This book about one man’s experience of enlightenment and his life teaching others about it at a small Iowa ashram is a fantastic exercise in critical thinking.  Well-written and entertaining to read, it offers a valuable perspective on the difference between the kind of yummy, mystical unity experience that most people assume is enlightenment, and what McKenna refers to as actual truth realization, the rather less comfortable process of losing complete identification with your sense of self.  

The book is so enjoyable to read, it took me a while to notice the numerous contradictions within it. The author spends a lot of time making absolute statements based in the authority of his self-proclaimed enlightenment, while at the same time warning readers to be wary of listening to people like him.  In addition, I couldn’t quite shake questions about whether or not the book is the true memoir it presents itself to be, or if it is instead the creative product of some Iowa Writer’s Workshop student who got waylaid in Fairfield for a time.  While many of his insights feel spot on, I could find no other information on this teacher or his supposed Iowa ashram anywhere.  I find it hard to believe that a teacher so skilled could remain completely under the radar if, he is, in fact a real person.  Some may feel that the information within it is so valuable that it doesn’t matter, but I find the idea that a book that claims to be about essential truth might in fact be based on a fundamental falsehood more than a little ironic.

Check out this book here