Product reviews for More Magic of Metaphor

In this second volume in the Magic of Metaphor series we are treated to more of Nick Owen's collected teaching tales. Further to the first volume, the stories are connected by a meta-story that runs through the whole book. Not only being a collection of very interesting and inspiring stories, the book begins with a short explanation of Ken Wiber's model of “a theory of everything”, Grave's “spiral dynamics” (which appears loosely based on Leary's 8 circuit model and Maslow's hierarchy) and the influencer vs. manipulator dichotomy.

These models help us deconstruct the stories and help point to their potential usefulness as well as offering likely interpretations of the messages contained within each parable. Very usefully, a small alternative-contents page lists the stories by theme allowing you to pick certain stories out that explicate various attributes, so if I want a story that shows a single minded trailblazer it tells which stories have elements of this in them.

The book finishes with a few very interesting small sections detailing our useful models, spiral dynamics and “everything' more closely, examining perspective-shifts within these frameworks, a distillation of the qualities of great motivators and influencers.



I found this book to be a bit of a rarity, very useful yet very user-friendly, quite acceptable bedside table material. It will appeal to everyone.