Speakeasy Book Review: The Coming Interspiritual Age

 

I received this book from the Speakeasy Network along with another one. That was before I was summoned for jury duty which cuts my summer vacation off by two weeks. I knew I would not have time to review both books and so I asked a friend to read one of them and do a guest review for me. Below is his review. Many thanks to Phil for his time and honest review....But I think that I will have to pay some sort if penance for this one...When even Phil can't find something redeeming in a book I know we have a problem...Sorry for the trauma, friend!! :) 

The Coming Interspiritual Age 
Review by Guest Blogger Phillip Pennington

I must confess that I did not read this entire book. I read about a third of it and was unable to finish. It's kind of funny, because just before starting this book, I told a friehd that I rarely agree with anything 100%, but I rarely disagree 100% either. Some gold is just a little harder to find. The truth is, this book taught me how wrong I could be.

The Coming Interspiritual Age attempts to merge advances in science, politics, economic theory, group consciousness, and interfaith relationships to predict a new, emergent spiritual paradigm. There are a
number of issues with this treatise. The first is that the author is highly selective in the examples chosen.

As an example from politics, the Occupy Movement was chosen and the Tea Party Movement ignored. It matters not which philosophy is closer to yourown . The fact is that if one is relevant, both are. Similarly, in science, advances in quantum theory are used to prove advances in the understanding of evolution and the origin of the universe while ignoring completely the ever growing number of researchers in this area starting to talk seriously about intelligent design.

There are additional issues with the book. Again, ignoring for a moment which creedif any, the reader prefers, the book puts forth an evolution of thought into a new globalism of thought in all of these areas, especially the spiritual, paying scant attention to the irreconcilable diffrrences in many of them. Evolutionists still speak with derision about intelligent design supporters. To reconcile this into a unified thought seem highly unlikely. The same is true of different political points of view, economic schools, and most of the other areas of thought the writer tries to integrate. Religion is by far the worst. Almost all religions claim to be the singular representation of truth. To create the spiritual movement the author is essentially advertising for, the whole population of the planet would need to leave their faith behind for this new spiritual "awakening." World war over any or all of these conflicts is much more likely than any kind of unification.

Another issue I see with this book is that the thought process behind it is essentially single sourced. The entire prophesied coming spirituality is based on the writings of a Catholic Lay Monk that wrote extensively, but was largely alone in his ultimate conclusions. In the end, the biggest issue is the very idea of a unified world in any, let alone all, of these areas. Universalism sounds pretty, but ultimately it is simply centralization of allowed thought and/or innovation which leaves only the leaders free and the followers stunted.

I recommend that you skip this one. I cannot make this recommendation highly enough.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.