reading (Healing Society)
Sep. 3rd, 2006 04:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eorI finally sat down and read the first of the books that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
derien's brother, Eightball, gave us concerning the group he works with and spiritual path he follows.
Because this is a book about spiritual beliefs and I can easily differentiate content from delivery, I will. The first bit is impersonal. The second bit is more my individual beliefs.
In the being an author department, Dr. Lee really should have had a third party who wasn't a follower go through the book as editor. If, despite the evidence, he did this, he should fire the editor and get another.
There are problems that I'll assume are translation problems, choosing the wrong word or a metaphor that doesn't quite work. Any careful beta reader worth their weight in dog poop would occasionally be sitting there with their head to one side like a puzzled golden retriever. Some of these are minor, some of them are show stoppers if you think about them.
The second category of awkwardness is the flow. It reads like some of the reports I wrote in school. Could it be that someone told Lee that the book had to reach 100 pages and be "x" thickness? Some of the chapters are a page long. Thoughts are scattered out like cherry blossoms in spring. Repetition, repetition, repetition. It isn't laid out as a book gently walking readers from point A to point B. It's laid out like it was designed to keep readers off balance, confused, and lost. William S. Burroughs would be proud.
Bells also went off in my beta reader brain around some of the things written as if they were well known facts. Perhaps more detail or explanation would have helped in those areas.
As far as the message goes, I'll come right out and say, I don't buy it. I think our current society is deeply flawed and needs to be reformed, but Dr. Lee is not someone who will lead us to a better place. I would guess Dr. Lee more understands P.T. Barnum than he understands Jesus. Now I'll try to explain why I believe this.
Reason 1: (this is the big one, the rest are trivial in comparison)
I have a basic belief in individuals. Groups can do all kinds of nasty things, but I think most individuals aren't inherently evil. Petty sometimes, but not evil. Dr. Lee says he's found a straightforward method of achieving enlightenment with a reasonable effort which will work for anyone. He says enlightenment brings a joy and love beyond anything you've experienced before.
I know if I experienced something like that you'd know it. I'd be worse than those well dressed, earnest people who knock on your door and ask you if you've heard the word of Jesus. My friends, my family, my lovers would all be experiencing the same thing just as fast as I could show them the way. But beyond that I'd be picking up strangers on the street and in dance clubs like Jesus at a leper convention. I wouldn't have to do it on a grand scale. If I enlightened ten people, ten of my friends, could they contain that kind of love and not share it? I don't think they could be that cruel to the people they know. So it would go, like the world's best meme.
But that isn't happening. The blurb on the book says Dr. Lee has 200 centers and one million students. One million. He's been at this for a decade or more. Enlightenment that anyone can achieve. Why do you need 200 centers then? I could get it done with just one person if the system worked. Dr. Lee charges $14.95 for his book. If I had experienced that all encompassing love and joy, you can bet your ass anything I could write about it would be under Creative Commons distribution.
Reason 2:
A lot of the things mentioned as facts are, from a sceptics point of view, questionable. They aren't backed with any references to dates, places, names. Why is 100 million enlightened people the magic number? That incident with the woman bending the iron bars, what was her name? The whole Margo story: what tradition does that come from? I haven't been able to find a reference to it and Margo seems like a fairly modern name.
Some of the facts are just wrong. A lot of the "never before has..." statements ignore various historical movements or other religions.
Reason 3:
Dr. Lee mixes in all kinds of things. God pops in and out of existence seemingly randomly. At one minute he's expounding on the fact that there is no outside God, but only the Cosmic Spirit that is everything and in all of us. The next minute he says, "We can get a sense of the Creator's benevolent magic in the separation of the brain stem from the neocortex." I don't mind a God now and then, even a million of them if you wish, but I really want to know where they stand on existing.
Reason 4:
The brain stem is the source of enlightenment, not the neocortex. You mean to tell me the stupidest spaniel has the equipment required for enlightenment? At least we know why all the dinosaurs died off; they had an Enlightenment Revolution and didn't need their bodies anymore.
Seriously, Lee's trying to mix biology and mysticism; as soon as you do that, you're opening the door to rational criticism. It's best to stick with Ki and other things that don't lend themselves to analytical inquiry.
32. Dr. Seung Heun Lee "Healing Society: A Prescription for Global Enlightenment"
derien's brother, Eightball, gave us concerning the group he works with and spiritual path he follows.Because this is a book about spiritual beliefs and I can easily differentiate content from delivery, I will. The first bit is impersonal. The second bit is more my individual beliefs.
In the being an author department, Dr. Lee really should have had a third party who wasn't a follower go through the book as editor. If, despite the evidence, he did this, he should fire the editor and get another.
There are problems that I'll assume are translation problems, choosing the wrong word or a metaphor that doesn't quite work. Any careful beta reader worth their weight in dog poop would occasionally be sitting there with their head to one side like a puzzled golden retriever. Some of these are minor, some of them are show stoppers if you think about them.
The second category of awkwardness is the flow. It reads like some of the reports I wrote in school. Could it be that someone told Lee that the book had to reach 100 pages and be "x" thickness? Some of the chapters are a page long. Thoughts are scattered out like cherry blossoms in spring. Repetition, repetition, repetition. It isn't laid out as a book gently walking readers from point A to point B. It's laid out like it was designed to keep readers off balance, confused, and lost. William S. Burroughs would be proud.
Bells also went off in my beta reader brain around some of the things written as if they were well known facts. Perhaps more detail or explanation would have helped in those areas.
As far as the message goes, I'll come right out and say, I don't buy it. I think our current society is deeply flawed and needs to be reformed, but Dr. Lee is not someone who will lead us to a better place. I would guess Dr. Lee more understands P.T. Barnum than he understands Jesus. Now I'll try to explain why I believe this.
Reason 1: (this is the big one, the rest are trivial in comparison)
I have a basic belief in individuals. Groups can do all kinds of nasty things, but I think most individuals aren't inherently evil. Petty sometimes, but not evil. Dr. Lee says he's found a straightforward method of achieving enlightenment with a reasonable effort which will work for anyone. He says enlightenment brings a joy and love beyond anything you've experienced before.
I know if I experienced something like that you'd know it. I'd be worse than those well dressed, earnest people who knock on your door and ask you if you've heard the word of Jesus. My friends, my family, my lovers would all be experiencing the same thing just as fast as I could show them the way. But beyond that I'd be picking up strangers on the street and in dance clubs like Jesus at a leper convention. I wouldn't have to do it on a grand scale. If I enlightened ten people, ten of my friends, could they contain that kind of love and not share it? I don't think they could be that cruel to the people they know. So it would go, like the world's best meme.
But that isn't happening. The blurb on the book says Dr. Lee has 200 centers and one million students. One million. He's been at this for a decade or more. Enlightenment that anyone can achieve. Why do you need 200 centers then? I could get it done with just one person if the system worked. Dr. Lee charges $14.95 for his book. If I had experienced that all encompassing love and joy, you can bet your ass anything I could write about it would be under Creative Commons distribution.
Reason 2:
A lot of the things mentioned as facts are, from a sceptics point of view, questionable. They aren't backed with any references to dates, places, names. Why is 100 million enlightened people the magic number? That incident with the woman bending the iron bars, what was her name? The whole Margo story: what tradition does that come from? I haven't been able to find a reference to it and Margo seems like a fairly modern name.
Some of the facts are just wrong. A lot of the "never before has..." statements ignore various historical movements or other religions.
Reason 3:
Dr. Lee mixes in all kinds of things. God pops in and out of existence seemingly randomly. At one minute he's expounding on the fact that there is no outside God, but only the Cosmic Spirit that is everything and in all of us. The next minute he says, "We can get a sense of the Creator's benevolent magic in the separation of the brain stem from the neocortex." I don't mind a God now and then, even a million of them if you wish, but I really want to know where they stand on existing.
Reason 4:
The brain stem is the source of enlightenment, not the neocortex. You mean to tell me the stupidest spaniel has the equipment required for enlightenment? At least we know why all the dinosaurs died off; they had an Enlightenment Revolution and didn't need their bodies anymore.
Seriously, Lee's trying to mix biology and mysticism; as soon as you do that, you're opening the door to rational criticism. It's best to stick with Ki and other things that don't lend themselves to analytical inquiry.
32. Dr. Seung Heun Lee "Healing Society: A Prescription for Global Enlightenment"
