My Secret Spain
(This essay originally appeared in Troika Magazine, Fall 1998)

My first exposure to Spain took place in the early 1970's, when I was living in North Africa as a consultant to the Algerian government. This period would later provide fodder for my first book, The Eight, an epic story based on a 200-year-long global chess game that leaps back-and-forth from the 1790s of the French Revolution to the 1970's of the OPEC oil embargo.

Naturally, while living in Moorish North Africa, I received a very different picture than in Western textbooks of our near neighbors, the Spanish—as brutal conquerors who'd financed Columbus and driven the Moors from Spain in 1492.

But I did see a good deal of Spain. At that time most flights from Algiers to the European continent made puddle-jump stops in either the Mediterranean Balearic islands or the Canary isles along the Atlantic coast of Morocco. These Spanish isles have long and colorful histories, including the role they played more than 400 years ago as provisioning houses for the Spanish navy that was then the premier nautical power in the world-a fascinating period rife with espionage, piracy, and plunder, which will appear as the colorful backdrop to the book I'm writing now.

I visited the islands often because of their proximity to my home in Algiers. I also stopped along the southern coast of the Iberian Peninsula, where a number of my friends and colleagues had vacation retreats, an area that was just then being developed for tourism. But somehow, I never seemed to find time in my busy work schedule to penetrate farther inland, into Central and Northern Spain.

Over the decades my mental image of Spain remained pretty much as it had been in those first impressions: A sun-drenched, palm-festooned land of balmy breezes and dark interiors, too hot to go outdoors in the afternoons Europeans strolling the endless beaches, attired in little but their suntans and espadrilles. But that image, nearly thirty years past, was about to be transformed into something quite different and magical.

In 1992, when my second book, A Calculated Risk, was published, first in America and then in Spain, I was invited to speak at the Ateneo de Madrid. Though I didn't realize it until I arrived, this was a huge honor customarily reserved for top Spanish authors and scientists, and only the most prominent cultural figures of other countries. Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine, for instance, was the invited speaker the month before I spoke there. The United States Cultural Consul to Spain threw an elegant private soiree, and before representation, I had the ordeal of 16 solid hours of interviews with the press.

After this invitation to the Ateneo, I was drawn back year after year to Spain with many invitations from universities and other forums to speak about my work. I used these opportunities to travel throughout Spain after each conference, working on research for my future books. After each conference, I would rent a car and hit the road, in quest of some of those fascinating but little-known revelations that I love to weave into my tapestry-like works of fiction.

One year I traveled the "cheese route" in France, cluttered with many interesting little mountain villages, suppliers of delectable French cheeses that can be sampled from outdoor tables along the way. These towns lie along the mountain road running from the glittering watering-hole of Biarritz on the French coast, down through the craggy mountain gaps between Spain and France. The highest point is the famous Roncesvalles Pass, where Charlemagne's beloved nephew Hruoland was killed in battle, as depicted in the epic troubadour cycle, the Chanson de Roland, a scene also described in the dark, mysterious opening of my novel, The Eight.

The cheese route criss-crosses another, more famous, route of pilgrimage that runs the length and breadth of Spain, "El Camino de Santiago," The Way of Santiago, or Saint James. As the legend goes, just after the crucifixion, James, the brother of Jesus, traveled the Iberian Peninsula on foot, living as a simple peasant and converting folks to Christianity along his way.

The four scenic routes coming from all directions all meet at Santiago de Compostela on the western coast, where James's bones reputedly lie today. My own lecture route, on the thousand-year anniversary of the return of James's bones to Compostela, happened to lie directly along the Way. None of the exuberance of the original pilgrimage festivities had been lost over the intervening centuries.

The marketing and promotion of Santiago de Compostela as a pilgrimage site throughout the Middle Ages had been so brilliant that Santiago soon became the third largest pilgrimage attraction of the Christian world, also rivaling Rome and Byzantium, in its day, in terms of political clout. So many pilgrims from all over Europe and East flooded into Spain, including some of the Pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, that the roads were jammed and impassable in the high tourist season, while inns and businesses, and even whole villages, sprang up along the route. More than 600 years after the first recorded pilgrim had set foot on the path of James, no less an authority than the German poet-philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe could make the observation: "Santiago built Europe."

After visiting and lecturing at many locales along the Way, I finished with the University of Menendez y Pelayo, located at La Coruna on the coast just North of Compostela. La Coruna was originally the site of the ancient seaport of Brigantium, named for the Celtic goddess Bridghe, the spot where the Druids once disembarked for Ireland. With its dense, roiling summer fogs rivaling those of San Francisco, Brigantium made the perfect locale for the epic meeting, in my most recent book, The Magic Circle, between the Druid High Priest and Joseph of Arimathea.

It was clear that Spain and her mysteries were beginning to work on my imagination. But it was not until one summer, several years later, that the magical thing happened.

In my travels around the world, I've found certain ancient sites that seem to be waiting, like Sleeping Beauty, for the right person to find and discover the lost history of their past that needs to be told. The ancient themselves referred to such stories as tales of the genius loci, or the soul of the place. The story that had been waiting for me for so long turned out to lie far to the north of Spain, in the Pays Vasco, the Basque country.

I was in the Basque region and attending a conference with my best friend and significant other, noted brain scientist Dr.Karl Pribram, who'd been invited to give the keynote address before the World Congress of Music Therapy at Vittoria-Gastiez, the capital of the Basque region. After the conference, a group of us adjourned to a remote country house in the mountains for a follow-on workshop. Each day, we sat outdoors at a wooden picnic table so the proceedings could be filmed in natural light, as the basis of a subsequent book on music in the brain.

We had a beautiful view of a pastoral valley with a stream running through its wildflower meadows, and cows with tinkling bells wending their way home to the barn at dusk. Each morning and evening, a certain farmer came along the dusty road, going to and from the fields, carrying a rake over his shoulders. Whenever he passed, the little household dog ran out from beneath our table and chased the man, barking and snapping at his heels. I pointed this out to our hostess, the owner of the dog.

"Oh, don't worry," she said, reassuringly. "It is only this one man he hates. He never bothers anybody else. " An odd comment.

That afternoon, we recessed to visit the famous 'painted forest' nearby. Some years earlier, Agustin Ibarrola, the illustrious Basque sculptor and painter responsible for much of the public art one finds throughout the Basque region, had suddenly felt himself called to this forest on the side of the mountain, where he had now created a kind of organic art by painting the trunks of the trees, his personal vision of color and form now penetrating even the deepest corners of these woods.

As you climb the mountain into the forest, the perspective changes so that each collection of trees forms the design of one more paintings—a living art form which, as you move higher and higher into the forest, never ceases to astonish.

Numerous books have been published with pictures of the painted forest, and different views of the sparkling trees appear on illuminated signs in airports and other commercial advertising for the Pays Vasco throughout Spain. Our group was fortunate to be given a personal guided tour of the painted forest by Mr.Ibarrola himself, a charming and fascinating man sporting an artist's beret. As we climbed, he described the techniques he uses to paint the trees in such perfect patterns.

When we all reached the summit, still in the thick of the woods, rain broke out and we put on our various rain togs, which proved to resemble very closely the rainbow behind us in the form of painted trees. We snapped our photo.

"There's something mysterious and interesting about this growth," I told our friends. "At the top here is painted the magical rainbow that appears at the end of alchemical experiments, just as it does in my book, The Eight. And just as we reached it, a real rainbow appeared in the sky. And when we put on our raincoats, we ourselves formed another rainbow." Everyone nodded knowingly.

"You asked why my dog chased that man," our young hostess told me. "When Mr. Ibarrola first came up here to paint the forest, my father owned half the forest and the other half lay on that man's property. The man was very angry about this unapproved artwork, so he came one day and told us, 'These trees belong to me,' and he cut them down! The Basque government was so upset by the destruction of this rare and living art form that they purchased my father's half of the forest, still standing, to preserve it as a national treasure. My dog is very friendly with Mr.Ibarrola's dog here. Our two dogs both share a common contempt for that sort of behavior. That is why they bark at that man."

Since I was familiar, myself, with the unspoken feelings of even the most domesticated animals toward nature, I wasn't surprised by this story. But I felt something else was happening here.

"Maybe this is really an ancient sacred grove," I said. "My great grandmother always claimed to be descended from a line of Druid priestesses. Maybe Agustin Ibarrola was drawn here to paint the trees through some inner magic in the place, which only he could tune into. Maybe the forest wanted all the world to expose its secret: maybe this forest was once really a Celtic sacred grove, a site of pilgrimage as important to an earlier faith as Santiago de Compostela is to Christianity today."

"The Sorgina!" Agustin Ibarrola cried as soon as my words had been translated for him. "I knew one day she would come!"

After much heated translation among English, Spanish and Basque, it was explained to me that a Sorgina was the female counterpart of a Sorgin, which was the male Basque witch, or wizard: Brujo and Bruja in Spanish.

I had already done an in-depth study and a personal film documentary of the witching fields in Spain, where for hundreds of years the Inquisition had hunted down and killed tens of thousands of heretics' and devil worshipers.

But the Basque witches, as I understand, were closer to the Catholic priests and priestesses who served and defended the sacred forest even unto death—a scene described in vivid detail in The Magic Circle. These forests were regarded by the ancients as possessing a soul of their own, a genius loci. And after much heated and animated talking in multiple languages, it was further explain to me why my remark to Agustin Ibarrola on this topic had aroused so much enthusiasm.

It seems that only a few months earlier, the Basque government had been conducting an official survey of the parcel of land they had purchased to save the forest. In the middle of the survey, they had accidentally discovered something hidden just over the rise of the hill from the rainbow of trees were we now stood in the rain. What they discovered was the buried remains of what is now believed might prove to be the largest site of Celtic religious pilgrimage known throughout Western Europe.

"So maybe we should consider that the farmer with the rake was only part of the sleeping forest's plan," I suggested to Mr. Ibarrola and our companions. "Perhaps the forest needed to have some of its trees sacrificed in this public manner, in order to get attention, to get the Basque government to come to its rescue. But after discovery of what lay just over the hill, the whole world will now realize that these woods were once part of a pre-Christian shrine of major importance."

So today, I am the "official Sorgina: of the Basque Celtic sacred painted forest. And like the pilgrims to Compostela, I try to make at least one trip now and then, whenever possible, to set foot once again on Spanish soil.

When my book The Magic Circle came out, I was invited to Spain for the "International Day of the Book," an event which takes place each year on St. Jordi—St. George's Day, April 23—an important date for authors around the world, since it also marks the date of William Shakespeare's birth and of Miguel de Cervantes' death.

St. George, an eastern saint, is also claimed as patron of England, of the Russian city Moscow, and—more importantly from my perspective—he is regarded as patron of the Dragon Forces which the agents believed were connected with all sacred sites on earth. These forces the ancients 'pinned'—just as George pins the Dragon to earth—by placing a monument or a building dedicated to worship on the spot to harness and channel its energies. Celtic standing stones like Stonehenge, as well as the obelisks of Egypt, are widely regarded by archaeologists as having served such purposes for ancient cultures.

Since The Magic Circle is a book that deals with just such natural forces—with how ancient cultures perceive them, and with what the ancients believed would take place just now, as we approached the turn of the new 2000-year cycle—I knew it was kismet that I must travel to Spain for this most auspicious day. You might say it's only an accident that my book was No. 3 on the best-seller lists in all of Spain for St. Jordi. But I don't believe in accidents, and neither does the sacred forest. After all, it only took me twenty years to write my book.

The Sufis of Turkey
December 2000 marked an important historic event in Sufi annals: the first Mevlana Symposium was held in Turkey, to commemorate the 727th anniversary of the death of the great poet and mystic, Jalal al-Din Rumi (known throughout Turkey as Mevlana, not as Rumi), the founder of the Mevlevi Order (The Whirling Dervishes).

The congress took place at Ankara and Konya from December 15-17, 2000.

Of only seven ordained sheikhs of the Mevlevi Order, three were present at the congress and presented papers: Huseyin Peter Cunz of Switzerland, Mursel Derkse of the Netherlands, and Suleyman Wolf Bahn of Germany. Nevit Ergin, translator from Turkish into English of the 11-volume Divan of Rumi, attended, and so did several members of the Celebi family, direct descendants of Jalal al-Din Rumi who still engage intimately in the living tradition created by their ancestor.

Katherine was one of only three Americans who were invited to present a paper at the congress (with poets Robert Bly and Coleman Barks, who have translated some of Rumi's works into English) .

photo by Katherine Neville

The first two days of the congress, held at the cultural center of Ankara, were brief presentations (10 minutes only) summarizing the papers to be published. The third day, December 17, on the actual anniversary of Mevlana's death, the congress participants traveled to Konya in central Turkey and visited the tomb of Rumi, then that night they attended the Sema, which we call in the west the Dance of the Whirling Dervishes.

Today, Rumi is the most popular poet in America. The irony in this enormous popularity is that Rumi considered his own fame as a kind of poison. There has been much controversy within the Sufi community about the presentation of the Mevlevi (dervish) Order as a kind of touring folkloric dance group, rather than the true Sufi religious order it is, which has been thriving for centuries. The symposium speakers addressed many of these issues. (Papers are available in the published proceedings.)


The participants in the Mevlana Symposium included: Dr. Nevit Oguz Ergin, author of the 11-volume translation of the "Divan-i Kebir of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi" published by the Turkish Republic Ministry of Culture; two members of the Celebi family, direct descendants of Rumi; Katherine Neville; Sheikh Mursel Derske of Holland; Robert Bly and Coleman Barks; Feyzi Halici, President of Konya Culture and Tourism Association; M. Istemhan Talay, Turkish Minister of Culture; Feyzi Halici (under the tree of life insignia); Dr Anna Masala of the University of Rome; Emrehan Halici of the Turkish senate and Vice President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation.

Katherine's paper from the International Congress Publication is reproduced on this web site here.

Katherine's speech to the congress, due to the time constraints imposed on oral presentations, was very different from her published paper. The speech is reproduced, in summary, here for the first time.

Speech at the Mevlana Conference

I listened with enormous interest to this morning's presentations. I was especially attuned to the presentation by Professor Cunz, who spoke about the Still Point of the Turning World, the connections between East and West.

The paper I submitted for the proceedings publication speaks a great deal about such connections, and how they relate to what we might call a kind of alchemy in the Sufi path. However, in the limited time we have for our speeches today, it is impossible to summarize it, it is very detailed: I will simply say that it is about the story of Joseph in Egypt, which appears in different versions in the Bible and the Qur'an, a story which was filled with meaning for Mevlana. Those who are interested may read it when the proceedings are published.

This morning, I would prefer to talk a little about the Sufi path and what it means to us today, here and now.

As everyone here already knows, but I emphasize, Sufi is a process, it is not a thing—it is not a noun, it is a verb, an active verb. You cannot walk into some store front, take a course of study with a bunch of tests, then someone gives you a piece of paper, and suddenly, you ARE a Sufi. And then you hang out a sign in front announcing you are a Master and you are taking on disciples to become your followers.

No, if you are on the Sufi path, YOU are the follower, and what you are following is a way of life, what you are doing is following a certain way of engaging with the world. And as everyone here also understands, in order to follow this path I've just mentioned, you MUST engage with the world—not just go off to some mountain top and sit around praying that the world will get better. It's a process, an active process—and, in my opinion, it is a highly interactive alchemical process. It's alchemy. The earliest alchemists were Sufi, and most of the alchemical works were written by Sufi mathematicians and scientists. But in alchemy, as in any process of value, before you can start turning someone else's worthless pile of rock into gold, you have to start with yourself. The thing you need to be Master of is yourself.

My own studies in Sufi go back to the early 1970s, more than 30 years ago. But my training has principally been in the Shadhili path of North Africa. I knew very little about Mevlana—in America we call him Rumi—until seven years ago, when I was invited by (Konya's Culture Minister) Feyzi Halici and his daughter-in-law, my friend Professor Ugur Halici, to come to Konya and attend the Sema (the dance, which is held in public each year on December 17, the anniversary of Mevlana's death.)

When we headed on the bus up to Konya, Feyzi Halici asked why was I interested in seeing the Sema, I said, Because dance is the oldest form of prayer, and the circle dance is the oldest form of dance—all early people did it, even animals dance the circle dance, bees and elephants do it. It is our connection with the universe.

And, as we find with all esoteric or mystical processes, the right-hand turn, the clockwise turn represents the journey into the world, the adventure, the mythic discovery, the quest. But the left-hand turn, counter-clockwise, as it is in the Sema, is the quest for the soul, the self, the journey to inner vision, to the heart, to the truth.

The moment I saw the Sema unfolding that first night, at the very first steps of the dance, I knew that what we were seeing was the alchemical process unfolding—the Alchemical Marriage, as they call it, the marriage between heaven and earth. Everything was connected, even from the white robes and the reddish hat: the red symbolizing the spirit, the blood, the male, the father; the white is the body, the mother, matter—mater in Latin.

And the hands, one reaching toward heaven, the father, the spirit, the other reaching toward earth, the mother, the material world. The dancer is the axis, the pole, the Qutb, connecting the two with his own body.

And the end of the dance, with all the rainbow colored lights pouring over the dancers—in alchemy, we call this phase of the process the Peacock's Tail—this is the final transformation where truth is found, the Alchemical Marriage, the Shebi Arus—the wedding night, as Mevlana called his final transformation—and as it is celebrated in the dance.

I have spoken a lot about these connections also in my paper on Joseph and Egypt, the country where alchemy was born. But, before ending my talk today, Karl Pribram made me promise that I would say how these connections affect us today. How are these symbols, archetypal images, and ages-old traditions still living for all of us today, and what do they mean to the world?

As Professor Peter Cunz pointed out in his presentation this morning, Turkey has always been regarded by the rest of the world as the connection (Qutb) between the Orient and Occident, the East and West, connecting two very different cultures—very much in the way the alchemical marriage takes place.

I should add that there is another country, today, that likewise connects East and West—my own country, the United States of America, which lies between two oceans, the Pacific which connects us to the Orient, and the Atlantic which connects us to Western Europe.

To illustrate that these two countries understand, at a very deep level, the role they must play in the future of the world, all we need to do is look at the flags they have chosen to design to represent themselves.

The Turkish flag is grounded in a field of red: the blood, the spirit, the male, the father. In white, we have a crescent moon and a five-pointed star, both representing the mother, the female, the material world. In America, our flag has red and white stripes, representing the marriage of spirit and matter, father and mother. We also have a square of midnight blue, filled with five-pointed stars, both representing Stella Mare, Queen of the Sea, the Mother who represents both the terrestrial sea and the sea of the heavens. A connection of seas, not only of east and west, also above and below.

Because both these countries represent the connection of East and West, spirit and matter, we are both like dancers, at the "Still Point of the Turning World." From the Sufi perspective, our path requires action. America must find a way to infuse Spirit into our material life, to connect as much with the East as we do with the West. And Turkey must move to connect, in a material way with the West—Material means grounding in matter, economic grounding with the West, as in joining with the European Union. The message that is in our flags is in our futures.