What do you think?
Rate this book
Second Thunder
Not just a continuation of First Thunder, this visionary work is more akin to myth than pure fiction. Its non-linear form expands ideas of time, space and the self into the realm of mutidimensional consciousness. The conflicts and challenges faced by the god-like beings in this story represent warring aspects of our own fragmented personalities. The need for the healing of the self is out-pictured here to be recognzed by the reader at the heart level - not merely intellectually. " 'In terms of visionary experience, re-centering occurs through the process of identifying the different internal characters, descarding those who do not serve the growth proces, strengthening those who do, destroying that which is useless, creating that which is useful.' -- MSI
390 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1995
3 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Maharishi Sadasiva Isham
6 books11 followersThe life of every person is sacred. The revelation of that sacredness is often revealed by a person's contribution to humanity. In many cases, that contribution is only revealed after death. Maharishi Sadashiva Isham (MSI) was such an individual. MSI's life was punctuated by the desire to know. His search was not for knowledge but for Truth. Truth was most important to him and he shared that Truth in total commitment to healing the world.
Born April 13, 1949 in Seattle, Washington, MSI's early life was marked by a desire to find meaning in a seemingly lonely and cruel world. His frustration from feeling different and alone was blanketed by a firm hope that one day he would discover the purpose of life.
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude in English from the University of Washington, MSI met his teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM.) MSI entered into a formal teacher/student relationship with Maharishi and became a TM teacher shortly thereafter. He eventually found himself in Fairfield, Iowa, home of the TM University with a wife and two children. Content in his experience of expanding consciousness, he settled into a quiet lifestyle of writing books and designing and building houses.
His life was thoroughly shattered in 1988 when, in a matter of months, he lost his business, his money, his house and his family through divorce. Considering his loss an omen, and disenchanted with the rules surrounding TM, he began a new quest for the meaning and purpose of life.
During a journey to the Himalayas, MSI found the Ishayas, an ancient order of monks founded by the Apostle John. From them, MSI learned the techniques collectively known as the Ishayas' Ascension that he would later bring to the world.
Born April 13, 1949 in Seattle, Washington, MSI's early life was marked by a desire to find meaning in a seemingly lonely and cruel world. His frustration from feeling different and alone was blanketed by a firm hope that one day he would discover the purpose of life.
After graduating Phi Beta Kappa, Cum Laude in English from the University of Washington, MSI met his teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation (TM.) MSI entered into a formal teacher/student relationship with Maharishi and became a TM teacher shortly thereafter. He eventually found himself in Fairfield, Iowa, home of the TM University with a wife and two children. Content in his experience of expanding consciousness, he settled into a quiet lifestyle of writing books and designing and building houses.
His life was thoroughly shattered in 1988 when, in a matter of months, he lost his business, his money, his house and his family through divorce. Considering his loss an omen, and disenchanted with the rules surrounding TM, he began a new quest for the meaning and purpose of life.
During a journey to the Himalayas, MSI found the Ishayas, an ancient order of monks founded by the Apostle John. From them, MSI learned the techniques collectively known as the Ishayas' Ascension that he would later bring to the world.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 11, 2012
Second Thunder, Seeking the Black Ishayas ISBN 13:978-0-9843233-2-6 ISBN 10: 0-9843233-2-5 (old ISBN 0-931783-08-9) departs into visionary myth, not unlike the Avatar movie – multi-dimensional, action oriented, dealing with both the sacred and mundane. We experience the beginning of creation and experience different periods over millennia as characters battle the same villain again and again – what we might call the ego.
We meet Lord Gana who is continually in search of his beloved Almira. Lifetime after lifetime, she incarnates aiding him in his awakening at key points in each life. It is a true love story; not the little love of romance, but eternal love - unconditional love.
Many stories emerge in Second Thunder. Every character illustrates a mixture of human foibles and the Divine, making them all the more memorable. The oft-repeated counsel, a favorite part of the book for me, is that “help is always available, even when least deserved, if one will just allow it”. We are reminded that we are never alone; we must never be fooled by appearances. What a great reminder of how life can operate if we just allow it!
We meet Lord Gana who is continually in search of his beloved Almira. Lifetime after lifetime, she incarnates aiding him in his awakening at key points in each life. It is a true love story; not the little love of romance, but eternal love - unconditional love.
Many stories emerge in Second Thunder. Every character illustrates a mixture of human foibles and the Divine, making them all the more memorable. The oft-repeated counsel, a favorite part of the book for me, is that “help is always available, even when least deserved, if one will just allow it”. We are reminded that we are never alone; we must never be fooled by appearances. What a great reminder of how life can operate if we just allow it!
August 15, 2023
This inaugurates my 'evil' tag, being the first book that I've been unable to finish because it was too evil. I got to page 106, where yet another exaltation of genocide broke my will to continue. This author tells stories of societies that suffer extreme mass deaths at the hands of "good" people, then have all-good golden ages under "good" rule. They then decay helplessly into all-evil societies of cruelty and suffering that must be cleansed by another round of extreme mass deaths at the hands of "good" people so that more "good" people can take over and give the survivors another all-good golden age. It is clear that the author feels like purging the all-evil societies is a good deed.
The author splits the characters and the societies into all-good and all-evil. There are more-evil and less-evil villains, but even the less-evil villains have negligible virtues. There are more-good and less-good heroes, but even the less-good heroes have negligible flaws. None of them are rounded characters. As for the societies, the theme of secular decay is a warhammer here; it is presented that without the religion of the book (which I understand is also the religion of the author), the societies can only rot into cruelty. The idea that people create their own meaning is explicitly raised and cast down at one point. The religious characters and societies are all-good; the secular characters and societies are all-evil.
The book is presenting religious bigotry! There is too much hatred in this book for it to be a work of peace in either relative or absolute senses. The author denies early in the book that species matters, and it's great that they wouldn't be speciesist if they met an alien, but their religion is an iron demand.
The book's presentation of love seems very unhealthy. It doesn't present a mature, balanced view of love. It presents obsessive loves that create rapturous needs... as good things. It doesn't present that kind of love as the dangerous thing it is. Despite the author's denial that species matters, the characters can be motivated to extremes by human beauty. They form these attachments at a glance.
Every female character presented to the point where I stopped reading is an incarnation of the mother goddess. Women are not just women, they are flawless. But they are also not equal, as the societies in the book are male-dominated. Women are reduced to objects of beauty, desire, and perfect motherhood.
The leaders of the book's societies are supposed to be a superior caste, a fact that nobody questions; the leaders are presented as being as far above the people as humans are above animals. Every leader in the book is running or wants to run a feudal society that controls people through dogma (the good guys) or tyranny (the bad guys). Their societies are mostly comprised of helpless, uneducated peasants either way.
The book does all this with an exulting positivity that exudes glory. It declares its greatest hero the embodiment of all mankind, a nigh-omnipotent god of creation with nigh-infinite wisdom. It tells tales of shining cities adorned with jewels, fountains of gold and silver, and sculptures that seem so real they could get up and walk away. There's no sign of the inglorious mining or industrial development needed to build these shining cities. The beautifulness just seem to have manifested from the aether as the necessary accompaniment to a tale of "god-like beings".
Oh, and these glorious-then-decaying civilizations all lose technology over time. They never make any intellectual advances. None of the characters good or evil care one whit for technology. They never see its advancement as potentially helpful to their causes, nor do they even care to preserve it from the damage that their campaigns inflict on it. Nobody in the book defends intellectual freedom or inquiry.
The book is fascinating as a glance into a mind very different from my own, but the moral values dissonance is extreme.
The author splits the characters and the societies into all-good and all-evil. There are more-evil and less-evil villains, but even the less-evil villains have negligible virtues. There are more-good and less-good heroes, but even the less-good heroes have negligible flaws. None of them are rounded characters. As for the societies, the theme of secular decay is a warhammer here; it is presented that without the religion of the book (which I understand is also the religion of the author), the societies can only rot into cruelty. The idea that people create their own meaning is explicitly raised and cast down at one point. The religious characters and societies are all-good; the secular characters and societies are all-evil.
The book is presenting religious bigotry! There is too much hatred in this book for it to be a work of peace in either relative or absolute senses. The author denies early in the book that species matters, and it's great that they wouldn't be speciesist if they met an alien, but their religion is an iron demand.
The book's presentation of love seems very unhealthy. It doesn't present a mature, balanced view of love. It presents obsessive loves that create rapturous needs... as good things. It doesn't present that kind of love as the dangerous thing it is. Despite the author's denial that species matters, the characters can be motivated to extremes by human beauty. They form these attachments at a glance.
Every female character presented to the point where I stopped reading is an incarnation of the mother goddess. Women are not just women, they are flawless. But they are also not equal, as the societies in the book are male-dominated. Women are reduced to objects of beauty, desire, and perfect motherhood.
The leaders of the book's societies are supposed to be a superior caste, a fact that nobody questions; the leaders are presented as being as far above the people as humans are above animals. Every leader in the book is running or wants to run a feudal society that controls people through dogma (the good guys) or tyranny (the bad guys). Their societies are mostly comprised of helpless, uneducated peasants either way.
The book does all this with an exulting positivity that exudes glory. It declares its greatest hero the embodiment of all mankind, a nigh-omnipotent god of creation with nigh-infinite wisdom. It tells tales of shining cities adorned with jewels, fountains of gold and silver, and sculptures that seem so real they could get up and walk away. There's no sign of the inglorious mining or industrial development needed to build these shining cities. The beautifulness just seem to have manifested from the aether as the necessary accompaniment to a tale of "god-like beings".
Oh, and these glorious-then-decaying civilizations all lose technology over time. They never make any intellectual advances. None of the characters good or evil care one whit for technology. They never see its advancement as potentially helpful to their causes, nor do they even care to preserve it from the damage that their campaigns inflict on it. Nobody in the book defends intellectual freedom or inquiry.
The book is fascinating as a glance into a mind very different from my own, but the moral values dissonance is extreme.
February 13, 2023
Best series every, I hope you get to read them.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews