Eva Pierrakos was born in Vienna in 1915, the daughter of the well-known novelist Jakob Wassermann. She grew up among the intellectual elite of Vienna. Eva Pierrakos’ first husband was the son of another famous writer, Hermann Broch.
According to various published accounts, Eva Pierrakos was bright and outgoing. She loved to dance and ski. The last thing she imagined herself doing was becoming an instrument for spiritual communications.
In 1939, shortly before the Nazi’s took over Austria, Eva Pierrakos came to the United States. For a while she lived in New York and then in Switzerland, where she discovered that she had a gift for automatic writing. By meditating for long hours, changing her diet, and making a commitment to use her gift only for helping people, she eventually succeeded in becoming a channel for a spirit entity who offered remarkably penetrating insights into the human condition and the spiritual path.
From 1957 to 1979, this entity presented a series of 258 lectures and offered hundreds of question and answer sessions and private consultations through Eva Pierrakos. Most of these sessions were spoken, not written, although a few of the later lectures were apparently channeled while Eva Pierrakos typed. The lectures came to be known as “The Pathwork Guide Lectures” while the spirit entity, who never identified itself, came to be called “the Guide.” According to the Guide, it was the material, not the source of the material, that was important. The Guide did, however, make some rather provocative claims about the material itself.
First of all, the Guide said that the material it presented did not require those who read it to believe in it. All one had to do was apply the material and the results would speak for themselves.
Secondly, if the material was practiced, the Guide promised that it would completely change your life. Not only would it give you profound insight into yourself, others, God and the nature of life itself, but it would also help you find true inner (and outer) peace and happiness.
On the other hand, the Guide warned that the path it offered was not an easy one. It required intense self-awareness, profound self-honesty and a willingness to expose the darkest realms of the human soul to the light of day. The Guide said that the task of our normal waking consciousness was to build a bridge between the highest and lowest parts of ourselves. We are required to dig deep into our souls in search of whatever dark, twisted forces roam within. As we discover these dark inner forces, our task then becomes one of calling upon the higher parts of ourselves to help us heal and transform these childish, self-centered, wayward aspects of ourselves.
The Guide’s focus on confronting and transforming the darkness within is, perhaps, the main thing that distinguishes it from many of today’s spiritual teachings. Unlike many of today’s spiritual paths and philosophies which tend to focus only on the spiritual nature of the human soul, the Pathwork Guide focused on both the light and the darkness, insisting that the darkness within us cannot be shined away, ignored, or suppressed. It has to be confronted directly, and then, with the help of the higher forces within us, reeducated and transformed.
In addition, the Pathwork material insists that the only way any of us can find God is by passing through and transforming our lower selves. From the Pathwork’s perspective, the lower, unhealed parts of ourselves stand between ourselves and our Inmost Beings. Until these lower aspects of ourselves have been transformed, the way to our Inmost Being will always be blocked.
This is a fragment from a Special Report by David Sunfellow for ‘New Heaven New Earth’ on the Pathwork Guide Lectures. You can find the whole text here.
To my teacher Marieke Mars who taught me self-honesty. To my courageous and loving pathwork helper Dottie Titus.