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Tales Of Wonder LP: Adventures Chasing The Divine, An Autobiography (2009)

by Huston Smith(Favorite Author)

3.86 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0061669040 (ISBN13: 9780061669040)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

HarperLuxe

review 1: As always, Huston Smith was awesome in the true sense of awe inspiring. Reading this brought me back to the mid 90s when I met him during one of his speaking engagements in Syracuse, NY. I loved listening to him then and I loved reading of his journey in Tales of Wonder. For anyone who loves to learn of the World's religions and wishes to learn more of how one man experienced them, this is an excellent read!
review 2: Huston Smith has led a remarkable life. He has conversed with the Dalai Lama, lived as a monk in Japan, done LSD with Tim Leary and introduced America to Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions considered exotic in the fifties. But I had hoped that his autobiography would bring these stories to life, instead they were a laundry list of accomplish... morement. He writes his autobiography from his nursing home at the age of ninety, and as a result the book reads more the musings of a man at the end of his life rather than the adventure that was his life. I feel almost guilty for not liking it more, and reading this has made me want to read his other writings. There are several good moments in the book: When he describes the possibility of religious experiences through "Entheogens", psychedelic substances that produce religious experiences. He writes a balanced view of such drugs, stating that they have been a part of religious experiences for thousands of years, but that moments of divine experience do not make for a religous life, for that requires a life of devoting oneself to others. The other moment is his description of living as a monk in Japan and his taciturn senior monk requiring him to meditate for ten days on only three hours sleep per night. Then,after he has done so, the senior monk shows him that he enjoys beer and sumo. The senior monk is knocks himself off the pedestal, to prove that both devotion and enjoyment in life are necessary. Lastly, the appendix at the end of called a "Universal Grammar of Worldviews" is perhaps the best part of the book. Modeled after Chomsky's Universal Grammar, Smith explains fourteen points that all religions contain, and how they relate to each other. The points not only show the commonality of all religion, but also the intersection of science and spirituality. less

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