Mx. Quinne

Borrowed ideas, victim blaming, and privilege

Revisado: 11-29-24

As a therapist and practitioner of witchcraft exploring energy work after some eye-opening life experiences, I came across The Energy Codes from a recommendation on learning about energy work. I picked up the book on Audible and began to go through it. The more I listened to it, the more red flags started popping up. But, determined to give it a fair shake, I pressed on. Unfortunately, the result is a cringeworthy collection of borrowed ideas that the author has re-dubbed to sound like her own concepts, victim blaming, and blindness to her privilege.

BORROWED IDEAS

There are quite a few ideas that the author lifts from counseling and psychology that she then spins in her own ways. She talks about how traumatic events get energetically trapped in the body and can manifest in various physical maladies. This isn't really any different than the work Bessel van der Kolk has done related to trauma and the body. The author has just rebranded it as energetic blockages rather than mental, physical, and emotional ones. While I respect the potential energy work has to compliment psychological counseling, the author has really just taken very basic ideas and given it a fanciful coat of wash.

There is also the idea of the "Soulful Self" in the book. This isn't any different than the Self - sometimes called "The Big-S Self" in some works to distinguish the core, mindful Self from the word "self" we use every day to reference ourselves. The moment the author mentioned this, I recognized this as the same idea as the Self in Internal Family Systems theory (IFS) and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Really, any form of mindfulness-based counseling will use this idea that we have the capacity to unhook from our internal narratives, our emotional reactions, and even physical responses to thing and develop the ability to be "self-led." That is to say, we can develop the ability to choose how we react to our internal and external experiences - no energetic stuff neded.

Can energy work such as Reiki, chakra balancing, and yoga compliment this? Yes. Are these ideas exclusive to Morter's work? No.

Morter also talks about the "storied self" vs. the "soulful Self." Again, this is just the Self in IFS. In ACT, this is called self-as-content vs. self-as-context. Morter has just taken these ideas and put her own spin on them to make them sound like something to which she and other gurus hold the secret key.

VICTIM BLAMING

Morter presents the "Bus Stop Conversation" as a metaphor for the idea that your Soulful Self chooses every experience you have in life. If you have been injured, assaulted, traumatized, acquired a disability, and so forth then The Energy Codes suggests your higher Self chose that prior to your arrival in this life. She even goes so far as to acknowledge that this seems very victim-blamey but then offers the convenient cover that any support you didn't get for your experience was because you didn't need it or your Soulful Self didn't want it because it would block your awakening to your higher purpose. She states that you are never given a greater challenge than what your Self can handle. This is basically a rebranding of the old platitude that Christians use that their god doesn't give them anything they can't handle.

Imagine the classic dumb things that are said when blaming a victim of misfortune. I won't go into them here as I'm sure Amazon would not appreciate that appearing in a review, so I'll defer to the reader's understanding on this.

Now... imagine doing that but saying that your Soulful Self clearly asked for that to happen because it needed it to happen for your higher good.

Not only is that hurtful and ludicrous, but it is really doing the same thing it's claiming to not do. That is, Morter's idea is really just assigning some vague idea of purpose to a random and unfortunate event. Same tune, different lyrics. It also misses the difference between the kind of empowerment that comes from knowing you can choose how to move forward from that point and her alleged empowerment from saying, "Well, I guess my Self chose this so it's all good. LOL!"

PRIVILEGE BLINDERS

This takes us to another big problem that the author has. It's common among folks that present ideas like this or things like The Secret or the prosperity gospel. Namely, it does not take into account the privilege the presenter or author had that enabled them to overcome the adversities they claim to have faced. These gurus are usually white and reasonable affluent even before their rise to the fame and fortune afforded them by an almost cultlike following. Ideas like The Energy Codes, The Secret, "manifesting" or prosperity gospel generally do not take into account matters of social justice.

Imagine telling a woman of color who is a single mother trying to scrape by on minimum wage that she just needs to get her energy right to have a life of prosperity and purpose. Now imagine telling her that any problem she has doing that, such as overcoming wealth inequality, racial bias, problems balancing work and looking after kids, and more must mean her Soul Self has a reason she can't make it just yet.

CONCLUSION

There are other problems the book has, but these were the most notable from my own reading of The Energy Codes. Sue Morter also spends a good portion of the book providing stories - real or not cannot be determined - that establish her alleged gift and authority in these matters. The fantastical tales of seeing colors, being energetically overcome by mystical gurus, and more are an effort to convince the reader she really has a line to some deep, magical resource and all you need is to buy her book and probably programs and attend seminars. It's a very culty, grifty tactic.

Based on my experiences with energy, there is something to be said for its presence and influence. But The Energy Codes is not the guide you are looking for on this. It's really just the whole manifesting thing that arose with The Secret spun in a new way with a bit of other psychological stuff added in to seem like something new.

You want to find some financial gain? Save your money until you find a better book.

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More a scholarly analysis than Shinto primer

Revisado: 11-27-24

My interest in Shinto has always been there, but the degree to which I explore it has waxed and waned as I have moved through spaces related to other paths such as Buddhism, Wicca, and Druidry. As someone who has never quite resonated with the idea of deities as often presented in Western cultures, be they Christian or European Pagan, I decided to revisit Shinto and its concepts of the kami. I bought Shinto: The Way Home thinking it might be a good primer on Shinto ideas and practice. While there are some good insights in the book and it did expand my understanding of the kami in ways that I find appealing, the majority of the book is a historical and sociological analysis of Shinto, covering how both Shinto informed the evolution of Japanese culture and, in turn, events in Japanese history influenced the evolution of Shinto to what we see of it today.

While the book itself is interesting, it is not a really a primer on the basics of Shinto concepts and practice that those who are seeking to explore it as a spiritual path - either primary or complimentary - in their life journey. There are little morsels of information here and there that help form an idea of Shinto outlook and philosophy and how it compares and contrasts to Western ideas of spirit and deity, but the majority of it is history and academic analysis. As such, it is a bit dry and doesn't really go into the ideas as the reader might apply to their spiritual practice and life.

A worthy read later down the line, perhaps. But probably not the best for a spiritual seeker. It's better suited to the academically and philosophically curious.

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Great material but difficult delivery

Revisado: 02-18-22

As a trans woman unraveling my own internalized transmisogeny that presently keeps me from really embracing my authentic self, I came across references to Julia Serano's book, "Whipping Girl" in various forums and personal accounts. With many citing it as incredibly helpful, I decided to pick it up and give it a listen. As it turned out, this was to be the kind of book that will require several listen-throughs, for both good and not-so-good reasons.

On the good side, there is a lot to unpack with the contents of this book. Serano's insights, ideas, analyses, and more are incredibly thought-provoking, and I picked up more than a few helpful ideas in her book on the first listen. It's the kind of stuff that can really shift your paradigm and see where you might be limiting yourself by your own internalized ideas on sex, gender, and transness. I'll likely be giving it a few listens from start to finish because there is more in here than you can likely absorb with just a first pass. It will take at least a couple more times to really let things sink in.

Unfortunately, the experience is hampered by Serano's narration of the book. Her reading cadence is very metered and repetitive. She reads in clusters or "bursts" of seven to nine words at a time with a pattern that is the same over, and over... and over... and over... and over. On top of that, she ends the last syllable of the last word in a burst with a kind of lilt that draws the last syllable into two. The only real exception is words that in in hard consonants like "t" or "m." The result is a sort of Valley Girl-like inflection that, due to its very even and repetitive cadence, gets hard to listen to after a while. It also makes the material hard to absorb at times, because a sentence may be read as a series of three bursts. So, rather than a nicely flowing train of thought, it's more like you get the idea thrown at you in ten-second sound bytes strung together to form a coherent idea.

Generally, I prefer to listen to books read by their own authors, and I think it is a benefit to hear the author read her own material to give emphasis to her thoughts as she reads. There is the occasional break in her pattern where her tone is more organic and those are real gems in the book. Unfortunately, most of it is read with a very forced, metered clip that sounds less a person reading her book and more like a choppy text-to-speech reader. Which is unfortunate because the author has done some great stuff with her book but distracts from really taking it in with her narration. So it might require a few listens - partly to really digest all of the great stuff in there but also because you're fed to it in small, repetitively-metered bursts that make each insight hard to follow at times.

In the end, give the sample a listen to see if it works for you. If so, great! Or, if audio is one of the most convenient ways to absorb books in a busy life like it is for me, get it. If not, maybe buy a print or e-book version so you can really take in all the book has to offer without stumbling through the author's narration.

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So much unrealized potential.

Revisado: 11-26-20

It pains me to give a low review of this book because, as a gender-nonconforming person myself, I want to see more personal stories that contribute to the narrative. The public is largely introduced to the narrative of "I was a boy/girl who knew at an early age that I was really a girl/boy in the 'wrong body.'" What then follows is usually a life story filled with gender dysphoria and then the eventual realization of authenticity through presentation, hormones, surgery, and so forth. When I read the title of this book I was excited to hear from the experiences of someone who identified as bi-gender and learn what that meant for them.

Unfortunately, by the time I was done I could only think of the quote from Billy Madison about a "rambling, incoherent response." The book itself is a meandering, aimless stroll through various life events that are never fully connected to the overarching narrative. Or, rather, what the author presumably intended to be the overarching narrative about their experience thus far as a bi-gender individual. There are a lot of details about places they lived, the classes they taught, a few insights into their love life, and the places they traveled. This book might have been great if it had been intended to be a travelogue of Nevada and Montana but, sadly, it falls short as a contribution to the trans and gender-nonconforming narratives. The thing that's truly frustrating is you can tell there IS a story there to tell. All too often, however, the author ends the chapter JUST as the real story starts.

For example, there is one brief vignette about a time they performed in drag. For someone who is gender-nonconforming, you might imagine this would be a big event in their life. We get a lot of details about getting to the show and the location plus a few comments about their performance but nothing about their inner experience. There is little said about their emotions, their thoughts, the mix of fear and exhilaration that might come from such a huge moment in a person's life. The author's account of this evening reaches the climactic moment in which they have a wardrobe malfunction - the kind in which a person might find their experience culminating in a make-or-break moment that informs their journey. The author describes being on stage and mentions the crucial mishap and then..........

Nothing.

The story is dropped and it's off to the next chapter. What happened after that? How did they react? How did they feel? Did this prove to be a setback or a moment of great resilience? The result is a story that isn't even a case of all sizzle and no steak because any sizzle is vague details in some area and exhaustive details in others about locations and room layouts but nothing much about the author's life itself. Unfortunately, there is very little insight in the book about their lived or internal experience about being bi-gender. What does that mean to them? Among the host of gender-nonconforming identities, "bi-gender" could mean non-binary, genderfluid, demigender, and others. How do they feel about their identity and how it places them in the world? Aside from some incidences of discrimination, how have their life experiences contributed to their growth? How did they come to conclude that they were bi-gender? What struggles have they had to embrace that identity?

None of these kinds of rich details are shared in this memoir. All we really get is a rambling report on places they lived and traveled with a few meager samplings of how their sexuality and gender identity have informed and affected their life. It is only in the last two minutes of the book that we get any kind of real connection to the author's experiences and hopes. Had they started out with the last few sentences of the book as their mission statement rather than their conclusion, it might have been a decidedly powerful book.

The audiobook isn't helped any by the choice of narrator. The book is read in a consistently peppy tone that varies very little in inflection. There is no change in the delivery to emphasize moments of sadness or gravitas or lightness for levity. It's ALL lightness and makes the book feel as if you are being read a children's book during story time. It's not exactly the most painful narration I've ever experienced in an audiobook but it certainly dragged the experience down even further.

To summarize, I think this book was written with good intentions but no real focus on those intentions. It's a short read and some folks may glean snippets of inspiration or ideas from it but it falls far, far short of its potential. In reading it, I got the sense that there was a real story there. Unfortunately, the author does not deliver on that story but merely hints at it. This results in a disappointing work that leaves so much untouched and unexplored in their experience as a person who identifies as bi-gender. And that's a shame, because it seems as if there is a story there that needs to be added to the body of works for trans and gender-nonconforming people to show that there is no singular narrative and that each story is unique.

Perhaps in time the author will do a new book with more depth, breadth, and polish and give us the story they presumably set out to tell with this memoir.

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Decent but disappointing

Revisado: 06-08-20

First off, full disclosure - I have never seen an episode of the reboot of Queer Eye. The reason I bought this book was because Jonathan Van Ness identifies as non-binary (pronouns he/him/his) and, as a person identified male at birth who also newly identifies as non-binary I was hoping to gain some insights from the story of his journey. Unfortunately, there is no reference whatsoever to his non-binary identity. Perhaps it's simply wrapped up in his overall queer identity that he just figured it didn't bear mention. After all, for some folks labels become a handy touchstone for a while but then later become cumbersome. I'm not sure why it went without mention so I can only say there was nothing about his evolution toward a non-binary identity. There is stuff to like about this book and stuff that, for myself, made me look forward to the end of it. I'll call these categories The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good
The book is a short, light read and Johnathan narrates it himself. I always prefer autobiographies read by the author because you tend to get a more conversational tone and delivery laden with the feelings the authors themselves are experiencing. Johnathan's bubbly personality comes through and this falls under both The Good and The Bad. It's good in that it makes the narration more vibrant than someone who is simply reading to deliver a clear, well-enunciated narrative. Another good point is that, while the book doesn't really delve as deeply into his journey as some other LGBTQIA+ books, it weaves the details of his personal life, his professional life, and his journey as a gay person together in a way that doesn't separate the strands. Very often such autobiographies really isolate the queer aspect and separate it from the rest of a person's story which often fuels the idea that it is somehow separate and the "not normal" part of their identity. The overlapping facets of his identity and his story cohere together in a way that normalizes it nicely. We could use more narratives that take this holistic view of queer people.

The Bad
As said above, Johnathan's narration also detracts from the book as well as enhances it. Moments that have more gravitas come off as still somewhat glibly delivered. It's probably just his way of talking in general but it almost feels as if he's glossing over the more visceral components. And that may be the case. One of the things I felt detracted from the book was it seemed written more for his fans and fans of Queer Eye than for people who wanted to hear his story in the hopes of learning things they may apply to their own struggles as queer individuals. It's less about his evolution as a person and coming to accept himself and more about his journey from a young, chubby gay boy to one of the stars of Queer Eye. Johnathan has some powerful, wonderful views on self-acceptance and some great messages that only really get dumped into the book in the last few minutes almost as an afterthought. I would have really liked to have seen more exploration of how he came to internalize these views and his work to apply them to himself. As it was, the book was less about contributing to the narratives of growth, struggle, and acceptance of LGBTQIA+ folks and felt more like it was written from the standpoint of, "Hey, here's a famous person everybody loves right now. Let's let him tell his story. People will eat it up!" Truth told, I can't blame JVN for this because I have a feeling there were probably a lot of "suggested edits" from his publisher that likely excised the more insightful details in favor of the celebrity fluff.

The Ugly
Put simply, this book is atrociously mired in references to pop culture, figure skating, Olympic factoids, and general celebrity worship. If you don't know all of the minute details about this Olympic moment that took place on this day at this time, all of the lyrics to this Beyonce or Kelly Clarkson song, moments from Game of Thrones and Stranger Things, have have no point of reference for hair styling then there is a lot in this book that loses focus on the point it's trying to make at the moment. They say write what you know and Johnathan obviously knows a lot about these things and is very passionate about them. The problem, however, is that he references them SO much that the point is lost if you, the reader, don't know the details. When used judiciously, these pop-culture references can be fun little sprinkles of flavor and personality into a narrative. You do see these a lot in books involving queer culture and issues but, surprise surprise, not all of us queer folk are tuned into pop culture and may even have a bit of a distaste for it.

The main problem comes when such references are used as metaphors for something the author wants to convey but then never explained to those of us who don't get the reference. It can be cumbersome to use a metaphor and then also explain it when you could have just not used it in the first place, so it's a balancing act. And, when used to a certain degree, it's not really an issue as a reader like myself can accept that, okay, I don't get that reference because I don't queen out to Cher or Celine Dion or whomever. You just accept that you don't quite relate to the reference and move on. But when an author goes into such excruciating detail about things many readers are not going to relate to, such as all of the jargon and events surrounding gymnastics or figure skating, that their point is lost to the majority of readers that's on the author. Ideally, such obscure references may be dropped for flavor but also briefly related to the author's point or experience that you still understand what they're trying to express in that moment. Pop-culture references and metaphors are the sizzle, not the steak. And by that I mean they make the delivery enticing but they don't provide the actual substance. (See what I did there? Metaphor then pulling sense out of it for those who don't understand the phrase.) Unfortunately, JVN's book repeatedly mistakes sizzle for steak and so you get a lot of moments when he's trying to make a point and it's lost because you're just not a slave to media and popular culture. I eventually just started zoning out whenever he went into these moments and rejoined the book when he actually started writing something relevant to the general reader.

Conclusion
Overall, it wasn't a bad book. It was a good little fluff piece and it had its moments. I at least pulled one important insight from it that I can apply to my own journey as a queer and genderqueer person, but it certainly wasn't the transformative experience I had listening to other authors such as Jacob Tobia or Kate Bornstein. If you're a fan of JVN and Queer Eye then you'll probably enjoy this insight into his rise to where he is now. If you're a queer person struggling with your identity and self-acceptance then you may not get much out of his book other than a sense of solidarity.

But as with many things, especially when it comes to your journey as a queer person, your mileage may vary. Just remember, you are important and you are valid.

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Good concepts presented with false claims

Revisado: 11-15-19

After stumbling across this book I decided to pick it up on Audible since the price was quite reasonable. As a mental health counselor who also draws inspiration from concepts like the chakras and values the work of people like Anodea Judith, I thought this might have some interesting ideas. While it does have a good concept at its core - that changing your perception of past hurts can enhance your ability to engage with the present and take the future as it comes - that core concept is muddled in a lot of excessively broad generalizations that go so far that they become blatant falsehoods. The idea itself resonates very much with the ideas of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as various other counseling modalities. Unfortunately, unlike Anodea Judith's work that pairs more esoteric concepts with western sensibilities to explore the overlap between those esoteric practices and ideas supported by science and psychology, Dr. Gurian leans heavily on the New Agey side of things. While he attempts to ground his ideas in medicine by talking about his experiences in a dentist, he also goes into the realm of heavy-handed myopia to the point of quackery in claiming that the temporomandibular joint is essentially the key to so much of what ails the body. While the idea that there are key points in the body's chains of movement and functioning that impact other parts of those chains has merit, Dr. Gurian presents the TMJ as if it is somehow THE key to much of what might ail someone physically. Unfortunately, this comes off as the same kind of narrowly-focused view many other "noted healers" in the New Age and less scientifically-grounded holistic movement present wherein they claim they have THE singular secret to health and vitality.

The key issue I took with this book, however, was the author's tendency to make such sweeping overgeneralizations that what seemed like well-intentioned comments became utter falsehoods. For example, at one point Dr. Gurian's discussion of connecting with a higher power for this work is important because humans cannot do or know everything. He states that we cannot make the sun or moon rise and we cannot know why they do so. While I appreciate the spirit of the comment, the fact remains that we **do** know why the sun and moon rise. The sun rises because of the rotation of the Earth and the moon rises because of it's orbit around the Earth. I get that the point was to assert that there are many mysteries to life and the universe that we have yet to understand but he undermines that point by pointing to a "mystery" that is actually an easily-explainable phenomenon.

Perhaps the most blatantly false statement I heard in the entire book was the assertion that the incorporation of a "higher power" in the 12-step model of addiction recovery is the reason that it is, according to him, the **only** addiction-recovery model that works at all. I won't draw this review out with statistics about success rates and relapse rates with the 12-step model but the assertion that it is the only addiction-recovery model that works is not simply misinformation, it is a blatant falsehood.

These are just a couple of the patently false statements the author uses in an effort to support his stance or illustrate his point. Ultimately, this book has some good ideas to it but they are buried under a lot of false assertions and self-indulgent storytelling that, frankly, reads more like whining than anecdotes to illustrate how he has healed himself from his own approach. If you can look past the misinformation you can find some good ideas in here but, to be honest, there are better books out there that present the same concepts in much more approachable and psychologically valid means that tie in nicely with New Age sensibilities and outlooks.

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May spoil me for all other LGBT fantasy

Revisado: 09-28-19

My first foray into LGBT fantasy may well have set the tone for all others that will be hard to match. The Dragori Series by Ben Alderson is, contrary to what some may think, a fantasy series first and LGBT-friendly second. Some of the works I've sampled but never purchased read like bad fan fiction and the story was mere life support for the same-sex romances and "intimate scenes." By contrast, the Dragori Series handles such scenes rather discretely. Nothing is too overt nor described in overly flowery metaphors. And there aren't many such scenes to begin with - enough that you get the inevitable union of two lovers' growing relationship but not so much that it seems like the story is just there to support that. The story stands on its own quite nicely and weaves together to climax that is grounded in events throughout the book rather than coming out of left field. The banter between characters is a delight though Prince Hadrian's lines are often a bit cheesy. It's easy enough, however, to chalk this up to his princely training for ornate speech.

There are only two major complaints I have with the series. One is Alderson's sometimes repetitious use of certain turns of phrase such as "gifting" someone a wound or attack. As the narrator reads the book, you can almost sense when a certain phrase is going to come up and, more often than not, you're right. It sometimes makes the storytelling feel less organic and more like these phrases are favorite tricks or formulas to weave a tale.

The other issue is, once again, Shaun Grindell's narrative style. Almost every sentence is read with the same cadence and stress on certain points. He does a great job with accents, though some of more foreign ones (that is, not native to the UK), come off as light racial stereotypes since he uses known accents to voice elven characters. But, back to his very consistent cadence, this sometimes distracts from the story in that it highlights that this is not someone engaging in storytelling so much as methodically and somewhat mechanically reading words from a page. It's not terrible, but it's just annoying enough that I had to deduct one star for performance.

All in all, this is a great story with fun dialogue that handles same-sex romance in an almost fairytale fashion that is a delightful surprise compared to some books I have sampled that presented it more as fetishized titillation for straight readers. It's a series in which an LGBT reader or listener, especially gay/bi/pan males, can feel very normalized and validated by the social norms of Alderson's world.

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A surprisingly good story but narration suffers.

Revisado: 05-24-19

This was my first foray into the realm of fantasy mixed with same-sex romance. What I expected was a decent story that was basically life support for a bit of male romance. What I got was a surprisingly engaging story that had me always listening "just a few more minutes" that just happens to include the kind of romantic entanglements you might find in many fantasy novels, just with an LGBTQ+ spin on it. The biggest problem I have with the audiobook version is the narrator suffers from Shatner-itis. That is to say, his pacing and emphasis on the middle and end of every sentence sounds very much like a parody of William Shatner's hammy acting. The thing is, he doesn't do this when he's reading dialogue so I'm not sure why he does it during the narration. Once you map out his patterning where he places emphasis right at the middle and end of every sentence, you can't unhear it. But, audiobooks are one of the best ways for me to take in some leisurely reading since my actual book reading is often for professional reasons. The narration isn't SO bad that it ruins the experience but it is enough to pull one star from the overall rating. All in all, it's a really engaging story and the flirtations between characters are delightfully adorable. If you're looking for a fantasy tale that includes male same-sex romance, definitely give this one a try.

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