BOOK REVIEW / NOVEL : Searching for Answers and ‘Spirit Lite’ : RUNNING FROM SAFETY <i> by Richard Bach</i> , Morrow, $23, 274 pages

“Running From Safety,” which is billed as a novel, is narrated by Richard Bach, a successful writer who is visited one day by a “teaching angel.”

This being tells him that “In 1944 . . . you promised for the boy you were, everything you know. What to look out for, how to be happy, knowledge to save your life, things you wish you’d known when you were him.”

Bach is also, of course, the author of the book under review, which more or less functions as his reply to the angel: a book written to his 9-year-old self. (Bach has published a number of other books too, the most famous of which is “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” which sold so astronomically that it became a genuine cultural artifact. (Eventually it became a movie, with a Neil Diamond soundtrack.)

Anyway, the Bach character, confronted with the drag of having to write another book, muses to himself on the mysteries of his craft: “Does anybody learn writing, or do they just touch someone who lets them see the power of the deleted word?”

He refuses the Teaching Angel, telling him, “Books are written on years turned inside out by ideas that never let go until you get them in print, and even then writing’s a last resort. . . . Wonderful when it’s over and everything I ever had to say I have already written. . . .” Indeed.

But soon enough, Bach has a face-to-face meeting with his younger self: a vision, if you will. This earlier version of Bach (referred to as “Dickie,” to avoid confusion) is in a rage, having waited all this time to hear from his older self. The author creatively indicates this by arming Dickie with, well, a flamethrower.

“Tenth of a second,” goes the sentence that conveys this information, “and the place lit up with fire and scarlet fury.” Richard the Elder, who happens to be para-gliding during this visitation, is absolutely stunned: “Whuff! I thought. Is my mind loading rockets for me?”

Since Richard was supposed to revisit his younger incarnation in exactly 50 years--which he does--then it might seem mystifying that Dickie should be so furious at being kept in a “dungeon cell-block” for the promised length of time.

But soon enough it becomes apparent that the Dickie-construct is just an inner-child stooge, a flimsy pretext for “Richard Bach” (the one who got paid by his publisher) to propound various Deep Thoughts: “Remember that this world is not reality. It’s a playground of appearances on which we practice overcoming seems-to-be with our knowing of Is.”

I obviously have my own spiritual beliefs; I think there is a recognition of the vast difference between what can be perceived by the senses, and what can’t, and the relative value of each. I’m a decided believer in the essential mysteriousness of our world. But that doesn’t mean I have to take this kind of drivel seriously, even when the book in question is subtitled “An Adventure of the Spirit.” Spirit Lite, maybe, were it not so leaden and smug.

In my view, the true pilgrim walks a frequently indistinct path. He seeks his destination, but knows he may not ever reach it, knows, too, that his final arrival is not necessarily the issue.

Richard Bach, however, has clearly figured out the map, reached Enlightenment, and already stocked the refrigerator with carrot juice. Of course he parades a false humility--the big plot twist at the end is his realization that it was really Dickie teaching him, all along--but the whole book stinks of sanctimony and certitude. (And the prose is atrocious, as you may have noticed.)

So what is it, then, that makes books like this so attractive, to the sort of people who attend workshops where the word share is used much too frequently? I think it must have to do with the portrayal of spiritual quest as something free of struggle: the weekend retreat as Inner Peace drive-thru window.

But it seems to me that this Life of ours, besides being the source of love, joy and wonder that it is, also happens to be unfair, painful and unknowable at the same time. It requires commitment and work and that thing we so casually call “faith” to reconcile the two. The world I live in bears no resemblance to the one found in this book; I doubt if yours does either.