I ran across this book by Ross Heaven. Has anyone seen it? Read it? I searched all over the place and I couldn't find how this guy was qualified to write about the ninja. Thoughts? Opinions? regards, eric stewart
From Amazon.com Also see http://www.vodoushaman.com/about.html No apparent connection with any authentic lineage pertaining to ninjutsu.
I saw it in the bookstore......saw no mention of the people and places we know and love, so I assume it's not really our art, as Dale mentions.
From the looks of things, it's based on fokelore and myth. I doubt it has any X-kan credibility, as Dale pointed out.
I had actually retired from posting on these forums, and will continue to do so after this post. However as I know a about the back ground of Ross Heaven being a personal friend and ex student and a little about the book in question I feel its only fair to put this a little in perspective. First of all Ross started training in Ninjutsu with myself and other teachers in Ninjutsu approximately 10 years ago, when I trained in the Genbukan, before his interests took him in another direction, that of Shamanism. Ross became the first person in the UK to become a Voudou priest and has travelled the world in search of Shamanic peoples. As such he is very well respected in these circles and has even appeared on the Heaven and Earth Show. I feel that Ross' interest in the Shamanic practices may have stemmed from his training in Ninjutsu and his hearing about the Yamabushi and Shugendo practices. In fact his first book mentions briefly the Ninja but does not really go into any depth. Discussing with Ross aboput this book he explained to me that the book was originaly going to be called the something like "The four gates to Freedom" and during research for the book he had made a little more mention about the ninja. However it seems that once his publishers read the book the idea of the Ninja picqued their interest and they wanted to change the title and include more ninja stuff in it. Myself and Ross spoke about about this and he told me that he was not a ninjutsu authority, and really did not want to include anything in the book that was inacurate or false. I felt that he was a little concerned with including things in a book that he was not an expert in, and I of course informed him that as soon as it came out it would be all over the forums. Because of that Ross explained that the book draws a lot of inferences from various ninjutsu authors that have written books on the subject i.e Hatsumi, Hoban, Hayes, Turnbull, Petersen, etc as Ross did not want to include anything in the book that he could not qualify. I think people reading the book will find that the book is about Shamanism, as this is what Ross is an expert in, but includes various references to the ninja. I think Ninja wise the experts here on this forum will find nothing new about ninjutsu in this book, but could be a good read for those people wishing to see some similarities to other spiritual practices. Yes it is bad that the publishers can suddenly take your book and change the title to one your not particularly happy with, but I guess that if you have spent the last two years writing a book, and your mortgage relies on the fact that that book is published there really is little you can do about it. Such is the power of the publishers. In short I guess this book will fall in to the catergory of such books a "the Ninja Mind" by Kirtland Petersen and " Path Notes of an American Ninja Master". As I said Ross makes no claims to be a ninja master as his background is in Shamanism, however due to the huge following that Ross and Shamanism has this book might just bring ninjutsu to a wider audience. Lets however read it first before making any comments either way. Gary Arthur www.toshindo.co.uk
Jolly good show, old chap! Gary: Great explanation. If the author is question is writing a book on shamanism, and it's a breakdown of things along the line of "Path Notes", I'd at least give it a read to see what comparative information it offer. That the author does not claim to be an "authority" (love that term) in ninjutsu et al. goes far, at least to this teacher's mind, that he is not--book house editors/publishers notwithstanding--actually attempting to purposely deceive. However, as with all things written, caveat emptor; a close read will tell much. The author appears to be qualified to write about his area of interest/study, according to Gary's post, and if his years in the Bujinkan can be counted--as Glenn Morris did, referencing the Bujinkan innumerable times in his series on meditative exploration, qi gung, dream work, leadership and teaching theory/perspectives, family ideas, symbology and code, etc., the work should at least open some eyes to different mental, spritual, or psychological dimensions one might explore within and without the Bujinkan. To qualify, I'm someone who has read "Path Notes" and "Shadow Strategies" more times than I can remember, and reading Path Notes coloured the very first days of my training and has influenced not only my martial work, but even my actual classroom philosophy of teaching, so I myself am "open" to any new text on cultural practice. --Snake
Thank you for your post Garth. From what I understand once you turn the book in you have nothing much to do with it after that. So we can tell people not to buy this book if they want ninjutsu, but we should try hard not to blame him personally. I will sheath my claws if this comes up in the future.
A few years ago I had an opportunity to talk to Sifu James McNeil about his "Hsing I" book. He told me what the publishers had done to it and how it was supposed to be. You could tell that their changes to his work bothered him still. I can imagine that Ross Heaven would be livid that they changed the title to market his work as a Ninja book.
I have heard that Charles Daniel had the same problem with his kenjutsu book. That was the reason given for him never dealing with that publisher again.
