Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Much-needed coverage of entheogens in the philosophy of mysticism, November 26, 2005
This book is one of the best on entheogens in religious history and the philosophy of mysticism. Before it is ready to be cited by scholars, it needs an edit, a new title and cover, and proper typesetting. The book is not centrally about Moses or narrowly focused on cannabis; its actual focus is on entheogens in religion. The back cover shows an Amanita mushroom, which is closer to the spirit of the book.
Thorne presents a hypothesis that the theme of 'water', 'passing through water', 'baptism', and 'washing' actually referred to visual distortion induced by visionary plants. He develops these metaphor ideas, with critical commentary on literalist religion, pointing out the ritual of water baptism in the ordinary state of consciousness as empty literalism. He portrays "light" as an ultimate mystic-state phenomenon.
Thorne disparages the Christian mystics as they are reflected in the writings that were permitted to be published. He rejects a close relationship between ethics and enlightenment. He disparages Bernadette Roberts -- her style is a great test case to divide feeling-oriented from scientific investigators of transcendent knowledge.
He portrays entheogens as far better than meditation, yet also advocates meditation. He portrays reason and science as better than mythic metaphor and symbolism for conveying and expressing mystic insight and mystic experiencing. The book equates mysticism with mystic experiencing rather than discovery of rational principles in the mystic state, and when the book talks of the "rationality" of mysticism, it intends the rationality of the *means* to mystic *experiencing* -- those means being, entheogens combined with certain attitudes.
This book is valuable for the combination of bibliography entries on world mysticism and entheogens. He has good taste in his choice of mystic, religious, and entheogenic books. Thorne is basically a good writer and clear thinker, with original combinations of ideas, perspectives, and presentation. I recommend this book for its content in this much-needed field, bracketing-aside the draft-quality presentation flaws.
This book is as good as the other entheogen-positive books that explore the origin and nature of religion and mysticism. Anyone researching the entheogen theory of religion will surely find this book useful for sparking ideas, and if properly published, it would deserve to be in a library with books by the leading entheogen scholars.
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2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Almost, June 8, 2005
The athiests have used every rock and stick they could find to throw at Jesus and the Bible, and Robert Thorne does quite a bit of rock grabbing and stick throwing. Just as the previous atheists, Mr Thorne has made attempts to identify Christianity with all of the other worlds religion and to speak for those of us who have done scholarly research, I'd like to say we've had enough. But he does refer to Gordon Wasson and John Macro Allegro. And while Mr Allegro is guilty of using to many emotions instead of facts, he has succesfully brought the mystery of manna to the forefront. Although skeptic to the idea that Jesus was a mushroom, the idea of manna as a mushroom is not ridiculous! Mr Thorne makes the point that it has been proven that the word Kane Bosem from the old testament is indeed canabis sativa- marijuana. I think that with that in mind the connection between Israel and the Amanita should be considered.
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