A veteran reporter on the New Age scene (Beyond the Quantum, 1986) ably explains the latest hip paradigm before soaring off into hyperdimensional inner space. Our world and its contents, suggests Talbot, are ``only ghostly images, projections from a level of reality so beyond our own it is literally beyond both space and time.'' Behind the breathy prose, he's talking about the universe as a hologram; this is, as a three-dimensional representation of a higher reality. Two men fathered this theory: Karl Pribram, a neurophysiologist who claims that the brain functions holographically; and physicist David Bohm, who took the ball from Pribram and carried it right through the goal posts, describing the cosmos as a ``holomovement,'' the ``explicate'' projection of an ``implicate'' reality. This implies, says Talbot, that the ``objective universe...might not even exist.'' So far so good, if a bit gooey. But Talbot then goes on a pixilated hologram hunt, unearthing evidence for the new paradigm in telepathy, schizophrenia, synchronicity, the placebo effect, stigmata, acupuncture, psychokinesis, poltergeists, precognition, UFOs, psychic archaeology-and more. Without exception, the author takes a naive approach to these phenomena (for instance, near-death experiencers are ``actually making visits to an entirely different level of reality''), evincing a sort of naive New Age Boy Scout eagerness that reaches its zenith when he talks about his own psychic adventures, like watching a ``small brown object'' materialize in his office. Fifty sold pages-then like, far out, man.
Pub Date: April 24, 1991
ISBN: 0-06-016381-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1991
A solid but simplistic depiction of the life of ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. Rotem was herself a member of the ultra-Orthodox, or haredi, community in Israel for most of her life, but after 20 years of marriage, she divorced her husband and left the community along with her six daughters. Here Rotem gives the reader a glimpse into the world she abandoned, and into the difficult and restrictive condition of haredi women. As Rotem notes, she is referring specifically to ultra-Orthodox of the misnaged tradition (of Lithuanian descent), not to the somewhat more familiar Hasidic community. The distinction is an important one, because while Hasidic men usually support their wives and families, among the more intellectually oriented misnagdim, the reverse is true. The most respected men of the community study sacred texts all day (for which they receive minimal stipends), while their wives work, take care of the home, and raise their usually large brood of children. They are, as Nessa Rapoport writes in her introduction, ``the female infrastructure that upholds'' the haredi world. Women take great pride in their spouses' accomplishments, and men's learning is valued above material possessions in the community at large. (Women, however, are not encouraged—in fact, not allowed—to study). Rotem talked to a number of these women and tells their stories (anonymously, because they do not want to risk the community's censure or to ruin their children's chances of a good arranged marriage). The accounts are interesting, although most people who are at all familiar with the ultra-Orthodox will find little new here. Also, Rotem's analysis of what she sees is completely banal: She writes that ``anyone who has no choice but to remain trapped in a wretched situation is not free'' and ``social phenomena are never as simple as they appear.'' Rotem offers limited access and little guidance to this unique community.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8276-0583-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1996
Gripping but partisan conjectures from Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Eisenman (Middle East Religions/ California State Univ.), arguing that St. James is the missing link between Judaism and a supposed pre-Pauline Christianity. Although James is called the brother of Jesus and surnamed ``the Just'' (or ``the Righteous''), he has a relatively minor role in the New Testament. For Eisenman, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls opens up the background of events preceding the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans, revealing a world of highly nationalistic and apocalyptic Jewish sects that were bitterly opposed to Gentile influence and in which James was prominent. Eisenman argues that Christianity was originally one of these groups, closely linked with the Essenes. James was, Eisenman suggests, a leader of the Jerusalem Christians and represented the authentic succession to Jesus, a continuity that was obliterated by the Roman destruction of the city in 72 a.d. Eisenman hypothesizes an aboriginal Christianity marked by scrupulous adherence to the Torah and standing in complete contrast to St. Paul's universalism, grace, and freedom from Jewish law. In this scenario, Paul is James's bitter antagonist: It was Paul who transformed a zealot movement into a Hellenistic mystery religion acceptable to the Roman imperium. That Christianity, albeit ``Pauline,'' was tailored to first-century Roman tastes will strike many readers as a paradox. Eisenman reaches his conclusions by exploring literary parallels and lacunae in the New Testament, the Scrolls, and contemporary literature, a methodology colored by the author's historical approach to Jesus and the New Testament, which denies the supernatural and can shed a negative light on Christianity and its founders. Eisenman's historical reconstruction makes for fascinating reading, but it never takes us beyond the realm of the merely plausible.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-670-86932-5
Page Count: 992
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1996
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