Recently a good friend of mine agreed to write a review of The Psychic Experimentalist, a collection of articles and essays from the last couple of years. I'm amazed that he liked it as much as he did, and consider his words true praise. I hope you agree...
A few weeks ago Dennis George Rudolph published a collection of his tirades online as what he called a "free ebook". The title of this volume is The Psychic Experimentalist. To call it an "ebook" may be a bit of an exaggeration, as it weighs in at a mere 45 pages... maybe more of an "epamphlet". Most, but not all, of the essays that constitute this screed have been previously published as blog posts. Although I am acquainted with the author, I only got around to reading it recently. Once I started telling him what I thought of it, he asked to write this review. I'll try to be kind.
It attempts, rather directly, to change the perspective of the reader in a way that enables the reader to see beyond the words to something-or-other beyond them. The author particularly enjoys the "finger pointing to the moon" analogy from Zen, and yet the words themselves seem to point in all kinds of different directions. One moment he seems to be raving about the oneness of everything, and the next he's saying that reality is incomprehensible beyond models of reality. He capitalizes words that he feels have some "cosmic" importance, then tells us again to "look beyond the words" as if that's easy to do when you're laughing at his preposterous inconsistencies. Sometimes it's hard to tell when he's joking, or whether he considers his pretentious "jokes" to be significant somehow.
In the self-serving bio at the back, which he tacitly admits he wrote, he never mentions his Wiccan priesthood, his background teaching shamanism and European Faerie Tradition, or his experimental blues death punk band in the 1980s. Nor does he mention whether or not he went to any college beyond a couple of semesters at the Calvary Chapel Bible School... and he doesn't even admit to that! He says he's a minister without mentioning that he was ordained by the Universal Life Church when he was 14, after reading about them in Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book. When I confronted him with this he told me he had also been ordained by another church as well, although he couldn't remember its name. This dubiously eclectic background is ignored while he emphasizes things he'd rather people notice.
His logic is inconsistent at best, his stories are erratic, and the quotations he chooses are so contradictory I almost wonder if he's somehow laughing at himself while raving about the futility of "belief systems" and such. The way he capitalizes words in the middle of sentences is intended to make some kind of point, I know, but I'm not sure they don't just bring up the reader's own preconceptions about "All That Is" or whatever pompous crap he's ranting about.
Sure, I laughed out loud reading it, and I told him I was laughing with him, not at him. I think he wanted to believe me, however much he harangues me about not truly believing anything. So would I recommend this book? Sure, if you want to spend some time having your mind turned inside out and shaken out over a cosmic dustbin. Honestly, I don't agree with everything he says, but then again he doesn't ask for agreement, so I guess that's okay. He seems sincere while asking people to disagree with him, so how could I not question this stuff? That's what he wants!
Anyway, the price is right, it's free from his website http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com . I'm glad I finally read it, even if it's hard to tell whether its a complicated joke masquerading as a true sutra, or a true sutra camouflaged as a complicated joke. Just get it, read it, and decide for yourself.
http://dennisgeorgerudolph.com/
Copyright 2010 by Dennis George Rudolph. All rights reserved.
Doesn't matter who wrote this...it is a good description/spot-on-review of the book.
ReplyDeleteNamaste,
I agree completely!
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