The Scene That Became Cities: What Burning Man Philosophy can Teach Us About Building Better Communities, by Caveat Magister (Benjamin Wachs). North Atlantic Books, 2019

Burning Man has gone from two families on a beach to a huge annual gathering of artists, spiritual seekers, partiers, sex-positive groups, volunteers, and much, much more. I don’t think you could possibly call it any one thing; it contains multitudes. I wanted to know more about it, so when this book was offered, I grabbed at it.

Sadly, I was disappointed. I figured that anything about an event that sounds as fascinating as Burning Man does would be extremely interesting, but I didn’t find this book to be interesting at all. It was not totally uninteresting; I did learn some things, but I suspect that it’s one of those things that is hard to describe.

The philosophy of Burning Man could help us build better communities, where everyone can follow their passion- but they also have to help pick up the trash. It requires some really heavy volunteerism and participation. Which is really how I wish the world was run. But I suspect that the event has to be experienced, not described.  I had to force myself to finish the book.

The Patient in Room 9 Says He’s God, by Dr. Louis Profeta. O-Books, 2010

Dr. Profeta is an emergency room doctor. He sees life at its most frantic. But he has managed, through the years, to see the spiritual and moral issues in medicine. The short chapters tell us about his patients, his co-workers, his friends and family. He can come across as arrogant, but he admits when he’s wrong. I got this book thinking it would be a series of patient cases, a la Oliver Sacks. It’s not- or, at least, that’s not *quite* what it is. The cases aren’t as odd as ones a neuro doctor gets, so there aren’t as many medical details. Profeta leans toward the ethical and spiritual issues in the cases, and includes a lot of personal history and spiritual ponderings. Four stars.

Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward, by Carl Abrahamsson. Park Street Press, 2018

When I requested this book, I thought it was an exploration of how occult beliefs have infiltrated our culture- things like why we have a pyramid topped with an eyeball on our basic currency. Turns out, that’s not what this is, even though the description on the Amazon page makes it sound that way. There are some references to that- like how the first art that we know of, cave paintings, were of magical intent. But the ‘occulture’ that is referred to is a post-modern movement, not the spiritualists of yore- but I had to look elsewhere for this explanation as it’s not laid out explicitly in the book.

It wasn’t an easy read for me. I didn’t understand an awful lot of it, and because of that it bored me and I almost didn’t finish it. YMMV. Also, it’s wasn’t written originally as a book; the chapters are conference papers given at various events in the last few years, which results in chapters not flowing into each other. Three stars.

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After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, by Aldous Huxley. Elephant Paperback, 1939

This book is a somewhat odd mash-up of satire and philosophical lecture. On the one hand, we have an uber rich old man, Jo Stoyte, who lives in a castle in the San Fernando Valley. He owns a bank, a cemetery, an oil company… his home is reminiscent of Hearst Castle, filled with every modern convenience and stuffed with art from around the world bought with no plan or passion. His very young live in girlfriend is called The Baby. He also has a live in physician, Obispo, who has no redeeming qualities, (I do wonder where he got his degree) to watch over him, give him testosterone shots, and do research on extending the human life span. At the beginning of the story a British scholar, Jeremy Pordage, arrives, to work on the crates and crates of documents from the Hauberk family- this seems at first to have no bearing on the story, but in the end, it very much does. The other main characters are Peter, Obispo’s young, innocent assistant, and Mr. Propter, who does not live in the castle. While the other characters are the satire of capitalism, lechery, conspicuous consumption, Forest Lawn type cemeteries, and the fear of death, Propter is the moral and philosophical force. And, sadly, while the rest of the story is pretty amusing- and horrific in places- Propter is as dry as a mummy’s fart. He’s a noble person- he helps out the migrant workers (remember, this is during the Depression), is working on a way for people to be self-sufficient, and is against the kind of wealth aggregation that Stoyte represents- but he does not serve to advance the plot at all. It’s like Huxley couldn’t decide what kind of book to write, so he wrote them both and did not blend them elegantly at all. Four stars. 

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What Lies Beyond the Stars, by Michael Goorjian. Hay House, Inc. 2016

Adam Sheppard lives in the Bay Area and writes code for games. He works with his ‘friend’ Blake; their company has skyrocketed to the top, and has been acquired by the near mythical Rene Adiklein. They work near the top of the tallest building in San Francisco, which has a mysterious pyramid on top. But no one stays on the top for long if they don’t keep innovating; the pressure on Adam to fix bugs and create new things is tremendous. He lives in a gated community with a wife who runs his life and two step children who don’t give a shit about him. He is not engaged with a single part of his life. The only thing Adam does that really interests him is rereading a used book the homeless man who sits by the back entrance to Adam’s workplace sold him. He’s a genius, possibly autistic, and ever since he was 6 has been treated as mentally ill and heavily medicated.

Blake is both his care taker and his exploiter; Blake and Adam’s wife both treat him as property to be put into captivity and made to obey and provide for them financially. So when one day he leaves a note saying he can’t go on, withdraws as much cash as the ATMs will allow him, and disappears, they panic. As does the doctor who has been treating Adam since he was six. Adam doesn’t realize this; he’s gone back to the area he spent some time in before he was 6. He doesn’t really know why he has gone there, but a chance encounter with a woman in the dark convinces him he’s run into his childhood friend Beatrice. After a short blissful encounter, the police capture him and turn him back over to Blake, Jane, and the doctor, who once again over medicates him.

This Kafkaesque story is part novel and part philosophical treatise. Adam is trapped by his life of working and doing the family thing that he is ‘supposed’ to do. He is trapped more thoroughly than most of us- most of us don’t have someone making sure we take our meds- but we are pretty much all in that same trap. The question is, can Adam escape and join Beatrice and her group, who hope to save mankind before it’s too late? Can he find happiness and live fully, rather than as someone drugged into fitting in?

The basic theme of the book is of course how we are all being drugged by input- TV, video games, social networking- that keeps us from living fully and meaningfully. Adam finds that he must live in the moment, not in distractions. This message is nothing new; it’s fundamental to Buddhism. It is the first time I’ve found the message clothed in social networking, on line ads, and psych meds. Other than Adam, none of the characters is ‘real’ seeming; they are more symbol or archetype than they are people. I found that disappointing; making Jane and Blake flat caricatures seemed to fit the story but it seemed like Beatrice and her father should have been fleshed out. While I couldn’t put the book down while reading it, once I was done, I felt somewhat let down. I wanted to know more about Jane’s father, Adiklein, and Michael the homeless man. Will there be a sequel, or are they meant to be mere symbols like Jane and Blake? I wish I knew. 

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On Being Human: Why Mind Matters, by Jerome Kagan. Yale University Press, 2016

‘On Being Human’ is a collection of essays by retired professor of psychology Jerome Kagan. He goes over issues such as brain scans being relatively useless for finding out where thoughts come from, given that a scanner is not the kind of place a person is usually in when thinking; the fact that neurons and chemicals do not tell us *how* a person things; and that using animals for research into thinking isn’t going to tell us how people think. There’s a lot about how environment shapes the mind and mental abilities, and how that makes for a really uneven playing field in life, which I found one of the most interesting parts of the book. At times, I felt I was reading a book of philosophy rather than psychology.

Kagan assumes his readers are on the same intellectual plane as he is, and writes on that level. I like that better than having someone talk down to me, but…it took me forever to get through this book.  I did read every word. It’s not that he uses arcane words; they are terms found in the average vocabulary. He has a lot of interesting things to say; some I agree with, some not. Did I *enjoy* the book? No. I know it says something bad about my brain, but it was too much work to be enjoyable. I learned things- which is normally fun for me- but I did not do it happily. 

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything-from Amazon, they will give me  a few cents. This in no way influenced my review.