Andrew Harvey

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Andrew Harvey was born in India in 1952, and educated at English boarding schools and then Oxford University, where he wrote a thesis on madness in Shakespeare and Erasmus. At 21, he became the youngest Fellow ever admitted to All Souls College. Soon afterwards, however, he grew disenchanted with academic life, and traveled to India (his parents were Anglo-Indian) as part of a spiritual search. There he first encountered the Divine Feminine in the form of Mother Meera, his guru for some fifteen years (until 1993).

An independent scholar, Harvey is known primarily for his popular nonfiction books on spiritual or mystical themes, beginning with A Journey in Ladakh (1983). He now lives in Chicago where he writes, conducts workshops, leads tours, and offers spiritual counseling services by telephone.

1 Worldview
2 Relationship with Mother Meera
3 Relationship with Eryk Hanut
4 Bibliography
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Worldview

Harvey envisions true spirituality to be the divinization of earthly life through spiritual practice. These practices can take many forms and can be taken from any religious tradition. The process of divinization would result in the gradual elimination of ecological destruction and of all forms of prejudice, especially racism, misogyny, and homophobia.

Harvey sees six poets and religious figures as having universal appeal:

Buddha as portrayed in the Dhammapada
Jesus as portrayed in the Gospel of Thomas
Rumi, a 13th century Sufi poet. (Controversially, Harvey sees Rumi and Shams-i-Tabrizi as homosexual lovers.)
Kabir, a 15th century Indian poet
Ramakrishna, a 19th century Hindu sadhu
Aurobindo, a 20th century Hindu philosopher-sage

Harvey also streses the divine feminine, as expressed for example in the Virgin Mary, Kali, and Mother Earth.

[edit] Relationship with Mother Meera

During the 1980's and 1990's, Harvey promoted Mother Meera, who is the subject of his book Hidden Journey. His memoir The Sun At Midnight describes their subsequent break. Mother Meera devotees have accused Harvey of fabricating aspects of his story, such as his allegation that Meera rejected homosexuality, or ordered him to marry a woman. ^[1] Harvey further claims that as a result of their break, Meera "cursed" him, resulting in supernatural attacks.

[edit] Relationship with Eryk Hanut

For several years Harvey considered himself to be married to writer and photographer Eryk Hanut, whose photographs appear in several of his books. The two met around 1990, and separated around 2005. Describing Hanut as his muse and soul-mate, Harvey in The Sun At Midnight (2002) recounts a spiritual experience early in their relationship, in which the divine radiance seemed to emerge from Hanut's penis.

[edit] Bibliography

Hidden Journey: A Spiritual Awakening, 1991
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying: A New Spiritual Classic from One of the Foremost Interpreters of Tibetan Buddhism to the West (co-editor and ghost-writer), 1992
The Divine Feminine: Exploring the Feminine Face of God Throughout the World, 1996 ISBN 1-57324-035-4
The Essential Mystics: Selections from the World's Great Wisdom Traditions, 1997
The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi
The Essential Gay Mystics, 1998 ISBN 0-06-250905-5 (cloth), ISBN 0-06-251524-1(pbk.)
Son of Man: The Mystical Path to Christ, 1999
The Return of the Mother, 2000
A Journey in Ladakh: Encounters with Buddhism, 2000
The Direct Path: Creating a Personal Journey to the Divine Through the World's Traditions, 2001 ISBN 0-7679-0299-8
The Sun at Midnight: A Memoir of the Dark Night, 2002 ISBN 1-58542-179-0