Customer Reviews

The Path: A New Look At Reality

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I picked up this book because I saw that it was the same author as What Dreams May Come and I was NOT dissapointed. I really enjoyed the fact that the book was easy reading (unlike alot of others of this type) and that it covered some deep material. I don't know if all of it is true, but it makes me believe in Heaven more than ever before. It paints a more realistic view of what happens after our body dies. I will look for this author more often.

No matter what your religious or spiritual belief system is based on, as long as you have an open mind and a willingness to consider new thoughts, you will enjoy this book. I just happened to see it on a bookshelf and the words on the front convinced me to buy it. It took me a few days to get into it, but once I did, I couldn't put it down. You can look at this book as a textbook for spirituality, or simply as something to ruminate about later.

It is easy to read, and focuses on the life of a soul. The author sets the story in novel format and explains his ideas (or those he has collected) from the point of a very confused man who meets an interesting stranger on his daily jogs through the woods near his home. As the story progresses, and he talks to the stranger more, he learns more and more about life and what is important, as well as what is to come. The man is hesitant at first about believing the stranger's ideas, but the more he talks with him, the more he looks forward to the next day and his next "lesson."

You too will look forward to the next lesson and as you are reading you will discover that you are exercising your mind as well as your busy page-turning fingers.

Take it for what you will. Just take it, read it, and enjoy it on any level you choose!

First of all, I like much of the work of Richard Matheson. He is a good storyteller. sometimes he is brilliant. This is not a work of brilliant storytelling. It is not even a work of fiction, other than the contrivance of using a series of walks through the park as the setting for various sermons the author wants to deliver through his characters. As noted by other reviewers, the author's goal is to present the teachings of H. Percival on the nature of the human person and the afterlife.

I have nothing against Percival and his thought. However, you can download it for free from the Internet. If Matheson admires the thought of Percival, that is his right. However,it is disappointing that such a great storyteller as Matheson did not present the sermons he wanted to tell within the context of a real story. The philosophy that undergirds What Dreams May Come is the same philosophy that is presented here. At least in the other work he offers it in the context of a real story. The end result is much more compelling than The Path.

In his introduction the author tells of the hundreds of metaphysical books that he has read in his life and how he has indirectly interwoven the ideas that he obtained from them in much of his work. In this book he finally had a chance to express the best of these ideas directly in a classic question and answer format. Some will condemn him for not adding anything original here- of just recycling another's ideas. When it comes to true metaphysics and the perennial philosophy no one adds anything "original", you merely rediscover and represent what has always been, and will always be, to a new audience. When it comes right down to it that also describes Harold W. Percival's actions when he wrote THINKING AND DESTINY.

Some will also disparage the slim size of this little volume. I see this as one of its greatest attributes. In metaphysics, as in science, if you cannot condense the major ideas down to a relatively few readily understandable paragraphs then you are probably propagating humbug. This book is slim, but its ideas are elegantly coherent and satisfying. The main points are even repeated halfway through for review and retention.

What are these elegant ideas? Both Matheson and Percival express them better than I ever could. They boil down to personal responsibility for yourself, your community, your nation, and your cosmos. Our actions and our thoughts have consequences that will and must be answered for. There is justice. There will come balance. We may not recognize it but in this life, the hereafter, or the next incarnation, but it will definitely come to pass.

As Richard Matheson states in the beginning of "The Path," the goal of this book was to present the reader with a high-level introduction to the works of Harold Percival through a series of ten fictional walks.

The problem is that Matheson's presentation is too high-level, so much so that many of the ideas are over-simplified, or only vaguely referenced. Because of this, the concepts lose their impact, and many times appear as rehashed material from many other books available today.

I enjoy a majority of Matheson's works, and was excited to find this extension of some of the concepts and ideas from "What Dreams May Come," but unfortunately, Matheson was too sparse on the details. I don't feel any more compelled to pick up the works of Percival than I did before. I wish Matheson would have expanded this book to twelve or fifteen walks, or else would have made the walks longer.

Ive read a lot of Mathesons book, and I really did enjoy this one. It is a very short book, but you take soo much out of it.
Its almost more of an esay about politics, life, spirituality and everything in between, but its written as almost just a plain old conversation between two people.
Great book, more provoking than story.

I loved this book! I read it after reading two of his other books and I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. The Path is, like I said, thought provoking and I'd recommend it to anyone who is open minded and interested in exploring other spirituality avenues.

Clearly the work of Percival is important to Richard Mathewson and frankly, that is what I find most strange. Especially because of Richard's depth in his metaphysical reading. I eagerly opened this book, but by the time I had finished I felt very differently about Richard and his ability to make good judgments and what is truth.

I found the message in The Path to be vague, random, confusing and ultimately depressing. There were bits and pieces from many other philosophies thrown together. Many of the concepts I agree with, but right next them were ideas which I think are just plain bizzare. There is absolutely no science here, it's more like the words of Pacival are the words of some god or something.

In particular, ideas of joy, creativity and wonder are rarely addressed. The world, in this view, seems to be some sort of screwed up place - and whoever created it clearly has no control.

I just don't buy that.

Life is amazing -a miracle- and a big part of why we're here is to be happy and enjoy ourselves. There is an intelligence running through the Universe that we are part of and it's a GOOD, LOVING intelligence. It's smart enough to solve the problems (with our help and trust in our intuition of course).

Matheson and his mentor doesn't' seem to get this. Their world is dark and filled with errors almost impossible to solve. Sorry, not my world Richard.

The book is thought provoking, easy to read and highly believable. That is until a few pages before the end. Quote "The United States was set apart to try out self Government by the people". By who? God? "In peace and in war, their escape from the natural consequences of their selfishness and indifference is striking. But this protection may not last." OH PLEASE. Try reading this from the other side of the atlantic.