Book review: Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing by Jed McKenna.

 

 (This blog first appeared as a book review that I contributed at goodreads.com on 10th November, 2024. There is a small amount of overlap between some of my comments there and previous blogs here. Hopefully the repetition is useful! I also ‘tidied up’ the text of the GoodReads review a bit.)
 

As far as I know, ‘Jed McKenna’ is a pseudonym and people in a position to know say that the spiritual centre and cast of characters described in this book are all made up. However, the ideas given in the book are worth commenting on anyway, whoever the author is. Rather than keep referring to the author as ‘the pseudonymous Jed McKenna’ I’ll refer to him / them as JM. 

For those wondering about buying the book, I’ll mention a few of the points JM made in the book and add a few observations of my own.

As the title suggests, the book is about spiritual enlightenment, which JM defines as “abiding, non-dual awareness.” JM also describes a simple technique for realising enlightenment. These alone would only stretch to a page or two at most. The rest of the book is a fleshing out of these, plus stories about the life of JM, which are unrelated to the book’s core theme.

I would describe JM’s theory and practice of enlightenment as a variant of Advaita Vedanta, as originally described by Adi Shankara in the 8th century AD, minus some of the philosophical additions that have gathered around that. JM seems sympathetic to such ideas as Brahman being the only true reality, with everything else being dreams or illusions. In one place he puts it this way, “If you view dualistic reality as a dream, which I do, no discrimination is really called for.”

JM only recommends one practice:
“If I were to reduce this book and my teachings to their essence, I would say it all comes down to nothing more than this: Think for yourself and figure out what’s true. That’s it. Ask yourself what’s true until you know.” 

In another place he says a bit more:
“Spiritual autolysis is using the brain and reasoning to eliminate all ideas that are untrue or which can’t be proven to be true. The process is like this:
1 Write something that you hold as absolutely true.
2 Examine that statement, are you absolutely 100% sure this is true? If so, what makes you say this is true, what are the basic assumptions on which that true statement is based.
3 Go back to step 1 using the basic assumptions discovered in step 2 as new material. Discard any idea or concept that is not absolutely true.
4 Continue this process until you come to something that is true beyond a doubt. This can take months or years.” 

According to JM this process is unpleasant at best. He describes the result thus:
“And then one day after a couple of years of this I was suddenly done. Just like that: Done. Although I didn’t think of it in these terms, I had become enlightened, satoried, awake, truth-realized, a jnani, Buddha, whatever you want to call it. Getting the hang of this new state, however, would take me another decade.”

For JM only a handful of people in the world are enlightened. JM says that most of those who are seekers of enlightenment are not serious and are pursuing an illusion. In various places in the book JM refers to people who are not enlightened as:

Cows
Asleep
Chained
People who see a lot of things that aren’t there
Zombies
“As partial. Half alive. Half awake. Potentially awake, but not.”

And adds:
“I possess selfless awareness and you don’t.”

When a reporter asks him if he’s insane he replies, “Insane? It’s about time somebody asked. Well, let’s think about it. I basically believe that I know everything and nobody else knows anything. I think I’m sane and everyone else is insane. I’ve never met another like me and I have to search through centuries and civilizations to find anyone similar. The greatest men and women who have ever lived are just children on a playground to me. I think that I know the mind of God, that the universe does my bidding, and that all of creation exists for my amusement. By what possible definition of the word am I not insane?”
 

JM is very black and white about enlightenment. In several places in the book he emphasises that one is either enlightened or not, there are no in-between stages or development involved. JM also posits that enlightenment is exactly as he describes it – anything else is an illusion.

There’s more, but I would say these are the main points of the book and also give an indication of the style of JM. Some of the points JM makes are interesting ways of putting things, even though I disagree with almost all of them. For example, as far as I can tell, everyone experiences enlightenment differently and different people need different methods to get them there.

A few people may get something out of his method, but I wouldn’t worry about it if you don’t. Just try something else. For those interested in the process called awakening, something much more useful (and cheaper!) than buying this book is the ‘Six Words of Advice’ by Tilopa. A source for this is given below and I wrote more at

https://herethewaking.blogspot.com/2024/06/develop-inner-peace-and-clarity-tilopas.html

The six words are:
    • Don’t recall
    • Don’t imagine
    • Don’t think
    • Don’t examine
    • Don’t control
    • Rest

N. B. They do consist of just six words in Tibetan, but after translation into English they become short phrases. I have found this method to be a wonderful way of dropping identification with peripheral aspects of the self.

By the way, I also try using alternatives to the word ‘enlightenment’ as it carries so much unhelpful baggage. Instead I prefer the word ‘disidentification,’ which is a core process described in Psychosynthesis. For an accessible account of disidentification and other core concepts of Psychosynthesis see the link below.

Anyway, I hope I have given an accurate account of the book and included enough about it to enable you to make up your mind whether to buy it or not.

Sources

McKenna, J. (2010). Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing (The Enlightenment Trilogy Book 1). Wisefool Press.

Peña, H. (2013). Tilopa’s six words of advice. Retrieved from https://www.scribd.com/doc/177580752/Tilopa-s-Six-Words-of-Advice

Sørensen, K. (2024).  The seven core concepts of Psychosynthesis. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yE6rofbSiw

Key words
awakening, awareness, disidentification, enlightenment, non-dual, spiritual, spirituality, truth,
 

Link

https://herethewaking.blogspot.com/2024/11/book-review-spiritual-enlightenment.html