THE WAY OF ALL THE EARTH: Experiments in Truth and Religion

The subtitle of this work is perhaps more indicative than its title of the nature of the contents. For Dunne's aim and approach is truly experimental: to locate God whatever his disguise -- to ""pass over,"" by sympathetic understanding, from one's own beliefs to those of others and then to return with a new insight into one's own religion; to learn from Krishna to act with total forgetfulness of self, and from Jesus to act as God would act. Gandhi, Mao, Mohammed, Marx -- there is truth in all of them, Dunne maintains; and these truths are what simultaneously compel man, and enable him, to ""journey with God"" through life. The author's argument for, and demonstration of, the intellectual and spiritual coherence of humankind is persuasive, though his exaggerated use of mystical metaphors and his hyperbolic style will be something of a turn-off to readers raised on anything less demanding than the works of John of the Cross.