Metaphysical Odyssey Into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual

by C M Mayo

Overview

In a blend of biography, personal essay, and a rendition of deeply researched metaphysical and Mexican history that reads like a novel, award-winning writer and noted literary translator C.M. Mayo provides a rich introduction and the first translation of the secret book by Francisco I. Madero, leader of Mexico's 1910 Revolution and President of Mexico 1911-1913. Says Mexican historian Manuel Guerra de Luna, author of LOS MADERO: LA SAGA LIBERAL, "In my fifteen years of researching the life of President Francisco I. Madero, I have never read a more complete book as the one just written by C.M. Mayo. It will simply surprise any reader. The research is impeccable and the narrative well-rounded." C.M. Mayo is the author of several works on Mexico, including THE LAST PRINCE OF THE MEXICAN EMPIRE, a novel based on the true story and named a Library Journal Best Book of 2009.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780988797000
Publisher:	Dancing Chiva
Publication date:	01/23/2014
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

C.M. Mayo is the author of The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, a novel based on the true story and named a Library Journal Best Book 2009, and published in Spanish translation by award-winning Mexican writer and poet Agustín Cadena as El último príncipe del Imperio Mexicano in 2010. Mayo is also the author of Miraculous Air, a widely-lauded memoir of travels Mexico's Baja California peninsula, and of Sky Over El Nido, which won the Flannery O'Connor Award for short fiction. A long-time resident of Mexico City and an avid literary translator, Mayo is also editor of Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion. Her website is www.cmmayo.com

Editorial Reviews

2015-01-09
An introduction to and translation of Mexican revolutionary Francisco Madero's Spiritist Manual. In the winter of 1911, as Mexican revolutionaries battled to oust the dictator Porfirio Diaz, an author identified only as "Bhîma" published Manual espirita, a slim volume that promised to provide readers with "the foundations of a very lofty philosophy" known as Spiritism. The human spirit, the author wrote, "is a higher entity than our body," its life not limited to one incarnation but reincarnated repeatedly as it evolves into ever greater states of consciousness. Bhîma, it turns out, was not some Eastern mystic but none other than Francisco Madero, who helped depose Diaz and served as president of Mexico from November 1911 to his murder in February 1913. In her book, Mayo, the pen name of Catherine Mansell, wife of a prominent Mexican economist, provides not only an English translation of Madero's Spiritist Manual, but also a lively introduction to a text that had sunk into "almost complete obscurity" but, she argues, is essential to "understanding Madero himself, why and how he led Mexico's 1910 Revolution, and the seething contempt of those behind the overthrow of his government and his assassination." Madero discovered Spiritism, Mayo writes, as a student in Paris in 1891 when he stumbled upon a magazine called La Revue spirite. After reading the works of Spiritism guru Allan Kardec, he became convinced "he had incarnated on this planet in order to usher in a golden age." But while he was motivated by his Spiritism and detailed messages he believed were sent to him by the dead, Madero had to promote his philosophy anonymously in Catholic Mexico, remaining "coyly, and sometimes very lumpily, behind the curtains." In one message, a spirit named José purportedly reminded him, "You have been selected by your Heavenly Father to fulfill a great mission on Earth." Mayo's frequent digressions may irritate some readers, but she makes an effective case for taking Madero's Spiritist beliefs seriously rather than simply dismissing them as "plumb crazy." "One does not have to be a Spiritist to champion freedom and democracy," Mayo concludes, "but for Madero, Mexico's Apostle of Democracy, metaphysics and politics were inseparable." The author argues effectively that Madero's manual is essential to understanding his revolutionary zeal.

Kirkus Review