Shortly after the book was published by Prentice-Hall in 1973, I received a letter from a musician in the Chicago area who claimed that he had received a copy of Revelation: The Divine Fire in his mail prior to its publication. The book had arrived in a plain brown envelope with no return address or letter enclosed. According to the musician, one night in 1972, while he was drifting off to sleep, he had received an inspiration to write a book on the contemporary revelatory experience. The title that had come to him was The Eternal Flame.

At the time that I was interviewing my list of men and women for the Divine Fire, the roster of interviewees that the musician was beginning to jot down for his book was almost exactly the same. I began The Divine Fire with a quote from the prophet Jeremiah: "But his word was in my heart as a burning fire..." For the opening words of his The Eternal Flame, the musician had written an original poem, which began with the line "There is a flame which burns within my heart."

Although the musician and I had received the "seed" for almost exactly the same book, I was finished with my version while the musician was still taking research notes. The thing was, I had the mental "writer's muscles" that were required to translate an inspiration for a book into the physical reality of writing a book, and I already had an editor whom I knew would appreciate the concept and the value of the work.

The musician, on the other hand, had been given a different set of creative "muscles," so that writing for him was a much more formidable task. When the copy of my book mysteriously manifested in his mailbox, he knew that he need not complete this particular task. Someone had already finished the cosmic assignment.

I can only speculate how many other creative people on a certain night in 1969-1972 were visited by a hooded entity, an angel, or a spirit teacher and who were given an inspiration, an assignment, to write a book on the contemporary revelatory experience.

To balance the cosmic scales, I have often heard the most beautiful celestial melodies inside my head ever since I was a child--and I can't write a note of music. When I first heard a chorus of heavenly voices rise to meet a lovely orchestral accompaniment, I was convinced that it was a sign that I would one day be a brilliant composer, a modern day Chopin, Bach, or Beethoven.

It was not, alas, to be. Even after eight years of music lessons, I had sadly to conclude that while I am privileged to hear celestial music, it was not my destiny to be able to translate the beautiful sounds into compositions that could inspire others.

It fact, it was not my destiny to be able to play any kind of music even passably well. The book Revelation: The Divine Fire, published in 1973, proved to be one of the most important in my early career. Reviewers were overwhelmingly responsive and thoughtful. Some were generous enough to compare the work in importance with William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience. The book was a selection of many book clubs and published in hardcover, trade paperback, and mass-market paperback editions. But even to this day I ask myself, exactly who should have been credited as the co-author?

Order Revelation: The Divine Fire for Christmas!

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