Amazon.com Review
Spiritual environmentalist Thom Hartman ventures into the genre of parables with this story about a jaded, unemployed newspaper reporter named Paul Abler. The same day that he's fired for being "too driven" as a reporter, Abler has a spontaneous debate with a street corner religious zealot. Moments later Paul risks his life to rescue a 5-year-old girl who is about to be hit by a Mack truck in a crosswalk. These two chance encounters set off a chain of mystical events that change his life.
Like in any great parable, we see an ordinary skeptic wandering in a land of spiritual teachers disguised as misfits and vagrants. More so, we have a straightforward storyteller, able to keep the dialog moving at a clip while giving a strong sense of scene and action. As Paul heads toward the frightened girl in the crosswalk, Hartmann writes, "Three steps out, the voice inside his head was now shouting, you're gonna die, but he didn't stop. Just five more steps and he could shove the little girl--now frozen in horror staring at the truck, whose brakes were screeching--hard enough to knock her out of the way.... If he succeeded he would then, himself, be in front of the truck that he knew would take his life. But even if he wanted to turn back he'd already gone too fast and too far." Even if readers wanted to turn back from this fast-moving parable they will find themselves, like Paul, mysteriously committed to a magnetic journey through underground tunnels, distant lands, back in time, and into the greatest spiritual secret of the century. --Gail Hudson
Review
"A masterpiece of visionary fiction." --
Barbara Marx Hubbard, author of Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of our Social Potential"A special novel that brings us spiritual insights in an entertaining manner." --
Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D., author of Forgiveness: The Greatest Healer of All"This book is a marvelous story, touching the core of true spirituality and going directly to the meaning of the mystical experience." --
Marianne Williamson, author of Return to Love"Thom Hartmann courageously takes us into the realms of truth and wraps eternal principles in a very engaging and entertaining storyvery provocative and stimulating. I loved it." --
Dennis Weaver, actor and activist"Thom Hartmann has a capacity to go to the essence of things. He does so with power and beauty." --
Wayne Teasdale, author of The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the Worlds ReligionsThe story Spiritual Secret's exciting plot kept me up, reading, until two in the morning. It's spiritual message has me determined to persuade my kids to read it. My oldest has already agreed.
Spiritual Secret is a precious gift. Thom Hartmann says, "Nothing has meaning, save the meaning you give it. What you call your culture is nothing but the stories you all decide to agree are true, whether or not they are."
So Thom has created a story which helps our culture. He creates new meaning with a clear vision-- one based on what Jesus and Moses and Buddha and Mohammed taught, rather than the institutional religious teachings which, over time, became distorted and twisted by greed, ego and the desire for power.
This story offers us us a new story to embrace as our spiritual reality, one closer to the bone, with truths which, though always available to us, shout out through his words, with clarity and soul.
While it has many incredibly inportant messages, it reads like a cross between an action thriller and one of Daniel Quinn's idea adventures, like Ishmael.
Beware. Reading this book will permanently change the way you see your life and the world. -- Rob Kall, Founder/Organizer of The Winter Brain Meeting, President, Futurehealth, Inc.
explores truths that shake up the realities of its characters, that will shake up yours too. -- Bodhi Tree Book Review
