Book Review: Elven Awakenings by The Elven Scholar

When talking about this book and to understand my rating of this, I have to explain first on how I got to this book and what my expectations were.

I became aware of the author via Youtube and his channel, where he d for an 'Online Elven Study Programm' where he offers various classes to different topics regarding Elven culture and Herbalism and much more. For a while, I forgot about this as it was still in development back then and then got back to it recently. Meanwhile they offer two free introductionairy classes in First Aid and Quenya. I really liked the First Aid trial one and thought if I should enroll in some of their courses as many sounded interesting - for me especially Elven History, Herbalism, Nutrition and Elven Manifestation. It was said on the website, that enrolling in certain classes one will get free pdf's of Earendil M. Spindelilus (The Elven Scholar) natural healing books.

Looking up on them (I rather have physical books than digital ones), I noticed he published another book called 'Elven Awakenings - Re-Awakening your Elven Soul in a modern World. A Handbook for the Elves of today'. Taking a look in the index someone took a photo of, it seemed to cover a good bit of what I would be interested in to enroll for. Elven History in European, American and Asian culture. Inspirations to trigger Awakenings or to nourish one's Elven Soul. And, even a topic on Elven Manifestation. So I bought it, hoping it could give me good overviews especially on History and Manifestation that could trigger my interest or show the approach the author has.

That being said, I were quiet eager to read the book and I have to say, the first chapter on Elven History in Europe was very good and in fact, the best part of the book for me. The author got really into detail of the ethnology of the word 'Elf' and its usage in pre-Christian, Christian and modern times in Scandinavia, , Britain and French influences. Also a good part explained the relation of the Túatha Dé Danann and as the early Celts were described as Elves by the Greek and Roman people.

Unfortunately, the page about Asia covered only one page in total with often only one or two sentences mentioned about Beings that could be related to Elven from the folklorish description but the author doesn't get much into detail here as in the chapter about Europe. Also, I wondered after a while that some sub-chapters started with a description and just after the third I noticed, it's as if the author wanted to put pictures there and describe them but there are none. It was roughly over the first 3/4 of the topic of history and didn't occur later but it was the first thing that bugged me here a bit.

When it comes to the later chapters, the quality went down very fast for me. There had been some punctuation errors or misspellings here and there but they stayed until the end of the book. Towards the chapter of the Law of Attraction, it was confusing and inconsistent on how the author used fat and cursive words. Also some assumingly sub-chapters were not formated as such and at one point even didn't get a line by its own.

But staying at the content for a bit, after the joy about the History part my biggest disappointment came in the chapter about the Description of the Elven Soul right as the next.

The author cited Tolkien and his descriptions a lot. So far in only speaking about how Tolkien explained it and the relations of Elves with Humans and Orcs. Within the later chapters, he kept referring to Tolkien. Especially in the later chapter 'Elven Healing' he interprets a poem or song of Tolkien on how an Elven Healing could take place. This and statistics about stress in the US make the whole chapter of 'Elven Healing'.

When it comes to the parts that should help us (Re-)Awaken, he includes poems of himself and Zardoa (of The Silver Elves) and - surprisingly- Tolkien. One chapter motivates us in learning an instrument, another explains the inherited respect for nature and that we need to connect to it and one about crafts explains how to make candles (and matrixes for figure candles) step-by-step. The part about the candle making was most interesting for me here, while I see the parts on music and nature as neutral because it's something more obvious or rather, self explaining to me. Unfortunately, it didn't stimulate much in me to feel more Elven by this.

Sure, I should learn my instrument finally to play and take the motivation as a more serious inspiration and THEN I could feel more Elven by connecting to the music I create?

Sadly, there was still the spark missing that kindled my interest or triggered something in my Inner World to feel in vibe with.

When it comes to my last most-expected part of Elven Manifestation, I need to explain the chapters before which were ' Elven Meditation' and 'the Law of Attraction'.

They were somewhat interwined and the jumps between the topic were not really smooth but this way I know it would be easier for people new to these topics to follow. Finally, the author describes how to use both techniques together which result in Elven Manifestation. Again followed and inspired by Tokien's descriptions. But that was pretty much it. For me, doing meditation since years and consciously knowing about the LoA since 13 years, it didn't have much for me.

Between the chapters of 'Elven Manifestation' and 'Elven Healing' were the topic of 'Elven Reiki'.

I'm instructed in a system teaching Reiki but without symbols by the 2nd grade and reading pages about the principles of Reiki in depth explained was again more boring to me and so I skipped this part.

As I mentioned before, the topic about healing was in essence mostly based upon a poem interpretation, I stopped at this point reading the book.

I browsed through it, the later chapters would've been about recommendedations - Findhorn Garden, that got also used as an example in the book for the LoA and The Silver Elves who were cited at the beginnings of some chapters - and the other ones the author advertising his online presences, channels, groups and his online school, ending with an author description. This is by the way also printed over the back of the book in very bad quality, just with a different format to fit the page.

As you can see, I am disappointed by this book. Except for the chapter of Elven History in Europe there was nothing that brought me any deeper insight or understanding of something.

Also, to say it out loud here: I hate it (yes, I HATE IT) if Elvenkin identity gets solely based upon Tolkien. I liked the book 'The Hobbit' but didn't like the others or the movies and I cannot identify with the "Tolkians" (Tolkien Elves). I acknowledge its a source many people got inspired by and their Awakeinings might got triggered by them but I would like to read about more diverse possabilities. The author's focus on Tolkien sometimes bored, sometimed annoyed me and at one point (at the poem section) I just started to skip everything that was cited by Tolkien from then on.

Speaking about citations: Especially at the LoA chapter the author really loved to cite from another author but only mentioning one book of them within the whole segment. While about the 'Elven Soul' he was very accurate on citing the exact book and the page, the pages miss completely later.

Proper citation sources (or a bibliography) and pictures in the first chapters missing, I also have the feeling copyright is also somewhat missing here. At some pictures used within the book there are the names or alias of the artists mentioned, some miss them completely. Especially knowing how drastic Disney can be and him using a picture of Mickey Mouse without any credit or copyright agreement at any point of the book, I dare to doubt the author cared for proper copyright agreements.

Last but not least I want to mention that at one point at the 'Elven Soul' chapter, the author describes the different stages of Soul Age and at the part of the Old Soul (I think it was that or the one before) the author only write in three sentences something along the lines

'I already made a very elaborate video on Youtube about this, so go to my channel and type in X to watch the video about it'.

I cannot understand why any author would do this. If he doesn't want to explain it in his book, why mentioning it at all? Maybe I got more triggered by that than I should but I only had steady access to internet since the age of 17 and before I had to rely on books for learning about the craft (since 12 I were reading upon spiritual/occult topics).

If I had gotten a book in this time that told me I should just watch this one video online, I would've raged in my teenage wrath and write the author an angry letter on 'how I should do this without internet?!' Luckily for the author, there is no proper impressum in the book as it got printed by Amazon Fulfillment, so I had to use the internet to get into communication with the author anyway. :p

But yeah, if I want to look objectively I have to address the issues of bad formatation, errors in spelling and punctuation, copyright insecurities, inconsistent citing of sources (and an amount of citates that make easily 1/5 to 1/4 of the whole book!) and a very bad design of the back page.

Content wise, I cannot argue much as it depends on the personal taste.

Subjectively as mentioned, the part of Elven History was good, the rest: meh. Mostly because I don't like Tolkien and I already knew the techniques shared there.

Can I recommend the book? If one identifies with the Tolkians and is in the beginning of their Spiritual Journey (means, they need inspirations on meditations, don't know much about Reiki and want to know what the Law of Attraction is about and what Soul Ages mean - if you have internet ;)), this book might be of value for them.

For anyone who has read and experimented a lot already and is experienced in the topics covered here, this book won't provide anything fresh or inspiring.

I paid ~17€ for it and wouldn't say it was worth my money. I also got more careful now in enrolling in the author's online school. Maybe I will buy one of his Herbal Medicine books and see if it's just as disappointing but after such low quality 'Elven Awakenings' provided for me, I am very wary in spending more money on works of Dr. Earendil M. Spindelilus D.N.M., M.H., C.F., PSc.D.

#HCC98