Island of Knowledge

Island of Knowledge is Linda Quiring’s personal account of the remarkable events that unfolded on Salt Spring Island in 1974. Searching for greater meaning and happiness, Linda and her husband, Bill, moved to the island without work or any clear idea of what they would find. There they met Sydney Banks, an unknown teacher whose profound spiritual experience had occurred only a year earlier. In informal gatherings at the Banks family home, Linda, Bill, and a small circle of friends began listening to an understanding that would transform their lives.

Written before psychologists arrived on the island and before Banks began speaking of the Three Principles, the book preserves his earliest language and teachings in their original setting. Through conversations about Thought, fear, conditioning, love, the nature of Mind, “no-thought,” and self-realization, Quiring records both Banks’ words and the changes taking place within her. Honest, lively, and unmistakably rooted in the counterculture of its time, Island of Knowledge is an important historical document: the story of the small gatherings, friendships, and insights that became the spark for everything that followed.