I can't remember exactly what led me to this book except a "list your favorite book ever" thread someplace. I could tell from the title and description that I would likely hate it. I tried to get through it as a Humbert Humbert-esque deconstruction of the narrator, but it's no good. Two hundred plus pages of an egotist saying how he has no ego. DNF at like 80%. After I put it down, a weight was lifted; I'm going to credit myself for this one. When I Googled a little to find some more info, I almost immediately found a blog calling Jed McKenna "The Howard Roark of spirituality" or something like that, so take from it what you will. ( )

Schlicht die Wahrheit. ( )

proves it is possible to hate an author. "if you are not in awe of how naive you were yesterday, you're standing still" great quote; horrible book ( )

This is the book that changed my life. If it changes no one else's, it's still done its job. Many people, including a few reviewers here, see apparent contradictions in Jed's books (of which this is the first of three) as detractions from the point of them. Not to pull punches, I think that's a shallow reading, and one that neatly skips over the big questions that this book is made to bring up. Is there meaning in anything? Can I trust anyone's identification of the world but my own? What is this place? Who am I? What the hell do I do now? If you're not addressing those and equally deep questions for yourself -- not for anyone else, but just so that you can fully live your life -- then you're just fucking around, wasting your life. ( )

Part of me wanted to rank this book as a "one" and part of me wanted to rank it as a "five." I read a lot of spiritually oriented books, from both eastern and western writers, and have not yet encountered anything like this. (Ken Wilbur comes close.)

On the one hand, when I read a book like this, what I generally do is wrap my head around it, embrace it, and see where it takes me. Along the way I begin to see the failings and start to place the diamonds among the various other stones the author gives us.

But this book has raised my BS factor to the nth degree. So I am reading it, saying to myself, "This is sooo clearly BS" and yet I am still reading it. And being affected by it. And still saying, "This is clearly BS."

I started it because our local bookstore owner and friend of mine highly recommended it. And I am glad he did, but also frustrated at it too. Never have I loved and disdained a book at the same time.

So all that said, I figure there is SOMETHING in all this worth reading. Maybe I am just right for the "He is saying what I need to hear, which is that I really don't need to hear anyone else right now." ( )