Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual

As the title says, my latest book is about Francisco I. Madero's Spiritist philosophy and the Mexican Revolution, which he launched in 1910-- more than thirty years after Maximilian's infamous demise on the Cerro de las Campanas in Querétaro. So it might seem that this has zip to do with Maximilian and the so-called Second Empire. Au contraire.

Although Metaphysical Odyssey is nonfiction, and intended to represent a serious scholarly contribution to the literature of the Revolution,  it is also, to a degree, a personal memoir, for I write as a novelist, that is, as one who comes at the subject having written fiction about Mexico's Second Empire, and, as with my fiction, in this I attempt a work of literary art per se. 

I am happy to report that the reviews for Metaphsyical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution have been good, including a lengthy one by José Mariano Leyva in Letras Libres, and that the book won the National Indie Excellence Award for History. 

I invite you to visit the book's website in English or in Spanish.  Both sites offer excerpts, links to find the book on amazon and Barnes & Noble, etc, as well as extensive resources for researchers. Among them are the podcast of my recent talk for UCSD Center for US-Mexican Studies and an interview with the leading esoteric podcast, "Occult of Personality", hosted by Greg Kaminsky.

Leyva, by the way, is the author of the excellent El ocaso de los espíritus. El espiritismo en México en el siglo XIX. Ediciones Cal y Arena, 2005. It seems that Kardec's books on Spiritism came to Mexico with the French Intervention of the 1860s. More about that anon. 

Also in the pipeline for this blog: a note about Empress Carlota's state visit to Yucatán in 1865 and an in-depth interview with Mary Margaret McAllen, the author of Maximilian and Carlota: Europe's Last Empire in Mexico.

October 18, 2011, Interview - Entrevista en el Palacio Nacional

Light blogging here because I've been away from my files and also I'm racing against the clock to prepare my introduction to and the website for my translation of Francisco I. Madero's Spiritist Manual, which was originally published in 1911, (yes, long after the Second Empire / French Intervention), and will be published this November, on its centennial, as an e-book from Dancing Chiva. I'll be reading from and discussing this very unusual book on November 10th as part of the Author's Sala Reading Series in San Miguel de Allende. (Click here for my events page.)

As for the Second Empire / French Intervention, I'll be doing a formal interview about my novel The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire / El último príncipe del Imperio Mexicano and the original research behind it on October 18th in Mexico City's Palacio Nacional, as part of the series on historical fiction.

If you can't make that event, my talk at the Library of Congress is available here, and a reader's guide is available in both English and español.