Sonia Choquette’s The Psychic Pathway: A Workbook for Reawakening the Voice of Your Soul is a twelve week program on fostering intuition and the psychic pathway. This is a well put together course and something I wish I could have given myself when I first got interested in more general spirituality. If you’re the intended audience, this book is great, but it’s made for people taking their first few steps on the path to spiritual growth. The first step is usually the hardest though.
Let’s go over how the book is written, how the author defines the psychic pathway, and the intended audience. Then we’ll cover the effectiveness of this method, considerations, and whether this book is right for you.
Content and Style
This book is vaguely reminiscent of the self-help courses popular from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. They were mainly really popular with very financial self-help, psychological self-help, and works in the spirit of Feeling Good. I hadn’t really seen a more spiritually oriented book written in this style previously. It reads like a psychological self-help with a lot more focus on spirituality.
Each chapter opens with a mix of anecdotes and explanations. Each chapter ends with a set of exercises to cement what is discussed. The book breaks down into several sections. The first large section covers the background and overcoming mental blocks. This is followed by basic introductions to topics like chakras, auras, and other practical techniques. We then land into some heavily Judeo-Christian spirituality. Finally, we end with using tools to enhance your craft via tarot cards and the I Ching.
Sonia’s words are eloquent and efficient. Each section is short, but covers a lot of material. The mixture of anecdotes and explanations helps fit more content in fewer pages without sacrificing understanding. Whether or not the actual content resonates with you will vary however.
Intuition as the Basis of the Psychic Pathway
The Psychic Pathway treats intuition as the basis of the psychic pathway. This book is also heavy on intuitive actions and intuitive feelings affecting one’s ability to act psychically. We’ll get into that specifically under the intended audience since a large part of the book is dedicated to rectifying this shortcoming.
This book is committed to fostering intuition. It taps into similar language as the standard Jungian conscious, unconscious, and superconscious. This is further built on with a Judeo-Christian background (arguably Kabbalistic at parts) and new age spiritual extrapolation. If these aren’t your thing, you probably won’t get much from this book to be honest.
Intended Audience
This book is like most self-help books of the type and intended for people completely lost as to where they are and where they’re going. It tries to push you out of your comfort zone to open your mind to a different way of the world working. It also does so in a context which is largely compatible with many branches of Christianity (and some of Judaism). If you’re agnostic, you can take the religious pieces as more metaphorical and it still (mostly) works.
This book helps you on the first step of your spiritual journey outside your comfort zone. While it may leave some to be desired in the practical applications of the techniques it discusses, it does at least really get you moving towards more spiritual freedom. I had to read many books to get myself as far for approaching spirituality as this book would have taken me in twelve weeks. Treat this as the survey course to your new spiritual lifestyle.
Effectiveness
Don’t expect miracles, but it will help you get your feet wet if you believe there may be more than the mainstream, but don’t know where to start. It’s also good if you were raised fundamentalist and you’re looking for outside opinions on the general spiritual application of the faith. You don’t necessarily need to believe everything in the book to get a lot out of it either.
You get a simple twelve week system, and even if you only get through the preliminary sections, you’ll get a lot out of it. The further you are on along your spiritual journey, the less this book will probably help you. This isn’t a slight, but just the effectiveness is more limited to the target audience.
The method this book uses is simple and effective for learning to break the mold. You won’t be an expert master of your own mind, but you also won’t feel near as lost after reading this work. The actual practical techniques aren’t quite as fleshed out though.
Limitations
All of the practical techniques aside from tarot and I Ching are a bit undeveloped to really practice. Even the tarot and I Ching sections aren’t really the applicable with this book. It covers a lot of material really quickly, so certain things aren’t as fleshed out as they could be. I would much rather have had a lot less content with more depth and focus on certain parts. The sections on Chakras is okay, but of limited use to practice. This can be reconciled by the fact that it’s basically a survey course.
Some people believe in psychic powers in the sense of being some potential insight to the future through the present, others in a fuzzy inkling of the actual future without definition, while others have a more deterministic view. This book commits a little one way then another. By the end, I wasn’t really sure what the author actually believed.
Some parts feel deterministic, others not so much. The author eventually delves heavily into new age Christianity as well which can be a huge turn off for some. I largely liked this book even though it wasn’t for me, but it does have its caveats depending on what you believe and where you are.
Is It Right For You?
If you want to be more spiritual but don’t know really where to start, this is a great starting point. If you want a mixture of self-help and flexible new age intuition spirituality, this book is great. It won’t do much for you if you’re already along in your spiritual path, heavily opposed to Judeo-Christian frameworks, or if you just don’t have many hangups with where you’re going. This isn’t a slight against the work mind you, just the reality of its focus.
This is a great book if you’re questioning how your faith intersects with spirituality at large as well. Sonia Choquette writes clearly and concisely and her work definitely helps cut through the ego to find a more spiritual you. If you’re looking to start, you may as well start here. This won’t get you through the whole journey, but it gets you through the hard start.
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