Malcolm Mitchell has pursued development in a variety of contexts, working with the Alexandria Foundation, Ark, Aurobindo Ashrams, Saneline, Azafady, and other bodies. He has campaigned, counselled people with mental health problems and worked widely in alternative education. His current focus is practical support of threatened environments, species and peoples, besides ongoing exploration of human and non-human workings.
Author/Artist: Malcolm J. Mitchell
ISBN: 185398146X
Publisher: Ashgrove
First published: 2002
"Realise, then," said the hog, "your unfathomableness with everything - your organic unfathomableness." With that, the sty fell silent.
So begins this capering odyssey for hog and human, weaving a way through different dimensions on a mysterious quest. We encounter cell-like empyreans, the enigmatic I'-lak, Consumer Megamagnet, and otherworldly others, on a journey that might initially seem just a wanton beast of a metaphor. As the story unfolds, though, readers may be led to 'unfoldings' of their own - to find themselves on a uniquely personal ride at the crux of the transpersonal.
This mystical Animal Farm or wild Tao of Physics is funny and unpredictable, with a challenging narrative that supports self-determined, multi-level learning. The book variedly explores the dynamics of the 'wirings' under the worldly boards. To the rooter for truth, through whatever domains one may be navigating, the hog may prove itself an invaluable companion.
Ultimately, then, it is up to the reader. Whatever way you may take The Hog's Wholey Wash - spoof or spell; guide, tonic or alarm - there are always other ways it can be taken. It's time to find your inner 'trotter' and take a journey through the known and unknown.
Ashgrove Publishing has kindly sent us the first four allotments of the book. These are available in the pdf- and word-formats - we recommend the word-format as it follows the graphic structure of the book itself.Read in word-format. Allotments I-IV.
Read in pdf-format. Allotments I-IV.
(Please note that if you have wavy lines under some words when reading with the Word program you can turn them off by going into Word, Tools, Options, Spellings & Grammar, and undoing computer autochecks.)
Reviews
I was prompted to tackle this book in some part given the hype that seems to be building up around it. Heard of it initially as some groundbreaking material that had come up within the Work – a goldmine, or ‘minefield,’ of significations. Later heard it spoken of as little to do with the Work, except perhaps as a rip-off or attempted satire of the Gurdjieffian. Intrigued enough to examine it for myself, I did a good deal of bemused reading of it till something unexpectedly clicked; Blake’s “infinity in a grain of sand” for some reason lodged firmly in my mind, not to be shaken off. The “Wholey Wash” subsequently ‘stuck’ and ‘grew’ in a way it simply had not before. If I found I ended up with a pearl of great price, it ultimately seems a thing as much of my own making as that of the author/ his influences (Sufism? Vedanta? Holography?)/ his readers (interpreters, critics)/ others.
But what to cast? Could we perceive ‘infinity in hogwash’ ?!
This book certainly helped/forced me to better grasp how I can find unexpected windows on different realities – realities of my own psyche and its milieux. The reading of it did work for me (at a literary level, not unpainfully) as both eye-opener and feeling-opener. From my own experience with it, I can say it can serve as a wonderful little ‘Working Person’s Manual’ on getting to grips with our worlds, perceptions, our more untamed intimations as well as everyday senses.
Having gone from mild cynicism to minor obsession in relation to this book, I must say it does itself have much light to shed on our follies of cynicism and obsession – and alternatives of living Work.
Ian Burroughs, Scotland,
added 2003-09-03
With 'The Hog' Malcolm Mitchell has put an end or two to the lack of books on the psychic life of these pigs.
Although the flight he describes starts with a kind of dive into what could be described as liquid manure, a hot bathe with its bubbles and things, it takes place in another dimension and is more like a cosmic flight into the unknown. Says the Hog: "try, try, try and trust that within you already fly".
The wash turns out to be more of an inner flight with a dreamlike atmosphere that hits the fan and spreads out to the unknown. In fact, I sensed the ethereal quality of out of the body experiences that are impossible to describe; a cosmic flight that does not seem to end anywhere, but continues on its orbit, looping on and on, like some of the characters when doing their figure of eight.
By the way, I gave only four stars due to a personal defect - the book is written in English and therefore difficult for me to read with its amazing vocabulary of words I could not even guess - you know, like the words in Beelzebub.
Reijo Elsner, Finland
http://www.elsners.com/
added 2003-07-26
* The book is the ideal bedside companion, being written in short, four-page sections. It is also the perfect gift for the jaded friend who has read everything. (Mind you, the tastes of the friend have to be really jaded, for the language here is "superswineishly" slipper and sly, Joycean, Gurdjieffian, neologismically inventive. There is a lot of humour here amid the "higher" wisdom. One never knows what the next sentence will bring.
* The way Virgil led Dante through a hierarchy of worlds, the "Pig-Being" leads us through all the worlds that are, instructding us along the way. Here is one pig that is garrulous, but no boar, being closer to Plutarch's philosopher than it is to the sty-variety. In fact, Malcolm Mitchell's pig is in a class by itself, the dispenser of unlikely wisdom to the animal nature that hogs the limelight.
John Robert Colombo, Canada
added 2003-07-04
Much as Alice followed the rabbit, and Carlitos struggled to follow Don Juan, so the teller of this tale obeys the hog's injunction to 'follow me' and scrambles after it on an adventurous and possibly salvific flight through the cosmos. In like manner, we the readers, earnestly strive to unravel Mitchell's narrative which twists itself ike an amoebic strip, flowing seamlessly to unite sets of opposites, to answer and provoke questions, to baffle and enlighten.
Though the tale of the hog is shorter, and lighter to carry round the Gurdjieff's 'Beelzebub's Tales To His Grandson' Mitchell has that author's ability to muddle, befuddle, and charm his reader into a submissive agreement to grapple with the text, and through it with the unfathomable mysteries of 'Consciousness and Cosmos'.
Very funny and highly recommended, buy two, because you will want one to give away.
Sophia Wellbeloved, United Kingdom
added 2003-01-16