Publisher's Synopsis
This is a dangerous book because it calls into question some of the root assumptions which we Westerners have held for centuries, if not millennia, about the nature of human existence and our place on the planet. Calling these assumptions into question isn't dangerous in and of itself, but when a lot of people do so, the underpinnings of any artificially erected social arrangement are seriously compromised. The truth about the Emperor's new clothes is no longer a secret.
The way society is organized today (presuming we can call overpopulation, political corruption, economic instability, and religious intolerance "organized"), those who presently benefit the most from the existing structures are those who are least likely to make the changes which need to be made. The ideas in this book are dangerous to such interests, because the ideas contained herein empower individuals to seek the truth for themselves.
Civilization is reaching a turning point. The technological successes of the past few dozen centuries, culminating in this most stupendous twentieth century, have not only empowered humans beyond their wisdom, but also severely changed forever, and in unknown and perhaps unknowable ways, the very biosphere in which all life as we know it exists.
Doomsday scenarios are numbing, but viewed from a higher perspective, life is very generous, providing each and all of us the perfect laboratory for carrying out our human experiments. Ironically, the very conditions which threaten the status of life on the planet are also those which we living humans now require in order to learn what we each need to learn; otherwise, our life situations would be other than they are.
The availability of information and alternative perspectives on life and the living of it has never been greater in history. The electronics revolution is bringing more people within reach of more information than ever before. With all these choices, and with more people promising us salvation or heaven or Nirvana, who should we believe? Whose views of life are the most correct, and therefore the most useful? Theologians? Business experts? Politicians?
It seems that most of us have been excluded from the club.
