The Secret Doctrines of Jesus

This book is by H S Lewis of the Rosicrucians.

Not a lot of details here, but some interesting points made here and there.

I think the main points of the book are that Jesus had a wider group of intimate disciples than most of us might have thought and that not all of Jesus' teachings were revealed to all - with some biblical basis to support both of these ideas. There are some hints as to why this was so also. In addition, Lewis claims that the Church has complicated, hidden and/or altered Jesus' true teachings in the process of bolstering itself as it developed since the first century - a few examples are given of this.

I don't know that I would run out and get the book if I were you, but it has some points worth reading.

About 3 Years Now

It has been about three years now since I started this blog. A lot has changed since, and a lot has not. I'm still searching for some important things, but I have found a few others I think. Who knows what the New Year will bring?

I have read a lot of books since starting this blog, and I don't think I have written about nearly all that I have read in this period. My reading list never seems to get any shorter.

Take care.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

This is a book by Richard Carlson.

First, I just found out that the author died last year. Made me stop and think, especially since I am a year older than he was.

This is actually the second time I read this book. I first read it about the time it first came out in the late 1990's.

There is some good advice in this book, and it was worth a second read - although some of it I didn't totally agree with to tell the truth.

The main message seems to be to keep things in proper perspective. Sometimes I need to be shown that I guess.

If you have not read it, take a look. If you have, maybe read it again.

Poirot Loses a Client

This is an Agatha Christie mystery.

A friend of mine started me on these in high school. Every once in a while now, I find some in a used bookstore and pick up a few. A few weeks ago, I found this one and a couple of others.

I find that some of Christie's books are better than others. This is one of the better ones.

If you like this sort of book, take a look at this one.

How You Can Talk with God

This is a booklet by Yogananda of Self Realization Fellowship (SRF).

It offers a good perspective, and I recommend it highly. I know that I need the type of encouragement and gentle scolding such as in this booklet to keep me on track on my meditation. It is always rather a surprise at first, then rather hard to admit later on as to how this is needed. OK, I'll only speak for myself, but according to the booklet, it is a common problem. Still strange to me, even though I experience it.

I think the main message is that one has to be sincere for a relationship with God, not just wanting fringe benefits, and must stick to it to prove that one is sincere.

Today, I wondered if a reason for diffculty in sticking with it so to speak is due to fear of the unknown or that one will miss out on something in the here and now. I am not saying this very well, but it is hard to put into words. It is sort of like wondering about what comes after finding Nirvana - the then what question? Does one get bored and have to start all over? Maybe I just don't understand the concept well enough yet. If you do, please explain.

Let me know what you think.

Pain, Sex and Time

This is a book by Gerald Heard. The subtitle is: A New Outlook on Evolution and the Future of Man.

Catchy title, no?

The book starts off rather well. It proposes that man must make the next step in evolution - mental/expanded consciousness - or degenerate or destroy himself. Note that Heard wrote this around the start of WWII.

The pain and sex in the title has to do with excess energy present for doing this next step that we are failing at doing, hence problems with these. The time part is that it is an illusion - not much done with this that I noticed. He seems to say that when we are intellectually occupied, we are less worried about sex, have less sensitivity to pain and are not as aware of time - he may be on to something here.

Heard then reviews history (including evolutionary history of life) to shown that his points have merit. There are some interesting items here.

Things get a little sketchy and hard to follow near the end - even his sentence structure gets hard to follow - when he starts talking about how to achieve the next step. His method is hard to explain, but it based on explicit effort in special communities. Apparently, he even attempted to found one in California in the 1940's which did not catch on - this is not to say that his ideas were wrong.

Heard was a rather interesting character - see the biographical information in the book. He was friends with Huxley and involved in the Vedanta Society. Meditation was very important to him in later life.

Worth a read, but be prepared to trudge through some rough spots, especially towards the end. The summary at the very end is fairly informative about the book as a whole.

If you read it, let me know if you think I missed anything. I had very high hopes when I started it, but kind of lost them in many respects as I finished it.

100th Posting

I just noticed my next posting would be my 100th, so decided to use it to look back.

It has been almost 3 years since my first posting. So much has changed since then. It was and still is a confusing period for me. There seems to be some light (finally) and an end to this tunnel. I hope it is what I have been waiting for for so long.

My blog has developed into mostly a place where I review what I have been reading. Have done a lot of that in these nearly three years, and I have learned a lot in the process. I hope that readers have gotten something useful out of this too. Let me know on that.

I plan to continue. Wonder what I'll be reading for the next 50 postings. Stay tuned.

Intuition: Soul-Guidance for Life's Decisions

This is a book(let) by Sri Daya Mata of the Self Realization Fellowship (SRF) based on the teachings of Yogananda of the same organization.

I recommend reading the book(let) yourself in its entirety - it is not long at all - less than 70 small pages. A great deal of useful insight can be gained here.

Perhaps the book(let) can be best summarized as suggesting to all of us to look into our hearts when we need to make a decision and make connection with God there. Ask for the real answer and wait for it - and do not accept something that you are only imagining just because it pleases you/is what you want to hear, as opposed to what is best. All this takes some practice.

Give it a try.

Villa of Reduced Circumstances

This is the third in the German Professor series by Alexander McCall Smith.

As in all the other books in the series, the Professor gets into all sorts of mischief, including a revolution in Colombia. This one is different in that the Professor decides to do the nice thing more than he has been known to do in the past.

A lot happened in this book in only about 100 pages. Might leave you a little exhausted.

I wonder if there will be a fourth?

Midlife Tune Up

This is a book by Tim Burns on dealing with a midlife crisis.

Mr. Burns is from the New Orleans area and uses some local color to illustrate many of his points. Overall, a good book!

I lived in New Orleans many years and went to high school there, so I can relate well to many of Mr. Burns' stories, but I think they are universal in their basics.

It is hard to do the book justice in a short space, so I will just say that you should give it a try if the subject is of interest. Gave me much food for thought.

A House Divided

This is the third book in The Good Earth trilogy by Pearl S. Buck.

When I read The Good Earth, I had no idea there were two sequels. I found out by accident several years later. I liked the second of these sequels better than this last one and the first of the trilogy best of all.

This third book follows the life of a grandson of Wang Lung of the first book. He has to deal with the China going through the struggles of around the 1920's and 1930's. Part of the time, he is in the USA at college. Things are seen from a Chinese viewpoint, so do not expect Westerners to look too good here.

There are many good sections in the book, but it gets a little too long and drawn out for my taste in several places. I recommend it to those who want to see how life for some of the characters in earlier books turns out - often not too well.

The Living God and the Modern World

This is a book by Peter Hamilton dealing with the "Christian intellectual crisis" using (for the most part) the process thought of A. N. Whitehead. This crisis involves the difficulty in reconciling Christian beliefs with what we have learned since the time of Jesus.

Although published in the 1960's, it still seems very relevant. Overall, it is a well written and thought out book, except for a small confusing part in the middle, and MUCH better than Cobb's book on process thought that I reviewed recently. Maybe I could relate better to Hamilton, because he was an engineer before becoming a minister.

There are many thought provoking topics in the book. I really liked how he made Jesus so much more real for me in a very important way. His description of how Jesus was abandoned by virtually everyone when sent to the cross really struck me as never before!

I like many aspects of process thought as presented here, but I cannot accept all of it. I think that describing God as having two nature's is a very useful model - one as we think of Him traditionally, and one where he interacts with us and is affected by the interaction. That helps me over many difficult theological points. I cannot however (or will not perhaps) buy the idea that we only survive in the mind of God as a memory after we die, and only the parts of us that were not really evil make it - that last part I could buy I guess. This low grade survival would seem to make our existence nearly pointless. Note that process thought is a little hard to understand, but Hamilton explains it pretty well.

I think the Hamilton's analysis of Jesus - his life and especially his resurrection - is brilliant in many respects. I finally understand all that business about the linens in the tomb! He sticks to the scriptures and other ancient documents for the most part in making his points. There are some elements of Spong here, but not so negative. I did not like the conclusions he reached nearly as much though - the application of process type survival after death as only in the mind of God for Jesus, that is.

There are many, many other really good points made in the book (on suffering, heaven, the living God and others), and of these, many do not involve process thought at all in case you aren't a process fan. The book might be a little hard to find given how old it is, but it is worth looking for it. I found it in the local public library.

Let me know on this one if you read it.

Tuva or Bust

This is a book by Ralph Leighton. It chronicles the adventures he and others had in trying to get to visit Tannu Tuva with Richard Feynman, the American Nobel prize-winning physicist.

Do you know where Tanni Tuva is located? I do, as I once saw it on a globe years ago. It was a country wedged between Russia and Mongolia, but Stalin took it over in the 1940's. Like the people in the book, exotic locales like this interest me, so I had to read this book.

The subtitle of the book is "Richard Feynman's Last Journey" - Feynman died before getting to Tuva. Sort of sad after all the trouble they went to to get there. The author did go, but it was very anti-climatic, as he barely said anything about the actual trip after pages on all the hoops they had to go through to get there.

If you read the book, it seems like Feynman was involved, but not nearly as much as the author and others mentioned in the book. Well, Feynman was famous, so I guess the subtitle helped attract attention to the book. In any case, the story is interesting and illustrates how weird and frustrating it was to deal with the old USSR - something quickly being forgotten perhaps.

To digress, I had a Russian penpal during communist rule, and it was interesting. I had to use registered mail (very expensive) to be sure he saw my letters. He actually defected to England, and I got to meet him there at the end of a business trip.

Getting back to the book review, I do recommend the book. It is like a time capsule for life so different, but not that long ago. Give it a look.

Process Theology

This is a book by Cobb and Griffin based for the most part on the process theology of A. N. Whitehead.

The book starts off well, but around the middle gets very hard to read. The authors seem to become fond of words like epistemology (big words that add little to the discussion at hand, but do much to confuse it) and using sentences that are less than clear in this middle part. Fortunately, things improve in the last part of the book. Appendix A is helpful; Appendix B is so-so. Overall, I would say it might be best to find another book if you are interested in the subject, although this one does have parts that are quite good - they are just thrown in with lots of bad parts. The book is 185 pages long, and I spent weeks on it!

In a previous posting (The Mind of God on 8/18/07), I did mention how I found out about Whitehead's process theology in that book. There is a good introduction there in only a few pages.

Process theology has many aspects, some of which I don't like, but it does offer some great ideas about God and His relation to us and our relation to our environment. It explains about evil in the world quite well I think, as it does about free will. Basically, God is very great, but not absolute. He tries to persuade us to move in the right direction rather than force us. He also feels our love for Him as well as has love for us. Some of it might be quite shocking to traditional Christians, but it does at least make logical sense for the most part.

Other parts of the theology, such as on existence which sounds a lot like the non-existence of Buddhism, do nothing for me, and I reject. I am not sure how much of this part is really Whitehead and not Cobb/Griffin instead.

I have found some other books on the subject by other authors to look at soon - Whitehead's actual books are very difficult to get through according to Cobb/Griffin, so you can imagine how bad that must be, given what I said about Cobb/Griffin's book.

The one I will look at next is by Hamilton, and I checked it carefully for overblown wording. It passed my inspection. I will let you all know soon about it.

Nanotechnology

Recently, I read a few books on this topic written for the layman more or less. They were OK, but a little too superficial for my taste. It is clear that there is something for everyone in this new frontier though.

In any event, the topic is of great interest to me and to most of the corporate world it seems. I am now in a grad certificate program at George Mason University so that I can learn more. Will keep you posted.

The Gospels

I have been making my way through my reading list in the Bible over the last many months. Not long ago, I started on the Gospels, and today I finished the last one.

I think that Luke and Mark were the ones I liked the best - maybe Luke a little more than Mark. Third place was Matthew. I liked John the least - my unitarian streak I guess.

That being said, some of my favorite Gospel quotes are from John: Where are you going? (Quo vadis?) and What is truth? (Quid est veritas?). I am also partial to John's parable of the vines and the branches, or at least an interpretation of it I once read.

I had read or heard most of the Gospels in parts here and there, but had never sat down and read them in full before. I had some surpirses. First, they move pretty quickly and are not detailed stories following a tight time line. Second, Jesus is still a mystery to me in many ways - almost as much as before I read them this time. They were of course written in a different time - originally by hand no less. Maybe that explains how they seemed to me, well except for the remaining mystery perhaps.

That last part will require some thought on my part to resolve I suppose. Maybe that is as it should be.

If you have not read the Gospels all the way throught, give it a try and see what you think.

In Spite of the Gods

This is a recently published book by Edward Luce subtitled: The Strange Rise of Modern India. Overall, it is a great book, and I recommend it highly.

The book has only a few (small) bad points. It has some typos, and a sentence here and there was not exactly crystal clear. I mention this as I have been surprised to notice lately in my reading that editing is slipping very often these days for some reason. A shame, but don't let it deter you from reading this book as the problems are minor.

I did find the book a bit confusing at times given that the book is layed out by subject and not on a timeline. Of course, the author was writing on something that made the layout he chose best I think. He did give helpful references now and then to link things up.

As to more substantive surprises, I have always viewed India as somewhat chaotic, but still down deep a gentle culture - admittedly, I have never been there. This book was an eye-opener about serious crime, corruption, cruelty and growing (bad type) consumerism. The silver lining seemed to come mostly in how the poor can be very generous with what little they have. This is not to say that all the upper classes/those in power are bad people and don't care, but many are and their bad behavior is too often tolerated - at least according to this book. As to chaos, the author said that it seemed the Indians managed in spite of the chaos for the most part.

As one guru I read liked to say, India would be better off if it adopted Western efficiency and organization, but adhered to true Eastern morality - I think he may be right about that about India and everywhere else as well.

There is a lot of room for hope as the book explains in detail. I found it interesting how China and Pakistan were compared and contrasted with India. It seems that the U.S. government is reaching out to help India now more than before, but perhaps to make it a counterweight to China. I see India as a more natural ally than China for the U.S. and less of a rival, perhaps because Indian culture is more like ours than Chinese.

I think I would like to visit India with the author as tour guide. He seems to know where to go and who to talk to about everything. He is also even-handed in his analysis of what he finds I think.

If you have any interest in India or current affairs generally, you should read this book. Let me know what you think.

The Mind of God

This book is by Paul Davies, a professor of physics. Its revealing subtitle is: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World.

Overall, I liked the book, although some parts in the middle were a little dull for me. I think that the first and last parts made up for this though.

One thing I found interesting was the idea that Eastern peoples tend to view time as cyclic, while Western people tend to view time as linear. Also, Davies really helped me make sense of Plato's idea of the forms and all that.

That being said, Davies seemed to do lot of dancing around (for me) the fact that God made the universe. He illustrated how some scientists have gone to great lengths to avoid having God as creator, Occam notwithstanding. They seem to ignore the ultimate problem in the process which Davies sort of admits. Davies comes close to embracing God as creator, but does not get all the way down that road.

It was quite an amusing to me to see how much trouble atheistic scientists have to go to, so they can avoid having to admit that there is a God. They also seem to stop before the ultimate questions are reached, because they "know" they are in trouble if they go there. All their machinations seem to end up with the universe being from some magical coincidence or some such - and they accuse believers of being superstitous!

Davies example of evolution (polar bears) led me to realize how bad a theory evolution is, that is IF one insists on it being the only process going on. Overall, way too big a waste involved given how "Mother Nature" tends toward efficiency and order.

Getting back to the bears, Davies mentions that Darwin's ideas require a large population to select from - so where does that population come from ulitmately we should wonder - you get sort of an infinite projection there if you insist on no Creator. Of added interest perhaps is that the bears are pretty developed before the white ones get selected. Seems like these macro level selections are the favorite example for Darwinists.

Something seems missing in Darwinism. Seems like something else is going on too or gets it all started on a path with limits or somehow limits the possible paths down the line. Yes, I guess that is a combo of an Intelligent Designer and Darwinism. Well, so be it.

I did find the (too) brief discussion on Whitehead's process theology idea very interesting. I will be looking into that further.

Davies keeps getting to a limit of using reason to figure out the ultimate questions about our origins and that of the universe. Well, I say God is what comes next in this looking back. I think that Davies suspects this too.

All in all, I recommend the book. Lots of food for thought here.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I just finished the 7th and the last (or so it is said) of the Harry Potter book series. It is full of surprises, but I won't say too much in case you have not had a chance to read it yet.

The book does tie up the loose ends in the series, but this is not a book for young children. There is a lot of death and violence in it.

I have read books 3 to 7 and saw movies 1 to 5 - the last movie only yesterday. It appears that they became more slanted to adults as they went along. Maybe it made for a larger reader base, but it did get a bit intense for children, I think.

The Epilogue may be the basis for a new series of books. We'll see. I recommend it - for adults at least.

How Did I Get Here?

I hit a book sale while in New York recently. This was one of several books I bought there. It would have been worth full price.

A very interesting book to read if you are in the middle of some personal crisis like a mid-life one, but would work for other types as well. Not too much on definite ways out of the crisis as much as how to accept what is going on and how to profit from it. Sort of a new way of looking at this stuff I guess.

There are plenty of interesting anecdotes given to illustrate the points being made, as well as many pertinent quotations.

I think my favorite lesson in the book is about life being in a circle as opposed to a line. Think about that for a minute. I guess you get to redo things until you get them right - whether you want to have a redo or not. Wow!

Give it a look.

Rosicrucian Principles for the Home and Business

An interesting book I think. I got a beautiful, used hardcover copy from 1946 very cheaply on Amazon - the dust jacket listed the new price as $2.25!

Nothing way out or strange in the book actually. Really mostly down to earth type advice, but some rather interesting and unique takes in many respects.

As an example, when concentrating on something that one would like to happen for the purpose of attracting it into one's life (a prayer of sorts), focus on the actual thing required, but do not focus on the specific method of how it will come about. Leave that last part up to the higher power.

OK, that may sound a little strange. I'll let you know how it turns out once I have had time to test it. Take care.

The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

This is the second in the Professor von Ingelfeld series by Alexander McCall Smith.

The siutations that the Professor gets himself into in the book are bizarre, but hilarious. They include mistaken identity in Arkansas, an operation that goes wrong on a sausage dog (don't read this chapter if you like these dogs), visits involving a psychoanalyst and a father confessor, transporting the bones of a saint where the dog gets revenge of a sort and a meeting with the Pope, and finally a sea cruise with some interested widows.

Give it a try!

Minds, Machines and the Multiverse

This is a book by Julian Brown with the very descriptive subtitle, THE QUEST FOR THE QUANTUM COMPUTER.

Although similar in topic coverage to the other book I wrote about recently on quantum computing (Johnson's A SHORTCUT THROUGH TIME), this one is longer and goes into more detail. Some related topics are also discussed in Brown's book not covered in the other - many of these are interesting (like Many Worlds) and a few are quite bizarre (like the Omega Point).

If you only had the time to read one of these, I would suggest the Johnson book. Brown's book goes into more detail which is often good, but too often drops the ball in various ways with all these details leaving you in the middle of a real muddle. It was very irritating.

I also found the book hard to follow in that I was not sure where it was heading in many instances for long periods. Often I was asking myself, "Why is Brown talking about this topic in the middle of this chapter?" Sometimes it took a while to find that out. I guess I could describe this as the development not being very "tight".

Personally, I thought there was much too much on algorithms and too little on physical implementation, but then, to be fair, this does seem to be representative of how the field is progressing. Also, I am a chemical engineer/patent lawyer and not a computer science person.

If you read Johnson and want more, but not an actual textbook on the subject, give Brown a try. Otherwise, I would skip it.

The Snake Pit

Years ago, I caught the beginning of the movie, and I could not watch more than a few minutes of it, because it was so freaky. I saw a used copy of the book last week for 50 cents, and could not resist for some reason. Once I started reading it, it was hard to put down. It was about as freaky as the movie, but I guess I have matured - HA HA.

Anyway, this is a book about a woman who has a break down and is put in a mental hospital circa 1940, I guess. There is electroshock, tubs, wrapping and all that. She stays confused most of the time, but it is hard to see what else she could be with all she goes through.

She gets better then worse in a big repeating cycle. Finally, her husband pushes and gets her out. It is hard to tell how well she is at this point, but you have to feel sorry for her. Let her out, she isn't dangerous!

The most memorable line in the book for me happens when Virginia (the crazy lady) meets up with another lady who claims to own the Hope Diamond. Her reply is that she owns the Hopeless Emerald, and it is cursed. I laughed out loud at that. I guess a sense of humor helps when one is in a mental hospital.

By the way, the title is explained in the book. I'll leave that as a surprise.

I look forward now to seeing the movie. It is on my Netflix list.

Take a look. It will keep you up at night!

God's Debris

This is a book by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert.

The subtitle of this book is "A Thought Experiment". You are told to try and figure out what is wrong with the old man's explanation of reality - the old man is one of the two characters in the book.

While the old man does offer some interesting thoughts on God and probability, overall I did not like what he had to say all that much. It made life seem rather pointless in many ways. Maybe I just did not get it - if you read it and do get it, please explain it to me. Maybe I did get it after all, and that is why I reacted the way I did. I'll have to think on that some more I guess.

In spots, I thought the science itself was not quite right, and there seemed to be some holes in the logic here and there. This bugged me quite a bit and made it hard for me to keep an open mind on the rest for some reason. Maybe this was due to the note on there being something wrong with what the old man said.

That there is a sequel does confuse the issue further for me, as it seems to stick to the old man's argument from what I can tell. I do NOT plan to read it, so let me know if I missed out by not.

Give God's Debris a try if you want, but don't say I didn't warn you. I would like to hear what you think if you do read it though.

The Way

This is a book by Michael Berg of the Kabbalah Centre. I highly recommend it!

In many ways this book is better than the other Kabbalah book I reviewed recently, The Power of Kabbalah. There is a little less theory and more on application in The Way.

I think the book boils down to teaching on how important it is to be a truly giving person - not for show - and having a close relationship with God. This is sort of like the comment that Jesus made on loving God and your neighbor as being the basis of the law.

It is very difficult to summarize the details presented in the book, and I could not do the book justice this way. Read it and see for yourself.

Let me know what you think after you have read it.

A Shortcut Through Time

This book is by George Johnson on quantum computing. It is a very interesting introductory book and not too long on the math if you are not big on that.

I recently got interested in this subject and saw this book at the public library. Since I wanted to read something on an introductory level first, I chose it. I think it was a good choice. I plan to look into some more detailed works on the same subject in the future.

To give you a glimpse of what goes on, the book talks about the limits of conventional computers in such areas as cryptography and shows how a quantum computer would make short work of such problems. There is a good, basic introduction to quantum principles and weirdness, so don't panic.

I look forward to learning more about this exciting new field.

The Apocrypha

Today, I finished the selections I had chosen to read from the Apocrypha. I read the books of 2Esdras, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, 4Maccabees and Psalm 151 in the RSV.

Of these, the book I liked the best, or maybe rather the book that had the most meaning for me, was the book of Sirach. The meaning of the others to my life seemed a little more distant if you know what I mean by that; some searching was required to see the message for me.

I will now move on the the New Testament now where I plan to read all of it.

Portuguese Irregular Verbs

This book is by Alexander McCall Smith who also writes the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series.

The present book tells of some of the misadventures of Dr. von Igelfeld, professor of philology, who is a little full of himself. You'd be surpirsed as to some of the unusual circumstances he gets into in the book - far from dry and professorial. The title of the book is taken from that of the professor's big academic writing accomplishment.

It is a pretty amusing and interesting book. I read it in only a few days, as it is very short. It retails for $20 in hardcover in the US and is well under 200 pages, so I recommend borrowing from the public library as I did. The trip to the library is well worth it.

There are two others in this "Professor Series" - "Sausage Dogs" and "Villa of Reduced Circumstances". I look forward to reading those as well.

The Power of Kabbalah

This is a book by Yehuda Berg of Kabbalah Centre fame. Overall, I liked it very much and found it inspiring.

The book offers everything from a theory of the universe to how to improve your life - all of which are related!! I am OK with most of what the book says, but the scanning of the Hebrew letters goes a bit far for me, but who knows, maybe they are right.

Far from being mysterious and hard to understand, the book presents Kabbalah in easy to understand terms and gives a plan of action that one can actually follow. The path is not an easy one, at least in the sense that it is usually easier to do the wrong thing.

I plan to read a few more books on the subject in the near future. This one was a Christmas present from 2003. Wish I had read it sooner.

Give it a try, and bring some LIGHT into your life - you'll understand that as a blessing if you read the book.

From Wild Man to Wise Man

The subtitle of the book, "Reflections on Male Spirituality", gives you a good idea of the topic. It was written by Richard Rohr.

The book makes many interesting points, although at times some strange "analogies" are used. I really liked the book until near the end where the author's politics peeked through a little too much for my taste. That really turned me off.

Despite that, I still recommend the book to all the men out there who are getting middle aged and wondering where their life is going. Others may find it helpful too.

One thing the book did for me was make me realize how important certain men had been in my life, even though I was not around them all that long. They did a lot for me that I never realized until now. Thanks guys!!

The Law of Success

This is a booklet by Paramahansa Yogananda, and I highly recommend it. In it, Yogananda presents the path to true success. It is really very simple, and only takes a little practice. Give it a try.

You may have trouble finding a copy, unless you order it from Self Realization Fellowship (SRF). If you get it there, you may find that the shipping costs more than the booklet. One solution would be to order something else at the same time - AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI is a good choice.

A History of Christianity

I just finished this book by Paul Johnson, and I do recommend it. I have read quite a few books on the same subject, but this one has a rather different perspective from the others.

Following the book's progress, Christianity's history is a series of great strides, followed by "bozos" (my term) coming along to mess things up. Read it and see if you don't agree.

For Unitarians, there is one interesting conclusion that Johnson makes that I have never heard before this. He believes that Islam made easy headway into North Africa, Syria and nearby areas, because many people there were never comfortable with the Trinity doctrines and were much happier with a more truly monotheistic religion. Food for thought.

I also found his take on Christian missionay work in Asia, especially Japan, and what might have been, really interesting. Johnson is British and his take on American Christianity is a new one on me; I think I agree with him. I don't want to spoil it with an inadequate summary, so I won't say any more here.

The book seemed to start off on a positive note, but got progressively more negative in tone. The Epilogue did go to a positive conclusion and was hopeful for the future. Johnson has a lot of good to say about Christianity here, and the book should be viewed in this context I think.

One drawback of the book is that there is a lot to cover in 500 or so pages, and the books seems to gloss over certain events. There seems to be more detail on the early years.

The book was written in the 1970's, but a new edition was brought out recently. Give it a try.

How to Know God

This book is by Deepak Chopra. Catchy title, no?

I do recommend the book, but I must say that some more editing would have helped. There were many spots that were not written very clearly. In addition, there seemed to be several dead ends where his argument stopped without being completed. I think that much of what Mr. Chopra had to say was worth reading, but it was a little painful at times to extract it from the wording.

That being said, the book is worth the effort. His major premise is that we (at least as our souls) come to know God in seven stages: protector, almighty, peace, redeemer, creator, miracles and pure being (I am). Our personalities seem to develop accordingly. Lots of good stuff here. I have to agree that he is on to something, because I have seen some of this progression in my own life and in history.

He also discusses the concept of three worlds: material (ours), quantum (transition) and virtual (God's). If you like modern physics, this could be of great interest. Maybe still even if you are not a fan of physics. Personally, I liked it and have written about something similar in an earlier posting.

I think it fair to say that the book is centered around these seven stages and three worlds. There is a lot that can be said about these and what follows from them. Mr. Chopra says a lot of it. Gives a lot for food for thought too.

Take a look and see what you think.

The Fatal Harvest Reader

I guess the best way to summarize this book is to let you know that the subtitle is "The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture". The main issues tackled are pesticides, fertilizers, genetic engineering and industrialization/globalization of agriculture. Solutions presented involve using organic methods, reduction of corporate power through changes in the law, support of small growers and the like.

This book may seem somewhat of a departure from what I usually read and write about here. I decided to read it as background for an article I want to write on morality and the patent system; I am a patent lawyer.

There is a lot of interesting information/viewpoints presented here. For more conservative readers, there are only a few places that might shock or irritate. I found some of the arguments a bit hard to accept, but I think the issues discussed are ones that all of us should be concerned with, even if we don't agree with the solutions offered in this book.

One thing that I have to mention is that I cannot understand the praise for "organic" fruits and vegetables in this book. I mean how they supposedly taste. In my experience, you pay a very high price for often ugly produce that amost always tastes odd. I am from the country and do know what "home grown" (non-industrial) tastes like, and it is better than this organic stuff. I just don't get it.

Anyway, the book is worth a read if the topic is of interest. I did find some of the websites listed at the end to be worth a look too.

Let me know what you think.

The Cajuns

This is a book by Gus Weill.

While I was in Lousiana this past Christmans, I went with my sister to the local Barnes and Noble. I found this book on the discount rack. That should have been the clue to leave it alone.

The author paints a very negative picture of Cajun culture. As a Cajun, I found it offensive. There are some elements of truth, but Weill has exaggerated them to presumably amuse some audience that I hope I never meet. If you look at the book jacket, you will get the impression that the culture described is somehow true to life - it is not.

As it turns out, James Carville is a protege of Weill's and encouraged him write the book. He even made a (dumb) comment printed on the back cover. Wonder why I don't vote for Democrats?

If you really know about Cajuns, read the book and see what you think. If you don't, then stay away as it will poison your mind against us. We aren't anywhere near this bad.

The Origin of Satan

This book is by Elaine Pagels.

Before reading this book, I had understood that the current "mainstream" understanding of Satan is different from that of most pre-Christian Jews, but I was not sure how we got to this point. I was not expecting what this book proposes as the explanation, but it does sound reasonable.

According to Ms. Pagels, the idea of Satan as waging a battle against God has a lot to do with the situations the Jews faced during the times not long before the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent sectarian fighting that led to the separation of the Jews and the Christians. This continued to develop with the persecution of the Christians by the Romans and later during the campaign of the orthodox Christians against heretics in the early church and beyond. Demonizing an opponent is a simplified way of putting it.

One side benefit to me is a new perspective on the Gospel of Thomas and even more so on Valentinus and the Gospel of Phillip. I had written off the latter two as too way out, but Ms. Pagels' explanation of them makes me want to take another look. I will start with some of her other books on these subjects.

The Satan book did get a little dry in the middle at times, but it was mostly a good read. Give it a try and see what you think.

Unitarian Universalism - a Narrative History

This book is by David Bumbaugh.

First, the book is strange in how it is laid out. The chapters or sections are more or less all run together. It would have been easier to read if these had been better offset from each other. This and other font and editorial issues made the book appear as made by amatuers.

That being said, the writing was better than the appearance, but did leave something to be desired in places. It did "breeze along" in many spots giving it a very superficial feel. Of course, it was covering a lot of territiory in a short space.

I would have prefered more information on the philosophy of the individuals mentioned, although, here and there some was offered. I did gain new respect for Emerson and Parker given what was quoted from them.

One thing that remains a mystery to me after reading this book is how the humanists managed their "take-over" in Unitarianism. This is really glossed over.

As the book moved along, and especially in the section on Univeralism, there seemed to be merely a list of dates, conventions and social concerns with not a lot of substance. An exception to this was the situation surrounding the UU involvement in civil rights; it turned into kind of a disaster which was a surprise to me. I must say that I did have to respect the UU board for trying to avoid some hypocrisy in this instance at the cost of loss of political correctness.

All in all, it is worth a read if you want an overview of the subject and are not bothered by what it lacks. It is not overly dense, so one can read it quickly.

Let me know what you think.

The Old Testament

In April 2006, I started reading a selected list of books of the Old Testament. I finally finished today. My list was Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Jonah and Zechariah.

Of these, I think I liked Proverbs and Ecclesiates best; lots of great condensed truths. There were several portions of the others that I liked also. I did find Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah to be a bit long for what they had to say to someone like me.

This whole project was something new for me. I had never read such large portions of the Bible all together. It had some interesting effects. If nothing else, I now know where a lot of expressions come from and their context.

I will now move on to selections from the Apocrypha, and then I plan to read the entire New Testament. I am using the RSV; the notes are helpful. It will be interesting to see where this takes me from here. Will keep you posted.

Out of Egypt

I just finished this book by Andre Aciman. It was great!!!

Funny how you find good books sometimes. I had some credit at a used bookstore and could not find anything I really wanted, so settled for this book. As it turns out, I could not have done better if they had had something on my list.

This book is the memoir of a Jewish family that lived in Egypt from about 1905-1965. The author is a member of this family. This was a family of many real characters. Their lives were very interesting even when doing "everyday" things. Of course the setting, Alexandria, Egypt, did have something to do with that I guess.

But in addition to that, this family was sort of an ex-patriot family living among other ethnic really ex-patriot groups - a very odd status in many ways. They all lived in Egypt in its transition years from colony to Nasser/independence. The Nasser Egyptian goverment did not treat these people that well, but then they were not all that "nice" about the Egyptians. They were decent ot their Egyptian servants I guess, but did seem to hold others in contempt in many ways.

An inside view of an unusual situation and time. An excellent read. Give it a try. It has been out over 10 years, but I bet it can still be found pretty easily.

The Upanishads

These are the more philosophical and last part of the Vedas of India. I read the Easwaran translation.

This was my first major foray into the actual holy literature of India. There is a lot to gain reading this! Some of the longer pieces are only excerpted which may be a little unfortunate, because I saw more complete versions that had a few very interesting things that were left out here. But, I guess the translator here did not want to overwhelm people new to the study. Overall, he did a good job I think. The Upanishads were easy to read and appreciate in the way he presented them; of course, only the "major" ones are presented with a few "minor" ones thrown in at the end.

I think that the main point to get from these works is that all things are united in God somehow, even though they look very diverse on the surface. If we truly realize this, then we cannot hate and would love instead. The other lessons taught seem to flow from this point, more or less.

In future, I look forward to studying more of India's wisdom. I will soon be looking at the Bhagavad Gita and other works. Stay tuned for reports on these. I do recommend taking a look at the Upanishads in the meantime.

Sons

This book is by Pearl S. Buck and is the first sequel to THE GOOD EARTH. I thought it was very good, as are all of her other books that I have read.

In this book, the farmer from the previous book dies, and then the book follows the lives of his three sons - the lazy one, the merchant and the solidier - over many years. The ending seems to have something to do with the rise of Mao, but it is never stated for sure. Of course, the book was written in the very early 1930's, so maybe Ms. Buck did not know exactly what all the revolution was about yet.

What is interesting about her writing style is that she looks into the minds of all the characters and in fairly simple sentence structure gives you a lot of detail. Might sound tedious, but it is actually very easy to read and sails right along. You want to know these people.

There is a third book in the series which I now have and will read and report on in future. If you liked THE GOOD EARTH, be sure to read SONS also.

More on the Quantum God

This is an update to my earlier posting "Quantum God?" of 12/05/2006.

It came to me that maybe all the possible outcomes do happen and for each of us there are many parallel people who are less like us in relation to the diffences in paths taken. Perhaps, we all do come from a single individual or just a few.

Hmm, that sounds really scary and deep. What do you think?

The Orientalist

This book by Tom Reiss is about the life of Lev Nussinbaum, aka Essad Bey, aka Kurban Said. Nussinbaum was a Jew from Baku with a millionaire father who became a Muslim and later a major author in Nazi Germany. He died of some disease similar to leprosy in Italy during WWII.

He had many adventures in his life such as running from the Reds in Russia, traveling through Constantinople near the end of the Ottoman Empire, marrying an heiress and living the high life in New York. His passion was the Orient, well, really Asia. He had quite a life.

The book seems to be more about the times (especially the 1920's and 1930's politics, culture, etc.) of Mr. Nussinbaum than about him in particular. This was OK with me as it was still interesting, but it seems there should have been more about the man who was the supposed subject.

I had read about the book a long while ago in the Wall Street Journal I think. Had been meaning to read it since then. Given it a try if you are interested in these times and places.

The Emperor of Scent

This book by Chandler Burr is about the development of the vibrational theory of smell perception by Luca Turin. It is written for people with limited scientific knowledge.

I liked the book, but it would have been better if it had been totally chronological. The back and forth in time got a little confusing at times. Also, the science got a little too watered down in parts making it actually hard to understand if you do have a science background.

The perfume discussions were very interesting and was the insider industry information. Many will be suprised by the gross amount of pettiness in the scientific community (both academic and in industry) shown in this book; I tend to believe it based on what I saw in grad school and other places since. There is none of the idealism and cooperation many would expect to see. It is more about maintaining prestige than about finding truth. So much for ivory towers.

A good read overall. I look forward to reading the more scientific book on this subject actually written by Turin. Will let you know about it when I get to it.

Crucible: Spock

This is the Spock book of the new trilogy by David George.

Overall, the book is OK, I guess, but far from great. The dialogue is pretty stiff in many places. The characters, though familiar to all Trek fans, seem distant and not quite themselves. Spock is not very likeable in much of the book. It was a little strange to see some typos also.

The story itself is interesting for the most part. Lots of information on Vulcan and Spock's life that I have not come across before this. Spock "redeems" himself rather unexpectedly at the end.

I'd say to read it if you like Trek and Spock, but it isn't one of the best in the series.