An accessible look at 2012 as an apocalypse of the mind.
A spiritual take on the 2012 craze.
Co-authors Almaida and ArahatBosnia present a book running counter to the prevailing New Age message that the year 2012 may bring with it a violent end to the world. Nevertheless, the pair does believe that year, and especially the date of December 21, holds a special significance. They see this significance in a spiritual context, however, and have written their book as an attempt to reach out to the public with a positive message about 2012. As they point out, “We are not here to wait for the outcome of December 21, 2012, but to be active participants in the transformation of ourselves and humanity.” Indeed, they have created something of a self-help book—a guide to personal enlightenment and transformation. Almaida and ArahatBosnia blend a wide-ranging panoply of religious traditions together as they weave a message of human re-creation. Though mainly based in Islam, with copious references to the Quran throughout, the authors also draw heavily on other world religions and traditions as well as New Age terminology and thought. The authors assert that December 2012 will bring about a jump in humanity’s collective consciousness, though how or why this date is significant remains unclear. They do provide a lengthy exposition on how an individual can attain a higher level of self-consciousness. Specifically, they urge readers to “clone” themselves into the form of a “humanoid,” or a human changed through a higher level of consciousness. Almaida and ArahatBosnia provide nine steps toward this end. A great deal of the authors’ teaching relies on a belief that our thoughts help to create our circumstances, and in turn the thoughts of others affect our circumstances as well. Through positive thoughts, self-awareness and a greater understanding of the invisible and spiritual world, people can move ahead to a new level of being. Cogently written, the text is rather accessible for a New Age work. Tying the authors’ theories to the year 2012, however, still seems a contentious problem.
An accessible look at 2012 as an apocalypse of the mind.Pub Date: Jan. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456385330
Page Count: 87
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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