Turtles All the Way Down: Prerequisites to Personal Genius

Description

My name is Christian Hart and I was one of the original participants in the seminar 'Prerequisites to Personal Genius' over 20 years ago, of which this book is primarily a transcript. I offer this review for what it might provide, but I must acknowledge that I cannot review the book objectively because I was there--I remember the actual experience. Thus, my review may or may not be useful to someone who does not have that background. That said.... The experience was profound for me and profoundly affected my life. To be more specific, I returned to college after having left it several years before as a C or B average student. When I returned, I was a straight-A student. I graduated and went to grad school at UCLA where I obtained my Ph.D. in psychology. During the seminar itself, while doing one of the consciousness exercises, I experienced the classic "mystical experience." That is, during the few moments it lasted, I felt that I understood the nature of the universe, including the classic epiphany "All is One." (A funny outcome of the latter: you can never litter anywhere as it would be like throwing garbage on your living room floor.) These examples are just a few I can describe briefly. I don't pretend to understand everything that John and Judith were doing in the seminar--I was quite young at the time--but I do believe that it altered my life for the better. I think that if from reading this book you could get a fraction of what I got, the price would be repaid many, many times over.