There was a time during the early twentieth century when Albert Einstein was a virtual celebrity. His work created buzz, his public appearances were characterized by mobs of adoring fans — he was like a rock star before rock stars were even a thing. Those days have seen something of a resurgence. Neil deGrasse Tyson […]
Category: Mysticism
On Being “Spiritual But Not Religious”
Anyone who came up in the ’80s will remember Yoda telling Luke Skywalker, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” But what if he was wrong? What if it’s both? I used to get a kick out of telling people that I’m “religious but not spiritual,” mostly because it confused them. But there was […]
Nihilism, Grace, and the Religion of the Rose
I just returned from a Caribbean cruise (my life is hard), and I brought two books with me: Chuck Klosterman’s The Visible Man, and John D. Caputo’s Hoping against Hope: Confessions of a Postmodern Pilgrim. The former is a novel and is the one I was planning on reading (to be honest I wasn’t expecting to crack […]
Of Mysticism Sacred and Secular
I was recently watching HBO’s new documentary on Scientology, Going Clear, and was astounded at how so many wealthy, powerful, and seemingly intelligent people have bought in to L. Ron Hubbard’s bizarre and sci-fi inspired vision of the world. 75 million years ago some god called Xenu transported a bunch of humans to earth in a […]