If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

A Journey to Enchantment

by Carl W. Goggins

189 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #00-0118; ISBN 1-55212-453-3; US$19.00, C$22.00, EUR16.00, £11.00

A tale about love, life, death, and inner transformation, A Journey to Enchantment is the story of David Noble, the novel's protagonist, discovering that Enchantment--Heaven, Nirvana, or whatever one wishes to call it--is in the here and now on the planet earth, and not off in the sky somewhere

Read more!

about the book      about the author      Chapter One      catalogue info

About the Book A tale about love, life, death, and inner transformation, A Journey to Enchantment is the story of David Noble, the novel's protagonist, discovering that Enchantment--Heaven, Nirvana, or whatever one wishes to call it--is in the here and now on the planet earth, and not off in the sky somewhere. The suspense begins when David, through his closest friend, Michael Van Hagen, is introduced to a woman who claims to be the Mother of the Universe, here to put an end to God's experiment with Man--an experiment she is convinced has failed--and start afresh with a new sub root race on a planet she will control instead of the Father, a world she plans to call Enchantment.

---

About the Author A Bachelor of Arts graduate from Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn University) who served in the Navy before attending college, Goggins has been a rofessional baseball player in the minor leagues; a short order cook; a taxi driver; manager of a cab company; an apprentice Roll Turner in the steel industry; a newspaper reporter; a sports writer; editor of a weekly newspaper; a syndicated columnist; a registered principal in the investment business; an insurance and securities salesman; and is currently working as a substitute teacher for the Pinellas County Board of Education in St. Petersburg.

---

Chapter One

ONE

     "Michael?" I called from a patch of sea oats overlooking the Gulf of Mexico. "That you down there?"
     Overhead, a thick cloud darkened the moon, and what appeared to be a huge, yellow-eyed, black dog shot into a circular clearing, several yards ahead of me. Caught unawares, I shrank and jumped back. The passing cloud cleared the moon.
     Again I eyeballed the clearing. The yellow-eyed monster had disappeared. My scalp tingled.
     Had I seen a dog, or was my mind playing tricks on me? Choosing to believe the latter, I inhaled a deep breath. That, along with Michael's cry, "I'm by the water," eased me. Without looking back, I sped to his side.
     Normally, we would have greeted each other with hearty back slaps and a cheerful, "Long time no see." Yet this time, he sat motionless in an aluminum lawn chair, his gaze seemingly locked in some preternatural dimension. At last, in silent recognition of me, he motioned with his head for me to take the folded chair lying next to his. Unsure of what to make of his indifference, I erected the chair and sat down.
     "Anything wrong?" I asked above the roar of the moondappled Gulf.
     Scarcely detectable, he shook his head.
     "Don't give me that," I said. "Something's bugging you."
     He twisted, to face me. "I've met a woman."
     "So, what's new?"
     He brushed his mustache with the pad of an index finger. "This one is different."
     "She must be, or you wouldn't be so uptight. What's the trouble, she giving you a hard time?"
     His unwonted glare took me aback. "She's the Mother of the Universe, our shortcut to Enlightenment."
     An unpreventable laugh bunched my cheeks.
     "Don't make light of it," he tacked on. "She's here to destroy the world."
     I threw up my hands, palms outward. "Hey, give me a break."
     "I know it's not easy to accept. Initially, I felt the same way. But you'll be convinced, once you meet her and talk."
     "I doubt that my just meeting her, and talking, will do the trick."
     Laced with white foam, a fishy-smelling wave sloshed past the spindly legs of a sandpiper scooting along the shoreline.
     I chewed on the inside of my lip. "When did you meet her?"
     "A few months ago. But I wasn't sure of her until the other day."
     "What changed your mind?"
     "The most miraculous thing I've ever seen," he said, as if speaking to the empty space between us. "We were sitting in a love seat in her front yard, talking, when a squirrel ran from under her trailer and headed for the oak tree beside her driveway. She'd screamed at her dog, Arturo, to leave the tiny thing alone, but that jackal-like monster attacked it anyway, and almost ripped it to shreds."
     An image of the dog I'd seen earlier flashed across my mind. I started to ask if he had seen it, too, but didn't.
     "Then up she jumped," he carried on, "kicked the beast away, snatched up the blood-smeared thing, and breathed into its mouth." He left a pause. "It was unbelievable how that squirrel leapt from her arms and scampered for the safety of that oak, not a scratch on it, no blood or nothing." The heel of the thong on the bare foot of his crossed-over left leg dangled loosely. "Until then, our relationship had been nothing more than interesting conversation."
     "You sure it was dead?"
     "Of course," he said, his voice harsh and out of character. "You think I can't see?"
     I probed my memory for explanation but found none. Goosebumps romped all over me.
     He recrossed his legs.
     "She's what I've been looking for all my life," he affixed. "And you can be a part of her plan, too, if you'll help her."
     "What plan?"
     "For all of us on earth to live in a perfect world." His irises lit up. "Bliss and joy forever, a life without conflict, struggle or resistance, where you never have to choose between right and wrong. No pain, no suffering, just happiness." He corralled my view. "All she'd ask of you is to tell others that the time of the Mother has arrived, that life as we've known it is a thing of the past." He skewed me an ominous stare. "You'd be a natural for what she needs, your newspaper experience, writing talent, ability to communicate with others."
     I sheered him a wary eye. "Is that what you've been doing in your humanities class at the Junior College, telling your students the world is about to end?"
     "I would, but she's not ready for that yet. She's waiting on someone to join her."
     "Who?"
     "I don't know."
     I peered at him from under my eyelids. "Suppose you did tell your students, and they thought you'd gone off your rocker, were ready for the funny farm?"
     "Then the fools will stay here." His brow furled. "Burn in this Hell forever."
     I twirled my eyes. His lean frame, tall as a corn stalk, heaved from the chair.
     "The time of the Mother is here," he blurted, his eyelids fluttering, hands tossing in the air. "You can see it everywhere, in politics, religion, medicine, big business."
     Rumbling clouds then obliterated the moon and cast down a breathtaking fog that triggered the shimmer of every organ in my body. He crammed his fists into his pockets.
     "You plant a seed in the female and she bears fruit," he said, calmer now. "Consequently, if God is the giver of life, then the giver is female, not male."
     "Very impressive." I fished a cigarette from the pack in my shirt pocket and lit it with a paper match. "But you're talking about things people can't prove, where logic doesn't apply."
     Wisps of damp wind sent smoke tearing over my shoulder. He made a smug grin. "Just because something can't be proven doesn't mean it's not true. Besides, there is no earthly logic on the astral planes."
     "I don't know what're on the planes, assuming there are any. All we can know, provided we're capable of perceiving it, is what's here--what is."
     He returned to his chair. "The planes exist."
     "You been there?"
     "With her help, yes, a number of times. All they are are higher levels of consciousness, a consciousness the average person has no knowledge of whatsoever."
     I concealed a snigger. "You get very high?"
     He regarded his nails. "High enough to be able to talk with Buddha, and the Christ."
     I sucked in my cheeks to keep from laughing. "And what did those two fine gentlemen have to allow?"
     He cocked his head at me, and waited a moment before saying, "That if we, mankind, didn't wake up, we would destroy the planet, and our lives along with it."
     Although not a thing inside me took what he said seriously, an eerie thought--that the woman just might be the Mother of the Universe, and could destroy the world--inwardly jolted me.
     "The conversation was as real as the one we're having now," he tagged on.
     Surely he didn't expect me to believe that he'd actually spoken with the Christ, and the Buddha. Yet, after thinking about it, perhaps there was an element of truth in what he'd said. He would never lie about anything this serious. Not intentionally anyway. Something she'd done, or perhaps said, had convinced him.
     But what?
     I snubbed out my cigarette in the sand.
     "Really," I said, "is she who you say she is, or only what you hope her to be?"
     "She's the real thing, believe me."
     "Why would she destroy everything?"
     "Because the Father's experiment with mankind has failed." He kneaded his hands. "It's all in the Book of Revelation, how the vials of death will be spread over the earth, and--"
     "When?"
     "She doesn't know yet."
     "How could she not? Aren't Gods, female or not, supposed to know everything?"
     "The human form she's taken on, in order for her to be here, prevents it."
     "She's not from here?" I quizzed, my scalp abuzz.
     "She's from," he spooled his gaze skyward, "up there."
     "If the world is to be destroyed, what's she going to rule over?" I asked, trying not to become identified with the heaviness pressing in on my chest.
     "A world she will control instead of the Father, a place she plans to call Enchantment."
     "What makes you think Earth isn't Enchantment? Bhante says it's always been with us, but that we're unable to see it."
     "That old man may be a great Tai Chi Master, but he's out of his realm when it comes to things metaphysical. The world, as it is, is too tough for it to ever be a paradise. But speaking of him, he phoned earlier, told me to tell you that we're invited to Sunday dinner, his place."
     "That's nice, but you shouldn't underestimate him."
     His face clabbered. "I wish now I'd never mentioned the woman to you. I thought you'd want to meet her, prove to yourself whether she's a farce or not."
     "I didn't say I wouldn't meet her."
     His mood brightened. "Then you will?"
     "I...guess I could." I moved to the edge of my seat. "But if you think I'm going to start preaching to others that the world is about to be put out of its freaking misery, you've got another thought coming."
     Laughter jounced his high, narrow shoulders. "Before it's over, everyone here will be preaching her gospel." He pushed a strand of hair from his forehead. "Let's go call her, let her know you're in town."
     "You've told her about me?"
     "Of course. How could I not, close as we are?"
     "What did you tell her?"
     "You know." He shrugged. "Our boyhood days together, us joining the Marines, being at Grenada. Our attending the same college, your quitting the POST to come home, to write another novel." He poked out a cheek with his tongue. "And how I was sure you'd help her, once you found out she could give you the one thing you've always wanted--Francene Flowers."

---

Catalogue Information

---