At the start of my advertising career in London I had an American boss who would fall to his knees in loud prayer during difficult meetings. That was long ago in the Eisenhower era, but unctuous religiosity remains a standard item in the management witch-doctor's pharmacopoeia. In Lance H. K. Secretan's Reclaiming Higher Ground: Creating Organizations That Inspire the Soul (Macmillan Canada, 258 pages, $29.95 cloth), we are preached at by yet another author who wants to transcendentalize commerce.

If Mr. Secretan-previously known for The Way of the Tiger: Gentle Wisdom for Turbulent Times-offers anything novel, it must be his notion of commerce as "Sanctuary". This is a new label for the old idea of the business as a family chapel. He assures us that when the business unit transfigures into a Sanctuary it becomes "a state of consciousness shared by a community of souls . a safe environment, a state of mind . like a Teflon shield." I hesitate to confide my soul to the spiritual protection of Teflon, especially in this era of transient corporations convoked for one-off jobs.

Mr. Secretan's efforts are favoured by the fact that almost any shake of the commercial kaleidoscope may well provoke a new idea in some desperate manager's mind. As we grope through the thickening dusk of archaeo-capitalism we must be willing to mutter any mantra, whistle any tune, to keep our spirits up. Mr. Secretan offers an off-key hymnal to help us on our way.

Richard Lubbock