Andrea McCain, actress—I was used and manipulated by Athena, with no consideration for my feelings. She was my teacher, charged with passing on the sacred mysteries, with awakening the unknown energy we all possess. When we venture into that unfamiliar sea, we trust blindly in those who guide us, believing that they know more than we do. This book is a meditation on discovering your spirituality outside of learned dogmatic practices; to find revelation by gathering pieces of the Truth that make sense to your soul. I have always had a very strong spiritual sense, rooted in the Catholic teachings, as this is how I was raised. I genuinely find comfort in the rituals of the religion, but find myself very at odds with the "Church" and it's doctrine as defined by mortal men over the centuries.

Coelho is the founder of the Paulo Coelho Institute, a non-profit organization funded by his royalties that raises money for underprivileged children and the elderly in his homeland of Brazil. That is the central question of international bestselling author Paulo Coelho's profound new work, The Witch of Portobello. It is the story of a mysterious woman named Athena, told by the many who knew her well—or hardly at all. Among them: It’s the story of Athena, or Sherine Khalil, who was always ready to walk out of the door from the comfort zone and confront the winds, the thunder and the lightning that life can bring, again and again, all by her own choice. Nothing could contend her restless soul; nothing could bring her peace of mind, neither even reaching Vertex through dancing or calligraphy. And finally she went to teach people something she didn’t know, that’s when she was bringing the soul to the surface, and speaking what the eternity, depicted as ‘the Mother’ in the book, wants to reveal through her. The Witch: The one who justifies her existence by going in search of complete and limitless pleasure.

The energy of love can never be lost-it’s more powerful than anything and shows itself in many ways.” This book *really* made me think about who I am and where I am going, and who I want to be as a woman, a wife, a soon-to-be-mother, a daughter, and a human. Shreine Khalil, known as Athena was born in Romania and her parents, a successful industrialist family of Beirut adopted her, as their much loved, much-wanted daughter, who grew in wisdom and beauty. From an early age she had a strong religious vocation and knew all the gospels by heart, which was a blessing and a curse. She had the secret desire to become a saint someday. She had everything one can ask for, and yet it didn’t satisfy her restless soul. Her adopted mother, who was always ready to take care of her, give her all the love and comfort she could, want to see her win in whatever she does, though didn’t understand her, who felt that “a mother doesn’t have to understand anything, she simply has to love and protect”. A father, who loved her, was ready to be by her side in whatever she does and believed and respected her opinions as most correct even when she was just a child. The best of education that she left before completing; got married and divorced with a son in twenty; left the Church, on which she had deep faith from her childhood, after it forbade her from receiving sacrament, due to her divorce; a good job in a bank what she left when she was being just more than successful; took the job of selling land in dessert and left that too when she was earning more than enough, a successful Journalist, whom she left, who was ready to leave everything to love her. She was a restless soul, whom the success and comfort couldn’t content, who was learning all her life to suffer in silence, abandoned again and again by her birth mother, then by her husband and then by the Church she was so attached to, was trying to understand the meaning of life, through dance reaching Vertex and through calligraphy and passing this energy, the secret of rejuvenation to everyone else.

The central character is abandoned by her birth mother because the father was a foreigner (gadje) and later adopted by a wealthy Lebanese couple.Throughout the novel, Coelho’s words verifies the phrase: “How do we find the courage to always be true to ourselves—even if we are unsure of whom we are?”

If he was my uncle, though, I might not tell him that I thought The Alchemist was tripe, and that most of his books carry too much philosophizing and not enough narrative. But in The Witch of Portobello, he achieves what others have tried so hard to do and failed so miserably at (I’m looking at you, Marilynne Robinson). There was such a fine balance between story and lesson that I was never bored by the one nor overwhelmed by the other. YDSTIE: In fact, I think some scholars suggest the Virgin Mary and the veneration of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic religion is actually vestigial goddess worship. Before become a bestselling novelist, Coelho was a writer of a different sort. He co-wrote more than 60 songs with Brazilian musician Raul Seixas. Narrated from multiple points of view, the portrait of Athena that emerges is as provocative and spiritually complex as one would expect from the author of The Alchemist (1993) and The Devil and Miss Prym (2006). I think that the fact that it is told from multiple narrators really enhances the story. It is interesting to hear the different opinions on Athena and her teachings. I've encountered multiple narration in other books and hated it, but in this book it works very well. My only criticism is that because the characters are never really explored in depth, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between the different narrators, however this is a minimal issue.Few writers are able to accomplish what Coelho can in just two to four weeks—which is how long it takes for him to write an entire novel. The Witch of Portobello’ by Paulo Coelho is not a straight biographical book or the opinion of the writer on its main protagonists. It’s what the other people transcribe the writer about the women, the Witch of Portobello. She grows into a woman in search of answers to many questions that arise within a person. She had a life which many felt was content because she had a child of her own, money, and friends; everything but her mind was at peace, so she searches for the answer to the classical question of "Who am I?" through many experiences. In her quest, she opens her heart to intoxicating powers of mother and becomes a controversial spiritual leader in London.

We women, when we’re searching for a meaning to our lives or for the path of knowledge, always identify with one of four classic archetypes. This novel made me sad for Paulo Coelho because I was disappointed, the only good in this novel is a novel way and style in the narration is to talk about the protagonist of the novel but the perspective of those who were in her life, we can say such as investigative journalist but a very deep language and philosophical The concentration and joking needs a very high understanding. Is the world of sight, sound, and touch—the rational world —sufficient for you? Or do you seek another kind of reality, the one, perhaps, that Athena offered? Mr. Coelho's latest book, "The Witch of Portobello," is the story of a young Romanian orphan adopted by a Lebanese couple. She opens her heart, gains intoxicating powers and becomes a controversial spiritual leader in London.Calligraphy, as written in the book, is the search for perfect meaning of each word through writing, the writing which wasn’t just the expression of a thought, but a way of reflecting on the meaning of each word. A single letter requires us to distil in it all the energy it contains, as if were carving out its meaning. It teaches objectivity and patience, respect and elegance. Discuss the world of magic versus the world of science or rationality—especially the belief held by many that, as Heron Ryan puts it, "anything science cannot explain has no right to exist." Where do you stand on this? Athena was bringing to the surface the immensely rich world we carry in our souls, without realizing that people aren’t yet ready to accept their own powers. That’s why the writer describes her as a woman of twenty-second century living in the twenty-first, and making no secret of the fact either. That was her biggest problem. Walk into any bookstore in the world and the odds are good, you'll find a volume by Paulo Coelho. The 60-year-old Brazilian-born author has written eight novels, two memoirs and several other volumes. He has sold nearly a hundred million books, and his works have been translated into 64 languages. Athena had the secret desire to become a saint someday. She had everything one can ask for, and yet it didn’t satisfy her restless soul. Her adopted mother, who was always ready to take care of her, give her all the love and comfort she could and want to see her win in whatever she does though didn’t understand her. Early marriage to a man she meets at a London college, her son birth, leaves church on which she had deep faith from her childhood.