One senses other voices — distractions from the work we’re here to do. “Ascent” and “descent” seem to be top priority for esotericists. Others call for reparation, insurrection, revolution, loving-kindness. Some speak of Babylon, purgatory, Tartarus. Beware the spooky ones and the trolls — the paranoids who think everything’s a plot. Get one’s house in order, noting daily the interplay between psyche and cosmos. Remember, too, that Butler’s heroine in Parable of the Sower writes a book of the living rather than a book of the dead.