Emissary of Light

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 1 SEPT 1997

After some spiritual wandering, including training as a Franciscan brother and living in a community dedicated to studying the channeled work A Course in Miracles, Twyman, in 1994, became known as "The Peace Troubadour," playing guitar and singing peace songs for various religious and peace organizations. Feeling "led" to travel to Croatia and Bosnia, he wound up at a remote camp where he encountered the "Emissaries of Light," a group of people who meditated 12 hours a day, "extending Divine Light" out into the world. Twyman was told that this group has existed, in one form or another, "for thousands of years" in areas marked by extreme conflict. The Emissaries, writes Twyman, are "the guardians of the human race," keeping humanity from destroying itself as they work "to keep the doors of heaven open." Told that "humanity was on the verge of a spiritual awakening unlike anything that had ever happened before," Twyman was assigned to tell the world about the secret Emissaries, who soon will no longer be needed since enough people are now choosing love over fear. Twyman's story is full of long monologues that explain, in simplified language, what many readers will recognize as the tenets of A Course in Miracles. The book reads like pompous, didactic and talky fiction. Originally published in 1996 by Aslan, it joins the recent spate of spiritual adventure stories, which are starting to look like Bible comics for the New Age. Major ad/promo; simultaneous audio; author tour.