Annals, are discovered in the 1950s in a Tokyo bombsite. They purport to be the history of an unknown 15th-century Japanese spiritual teacher who, in a time of social chaos, sets out to establish enlightened society. He begins his teaching saying: "Abstinence is no path at all. We are gambling on true love. It is an untested path." In documents from students and spies, the Annals then give an intimate portrait of a charismatic leader, his teachings and the transformative journey he shares with his eccentric band of followers. The scrolls are unmasked as forgeries, but 10 years later, a retired professor becomes obsessed. Who created this hoax? And why? To the professor the Annals offer new possibilities from a kind of parallel reality. On his deathbed, he makes his American assistant promise to continue searching and to translate the scrolls. The assistant moves to New York. It is the time of the Vietnam War and the counter-culture. He has doubts about the professor, but the world of the Secret Annals begins to seep into his life. He finds within the Prince's teaching a path through this world of trackless uncertainty. Tantalized, he senses a new world of passionate intensity just within reach.

Members Reviews:

I couldn't put it down, then I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I wondered when I picked up this book if it would live up to its promising title. Dreamers and Their Shadows. How I love that title. I hoped I would find in the story some mystery, and maybe the sorts of dreamers who lead us to seek purpose in our busy journey on earth. The book delivered so much. (I'll skip a description of the narrative - you can read it above.) Mystery - are the scrolls real? Dreamers - are the professor and his student who together analyze the scrolls inspired or just insane? The echoes of these questions are heard in the tale within the tale of the charismatic prince - are his leadership and spirituality real? Are his followers inspired or just insane? The satisfying internal consistency of these questions, deftly woven in and out of the contemporary story and the ancient story, lend tautness and a kind of precision to the book. The mystery of the scrolls is the perfect foil for investigating the mysteries of life that dreamers contemplate, and that those dreamers, whether story tellers, shamans, priests, or healers, invite us to share. Ultimately, the truth of the scrolls is unimportant, as is the "truth" of the prince or the "truth" of the visions that begin to appear to the student. The book explains that the shadows of truth we perceive are sometimes caused by our perception of truth's absence, and those shadows of truth are enough to propel us to seek it. In Dreamers and Their Shadows, sometimes the shadows of truth are cast by those who fail us in some way, or in stories that we discover are factually false. And those shadows of truth are also shadows of love, the highest kind of truth there is. Am I sounding insane at this point? Read the book. Maybe I'm insane, or maybe I'm a dreamer. In any case, I loved Dreamers and Their Shadows. It's a wonderful book.