Collateral Karma

Collateral Karma
First Edition cover
Author(s)	T.L. Orcutt
Country	USA
Language	English
Series	The Path of Return series
Genre(s)	Paranormal fiction Psychological Thriller Adventure fiction Science fantasy
Publisher	Dog Ear Publishing
Publication date	December 17, 2008
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	293 pp
ISBN	978-1598586978
Followed by	Letters from the Afterworld - (Forthcoming 2011)

Collateral Karma is the second novel by T.L. Orcutt in the Path of Return Trilogy and first published in September 2008.^[1]

Synopsis

For ten years, Jamayah, a mysterious mystic from Argentina, has instructed Rickshaw Lubowski (formerly Bob Kramer in Jamayah: Adventures on the Path of Return), wisdom teachings oriented toward paranormal command and cosmic awareness. After completing three initiations along the Path of Return, Rickshaw feels as if he knows everything he needs to know. Collateral Karma opens after Rickshaw has ditched the Path of Return in search of more tangible things - like sex, drugs, occultism, and sorcery. He realizes his vulnerability after becoming the target of a curse cast by an evil leader of a ceremonial cult called The Alliance, a sorcery coterie of the Order of Aldabaoth, who practice ritual sex and black magick.

Rickshaw’s descent into the world of sensation and desire has generated collateral karma that incurs freakish nightmares all too real, starting with the obsessively expected death of his new fiancé. Realizing his grave mistake for running around in the playground of the Devil and driven to desperation, Rickshaw attempts to reconnect with his teachings and powers to no avail. Spiritually lost and adrift in a world that spins him out of control, he can only hang on while everything around him begins to crumble. Seeking help wherever he can find it, he meets a blind fortuneteller who seems to know more about his destiny than anyone should and with whom he falls in love. Only when Rickshaw truly believes that he has lost touch with himself and reality does his mentor, Jamayah, appear. Together, they join forces to confront the evil intentions of Aleister, the leader of The Alliance. With the help of two Native American shamans, one a Navaho and the other a Chiricahua Apache, Jamayah and Rickshaw use all their powers to attempt to save not only Rickshaw’s life, but Jamayah’s as well.

In the end, Jamayah requires Rickshaw to complete a fourth initiation. Now discovering that Raoul, Jamayah’s son, and Crystal Meadows, Carmela’s daughter, have been on the Path of Return and have already completed this initiation as well, in spite of his common sense, Rickshaw is compelled to undergo the initiation. Called cascading boulders in trance, this initiation is about completely trusting in the universe at the risk of physical death.

Characters

The novel contains about an equal number of major and minor characters.

Major Characters

• Rickshaw Lubowski - Rickshaw Lubowski (alias Bob Kramer) is the protagonist. Bob Kramer was a college classmate’s name that Rickshaw used to maintain his anonymity during his adventures in Jamayah: Adventures on the Path of Return. Born in 1954, and having graduated from Berkeley, his first job was as a biochemist for Bhaisajya Pharmaceuticals until the company needed to downsize. At the time of being laid off, he was in a divorce settlement with his unfaithful wife. Without job or wife, he began an apprenticeship with Jamayah in 1995 at the age of 41. In Collateral Karma Bob Kramer’s real name of Rickshaw Lubowski is disclosed along with his family of origin, college friends, and intimate relationships.

• Jamayah (nickname for Jose Guerrero) - The deuteragonist is a genetic and cultural blend of Spanish, Native Argentinean, Italian, and English and speaks Castellano, Basque, and English. He is an educated and senior gentleman, dyslexic, over six feet tall, chestnut skin, lanky frame, large appetite, and passion for fishing. Jamayah is an unconventional visionary and healer who sells Bob Kramer on the commitment to become his singular apprentice in an inner wisdom tradition oriented toward paranormal mastery and cosmic awareness. Jamayah does not get wet in the rain and has powers of: forecasting the weather, clairvoyance about events and people arriving and departing, seeing auras, ghosts, and disembodied entities, exorcism, soul retrieval, medical intuition, healing, herbology, and astral travel. He lives aboard a gifted sailboat, a forty foot gaft-rigged yawl named Zephyra, moored in a luxurious San Diego marina. A chocolate-pointed Siamese cat, named Bamboo, makes home aboard the vessel as well. Jamayah cannot solo sail and must hire a captain for Zephyra’s lengthy excursions along the west coast of North America. In Collateral Karma, Jamayah is largely on another sailing and fishing adventure to Cabo San Lucas until desperately needed by Rickshaw.

• Richard Murdock (addressed by the surname of ‘’Murdock’’) - A member of the five man Posse and one of Rickshaw’s best friends with whom he went to Berkeley and golfs regularly. Murdock is a Capricorn and middle management businessman working for Jack-in-Box. He loves to eat with a pot roast and peas appetite, is ultra realistic, compulsive, devoid of compassion for life, secretive, owns an arthritic dog, wears wire rims, dresses poorly, does not like to think, and lives in the chic neighborhood of Little Italy. Murdock has no affiliation with the world of paranormal beliefs, but is the focal point in the actual letters that arise from the afterworld.

• Brodie (no last name) - A member of the five man Posse who quit Berkeley after a year to work at a surf shop in Malibu. His girlfriend is Hannah and works as a waitress. Brodie is the major confidant who Rickshaw shares the truth about his adventures on the dark side and the only person he trusts implicitly, trust being a major theme in the trilogy.

• Crystal Meadows - A 33 year old, mostly blind fortuneteller with whom Rickshaw falls in love and weds. Crystal’s mother is Carmela de Avila and Crystal’s father was an army officer who died in the Vietnam war. Carmela never saw Crystal’s father after Crystal was born. Meadows is Carmela de Avila’s real maiden name that she no longer uses. Crystal is lean, willowy, attractive without intention, a Pisces with blond hair, values healing the soul over healing the body, ‘’sees’’ the whole picture and respects all beliefs. In a former life, her and Rickshaw were lovers, during which time she was a prostitute. She and Rickshaw live in a small wood framed house in Ocean Beach.

• Rattlesnake Dan - An old Chiricahua Apache who migrated from New Mexico to live in the desert near Indio. At 12, he hired out to local ranches as a cowboy and breeder of pigs. Similar to Jamayah’s son Raoul, he has an interest in snakes and healing. Snakes do not bite him. Similar to advanced yoga techniques, Rattlesnake Dan uses a practice of recirculation to neutralize energy thresholds and restore energy. He is a keen observer of weather, insects, and animals and uses this wisdom in his medicine.

• Struck-by-Lightning (often addressed as SBL) - SBL was raised on the Navajo reservation. At twelve his father died of hepatitis from heroin addiction. A year later, his mother passed from pneumonia. His uncle, a Navajo witch of the Corpse-Poison Way, raised him and at 17 wanted to initiate him into the witch medicine tradition. Initiation required murdering a child. SBL refused and his uncle cursed him. Four days later, SBL was struck by lightning. Unexpectedly, the lightning gave him a vision to counter all forms of black magick. Unified with his vision was a powerful energy the lightning had given him, one that shoots bolts of energy from his fingers.

• Aleister Dalton - The antagonist. Aleister was the alpha male of ‘’The Alliance’’, a secret order about celebrating pleasure and valuing earthly passions equal to spiritual devotion. Submission to the spiritual domain was replaced by humanistic respect. Magick used in ‘’The Alliance’’ was empowered by a sexual process similar to Tantra. He was once a student of Jamayah who was dismissed from the ‘’Path of Return’’. Following Rickshaw leaving ‘’The Alliance’’, through sorcery, Aleister murders Rickshaw’s second wife, Natasha.

• Natasha Lubowski - A 26 year old with brown eyes, auburn hair, and white skin. She is a Russian and Turkish divorcee from a Jewish psychiatrist. Rickshaw meets her at an expresso cafe and about a year later, she becomes his second wife. Shortly thereafter she is murdered through sorcery by Aleister Dalton.

• Naomi (no last name) - A Piscean crone and clairvoyant who divines from cards and birds. Living aboard a fishing boat across the docks from Jamayah, she “sees” Bob Kramer astral travel. Along with Jamayah, Naomi gives Bob an exorcism of a demon that enters him during a seance. More than Carmela, she is a continuing source of consolation to Bob Kramer/Rickshaw Lubowski throughout the “The Path of Return” series. Naomi correctly predicts Rickshaw’s struggles with Aleister and a path of darkness.

Minor Characters

• Carter Melford Lewis - A member of the five man Posse who became a wealthy dentist and no longer regularly communicates with the Posse. His wife is Namiko Lewis.

• Apollo Kraikos - A member of the five man Posse and one of Rickshaw’s best friends. A Greek raised in Culver City, he is independent, nontraditional, and is dedicated to creating his own reality and taking responsibility for his own health. He is a professional hypnotherapist, pursues out-of-body experiences, is against medications and Western medicine, prefers alternative healing methods of acupuncture, herbs, and nutrition. He rarely returns phone calls, but responds to e-mail. He drives a bright cherry convertible Porch and dates Irena - well educated and of Russian descent.

• Sutra (no last name) - A five foot seven Hindu immigrant from Kolkata. Rickshaw meets her in Houston, but neither show mutual interest until after the Black Mass adventure in Mexico. A Taurus with emerald eyes, and long crimson black hairs, she seduces Rickshaw in Iztapa-Zihuatanejo. She later settles in Las Vegas where she begins supporting herself as an exotic dancer, but later changes occupations to being a masseuse for a resort spa. Her primary importance is as a former girlfriend to Aleister Dalton.

• Liza (no last name) - A married friend of Sutra’s.

• Rooster - Named after his Chinese zodiac sign, a bartender at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas and boyfriend to Amber, both of whom Rickshaw met in Mexico.

• Amber - A 26 year old, temporary girlfriend to Rooster

• Jack Walker - One of a two person team from Ace Medical Response team who tries to revive Natasha.

• Dr. Liverpool - A coroner from the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office who examines the body of Natasha.

• Dr. Worenbrow - A psychiatrist Rickshaw visits to discuss his obsessive paranormal dream of Natasha’s death.

• Dolly (no last name) - Richard Murdock’s ditzy girlfriend

Reception

Reception for Collateral Karma was limited though generally favorable. Feathered Quill Book Reviews called the novel, a mesmerizing journey into the dark recesses of the mind and world of black magic, cults, and the hardcore sorcerers engaged to battle their curses. The review further stated, the tale is interspersed with metaphysical philosophy that the New Age reader will thoroughly relish. Quill says: If you have a serious interest in the outer reaches of the world, the paranormal and the occult, this is a book that will pique your interest and widen your eyes.^[2] Theodore J. Albasini, author of The Progeny, said in a review, Orcutt’s hard-driving prose seductively plays to all readers' senses. The sequel, as was the first, has all the elements of a great read, this one baring the dark side of sex, occultism, mystery, and sorcery, as he spins a yarn of good versus evil. An absolute must read for Orcutt fans.^[3]

References

1. ^ Collateral Karma Retrieved 2011 08-01 http://www.amazon.com/dp/1598586971
2. ^ ”Collateral Karma Review Retrieved 2009-03-11http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/collateral-karma-tl-orcutt/1015383136?ean=9781598586978&itm=1&usri=collateral%2bkarma
3. ^ Collateral Karma Back Cover Retrieved 2011-08-06 http://books.google.com/books?id=Eg_X3NN1ZqYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Collateral+Karma&hl=en&ei=O7w9TuGYKujhiAKezaHDBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

External links

• T.L. Orcutt's official website