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2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

3.43 of 5 stars 3.43 · rating details · 1,324 ratings · 258 reviews

Read Daniel Pinchbeck's posts on the Penguin Blog
Cross James Merrill, H. P. Lovecraft, and Carlos Castaneda -each imbued with a twenty-first-century aptitude for quantum theory and existential psychology-and you get the voice of Daniel Pinchbeck. And yet, nothing quite prepares us for the lucidity, rationale, and informed audacity of this seeker, skeptic, and cartographe...more

Hardcover, 416 pages

Published May 4th 2006 by Tarcher (first published 2006)

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Sep 24, 2008 Charissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the bored, the curious

Recommended to Charissa by: I have only myself to blame

Shelves: crack, never-finished, non-fic, shamaniac, writing, apocalypse

Yeah, I know, but I had to. So. Much. Crack.

Actually, at first, I was kind of impressed with Daniel Pinkchbeck. He knows a lot of big words, for one thing. And how to sling them around. Son of an NYC artist and a NYC writer... he was bound to wind up a little pretentious around the edges. But he makes up for it by doubting himself at every turn. Because he's also neurotic. Just the right kind of person to injest copious amounts of hallucinogens. Oh, and then combine extensive reading in the subj...more Yeah, I know, but I had to. So. Much. Crack.

Actually, at first, I was kind of impressed with Daniel Pinkchbeck. He knows a lot of big words, for one thing. And how to sling them around. Son of an NYC artist and a NYC writer... he was bound to wind up a little pretentious around the edges. But he makes up for it by doubting himself at every turn. Because he's also neurotic. Just the right kind of person to injest copious amounts of hallucinogens. Oh, and then combine extensive reading in the subject of shamanism, the use of hallucinogens, mystic visionary writings, etc. Throw in a giant cauldron. Set the cauldron down in the middle of the Burning Man Festival. Set it on fire. Run far far away.

Pinchbeck manages to draw together threads from every New Age, LSD inspired, culturally appropriated, loonie hippie pipe dream he stumbles across. Crop circles (check). Meso-American Mythology (check), Rudolph Steiner (check), Carlos Castaneda (check), Aleister Crowley (check), African iboga boogie men (check), Free Love (check), the "noosphere" (THE WHAT? IS THAT A COW RELIGION???) check check checkity check check.

Dudes, seriously, this guy is a few screws loose of having a running tractor.

I mean, he does try and make up for it by adding in disclaimers that he may be entirely wrong about every single theory he entertains. But he does entertain them. He sits all these wacked out theories down around a tiny, painted table and serves them tea and crumpets. Then he pushes everything off the table and dances naked in his underwear.

It's not a pretty sight, I promise you.

But what the hell. The portions of the book that I managed to plow through without having to set it down and laugh until my abdomen hurt were pretty entertaining. I think some of his research has validity... in that I do believe in shamanism, and the energies that it works with. But the edge he, and others like him, take it to are of the ridiculous IMHO.

So... Joe Bob sez check it out if you are looking for some crack. Or to know what it's like to drop so much acid that your brain turns to gluons without actually damaging your cerebral cortex.(less)

10 likes · like · see review

Jul 13, 2008 Dylan rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: critical minds willing to occasionally visit the new age/occult bookshleves

Recommended to Dylan by: Hannah

Shelves: memoir-biography

This is a book about metaphysics, which I found eerily fascinating. Pinchbeck's key premise, which he arrived at through his own experiences beginning with his experimentation with psychedelics, is that consciousness is not just a product of matter, an epiphenomenon of brain functions. Instead, he asserts that mind and matter are inseparable and are in fact interactive. With the ideological landscape swept clean by Nietzsche's general refutation of the modern Western worldview Pinchbeck finds su...more This is a book about metaphysics, which I found eerily fascinating. Pinchbeck's key premise, which he arrived at through his own experiences beginning with his experimentation with psychedelics, is that consciousness is not just a product of matter, an epiphenomenon of brain functions. Instead, he asserts that mind and matter are inseparable and are in fact interactive. With the ideological landscape swept clean by Nietzsche's general refutation of the modern Western worldview Pinchbeck finds support for his unorthodox metaphysics in Jung's concepts of the collective unconscious and the universal mythical archetypes, from the uncertainty principle of quantum theory, which renders objective knowledge completely illusory, and from fellow psychedelic explorer and writer Terence McKenna, among many others.

Depending on the philosophical orientation of the reader and the conclusions the he or she chooses to draw, this book can be read alternately as a nonsensical drug-induced paranoid delusion or as a metaphysical critique of modern industrial society and its dogmatic rationalist materialism (or both, I suppose). The gatekeepers of academic orthodoxy predictably will raise flags of "pseudoscience" and other charges of blasphemy for his sparing and often dismissive allusions to mainstream scholarly research as he pursues more fertile sources of the unthinkable. Personally, I find the book difficult to criticize because Pinchbeck could not be any more forthcoming or humble about his objective, which he calls "an extravagant thought experiment."

This is not a book about the Maya, and it cannot and should not be judged as such. Pinchbeck is considering that the Mayan epistemology (as interpreted and popularized by new age writers) and modern epistemology are only different archetypal reflections of the same collective unconscious (as are the knowledge systems of every culture ever to exist). The world of superficial appearances is no less real than the worlds of the mind like dreams and hallucinations, and the latter can in fact convey a better overall sense of reality than the former, a fact that he believes the ancient Mayans understood. In contrast to contemporary society's general distaste for hallucinogenic substances, for example, Maya leaders like Pacal the Great ritually used them to guide their decisions.

Pinchbeck writes of the origin of the modern Western mind: "The drastic shift--mutation or leap of quantum creativity--into the mental-rational structure was foretold by a myth: the birth of the goddess Athena, who emerged from the painfully throbbing head of Zeus, split open by an ax. The blow was 'accompanied by a terrible tumult throughout nature, as well as by the astonishment of the entire pantheon,' writes [Jean] Gebser, paraphrasing Pindar. Once sprung, Athena, goddess of knowledge and clear thought, bestowed her protective grace over Athens, cradle of the modern Western mind. In the movement from the mythic to the mental-rational mind-set, human thought was directed outward, discovering the external world, for the first time, as an object of inquiry in itself." (210-1)

Pinchbeck is advocating another such shift in global consciousness toward a non-dualist myth-embracing culture that he believes is the only hope for human societies to transcend the imminent crises of peak oil, imperialist war, mass extinction, nuclear war, and ecological collapse--essentially the disastrous culmination of this "mental-rational" civilization finally becoming apparent.

He identifies this shift with the transformation of the world that is supposed to occur at the completion of the 13th bak'tun of the Mayan Long Count, or on Gregorian 12-21-2012. As this and other apocalyptic predictions and prophecies accumulate in the collective psyche, Pinchbeck sees potential for a physical manifestation of them: "If the Apocalypse, as an archetype, is currently constellating in our world, we have the option of bringing the 'dynamic agency' and primordial pattern, fully into our awareness. By giving it our conscious attention, we can mediate the process, potentially avoiding its most catastrophic effects." (110)

To me, this thesis cannot be answered by any point-by-point criticism of its assertions. Instead, it stands as an intersubjective challenge to the skeptical reader to explore non-ordinary states of awareness for herself and find whatever value she will there.(less)

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May 13, 2010 Alex rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the unintelligent and easily manipulated

Shelves: mythology, religion

this guy is a fucking idiot. i'm forcing myself to finish this because i need to see where he ends up. after a promising start, the book cruised straight downhill into a pile of endless shit.
um, buddy, guy, dude, you've based your stupid book on widely (and I mean WIDELY) discredited pseudoscience and touchy feely new age drivel. i'd be laughing while reading this if it wasn't so infuriatingly tragic that people believe this garbage. uh, you do understand that science is based on that which is...more

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Mar 03, 2008 Robin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

loved, loved most of this book. although, the last bit is frustrating, and by the end, although i really enjoyed 90% of it, the guy struck out with:
1. whining about his "partner"
2. whining about a "priestess."
3. pointless information about burning man (he has an epiphany that some of the people there are not actually spiritual seekers, but are superficial people on drugs.)
minus that strike-out snafu, he ends it with the current plight of the hopi indians which is gut wrenching. it's too bad...more

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Sep 26, 2008 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pinchbeck's 2012 is his journey to understand the human psyche through the use of psychedelics, explorations of crop circle's, and even analyzing alien abductions. Yes, it is just that bizarre, but many moments of synchronistic events took him there. The main theme of the book is that the end of the Mayan calendar and even the biblical apocalypse of the Book of Revelations is not the end of days but the end of an era marked by a shift in humanity’s consciousness. A shift that he believes can be...more

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Jul 24, 2009 Bo rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: park bench mutations

wow. never has a book i was enjoying and interested in lost me so quickly. talk about unreliable narrators. pinchbeck is a piece of work- he loses all principles of journalism and objectivity in spectularly ridiculous fashion; he himself stresses the importance of journalistic objectivity and healthy scepticism early on in '2012,' when writing about subject matter which is considered dubious or occult by society's standards. He does this by basically declaring himself a prophetic vessel for Quet...more

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Oct 18, 2007 Nicole ( Colie ) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pinchbeck is one of those scholars who, without losing sight of his end-goal, manages to take himself and his reader on a macro-tour of alternate universes simply by virtue of mind that rejects no thing. Though I'll admit I found his character less than appealing, I admire his ability to cohesively cross disciplines and present already-stigmatized information in such a manner that it becomes new, more urgent, and that it may manifest an amount of hope for a future that differs in some way, any w...more

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Jun 13, 2007 Paul culp rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Time to fuck with your mind a bit. I'm all for it. Mind's were meant to be fucked with. I have been a little obsessed with 2012 for a while now and when I accidently knocked this green gem off the shelf at Barnes and Noble while looking for Chuck P's latest I gave into synchronicity and bought it.

Daniel Pinchbeck is alright. He's a competent writer and pretty intelligent, though he's no Terrence Mckenna. The book is a gathering of facts that range from Shamanism and psychedelics to crop circles...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Kevin rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

total, pointless junk. talk to a real ajkin (mayan date diviner) and he or she will call this white control. important to note that mayan time evolved outwards, ie: ka'tuns were the first period developed (20 years) and they noted when clan leadership was to be transferred without conflict. as date-keeping elongated (the records moved into 100's of years), the longer spans were added. longer spans included shifts beyond political control, things like adding a planned city departure so that a fam...more

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Jul 01, 2008 Randolph Welty rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Will blow your mind, but in a good sort of way. Weaves together such seemingly divergent topics as crop circles, Carl Jung, Burning Man, Rudolf Steiner, and more post millennial strangeness, into a seamless memoir that retains its readability while still remaining among the more thought provoking journeys one can undertake through words. A worthy successor to Breaking Open The Head, and anyone who enjoyed that fantastic treatise on psychedelics and neoshamanism will enjoy this book as well.

What...more

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Jan 07, 2008 Hanaa rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people with no lives.

Recommended to Hanaa by: some nerd who works at my book store.

Shelves: just-say-no

I am totally indifferent to this book. It's in the 'Controversial knowledge' section at my book store. I can see why. It was in the Science section first, but I was confused as to WHY it was in the Science section. Anyways, i've read tons of books on the world ending and when it's going to end, for example: Nostradamus. My dad is quite Obsessed with him, I don't know why, I think people who predict things are scary, and should keep it to themseleves. Sure that sounds immature, but in reality, I...more

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Jan 09, 2009 Jason rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: no one

I realize I'm being very scathing, but the title needs to be reworked to differentiate a scientific/historical (in reverse) study from this book. Short of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, this is the most painful book I've ever tried to read. The book is about one of the author's many many many drug fueled excursions, and consists of him unabashedly talking about his accomplishments. I thoroughly read the first 25-30pages, then read every 5 pages, then every 20, then started skimming.

Concl...more

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Nov 01, 2007 SeaGreen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: skeptics

Such a wealth of information. If you can deal with Pinchbeck leaping around (sometimes erratically) between topics, it has a lot to offer. One of my favorite theories involves the greys, the aliens and flying saucer abductions in pop culture being a collective unconscious reaction to our divine repression. The evidence that crop circles are real is awesome. And mental institutions have, historically, had periods of mania every 13 years due to the effect of solar flares acting up on schedule. The...more

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Feb 23, 2009 Ashley rated it 1 of 5 stars

I'm glad I'm not the only person who thinks this dude is a total twit, and that it's terribly unfortunate he's become the de facto, or at least most visible (probably due to the publishing contacts he has from those frosted flake celebrity-profiler days) voice of our time in support of entheogens.

His prose is boring and staggeringly unoriginal, everything he writes is informed only by his pomposity and desire to manipulate his "theories" (most often a murky composite pilfered from others) to ju...more

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Dec 30, 2008 Ron rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this book about 9 months ago. It turned into a labor of love, since I found his style to be somewhat rambling and rambling does not give itself easily to keeping a reader's attention. I really had to stick with it to get to and through the last page. Oddly, though, I found his conclusions and inferences to be comforting (at least, as I interpret them). A big deal with the Mayan calendar is that it ends abruptly in late 2012...hence the name of the book. "The Return of Quetzalcoatl" that's...more

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Jun 11, 2013 Ryan (Glay) rated it 2 of 5 stars

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Run for your fucking life the world is ending or its over already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That wasn't exactly the argument of his book if I remember correctly, but there was definantly lots of fucking Aliens (they weren't copulating, but there were lots of different types greys, blue, greens, I was soon made aware of Alien zoology!), synchronicity involving cracks or bricks or something (very Jungian, Freud's beard would be on fire if he had read it), lots of the c...more

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Jan 14, 2012 Steve rated it 2 of 5 stars

When you have a fuzzy understanding of everything, you get a book like this. Pinchbeck takes everything at face value (from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle to quantum mechanics to the space-time continuum to the entire Hindu religion), which comes off as the definition of "spreading yourself too thin", and though I don't doubt for a second that our author is a very smart man (or at least, earnest in his research) everything--and I mean everything--reeks of "DUDE CHECK OUT WHAT I JUST READ ON...more

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Dec 26, 2010 Dylan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, religion-and-spirituality

Having previously read Pinchbeck's Breaking Open the Head (which was as good and interesting a book as I could have hoped for on its topic), I came to this book hopeful. Alas, it was not to be. The core, goofy space-shaman spirituality is still the central thread (one that Pinchbeck is clearly deeply admirative of), but rather than continuing his work as a psychedelic journalist he turns into a psychedelic 5th grader at show and tell. Anecdotes are thrown with reckless abandon and no segues to c...more

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Nov 15, 2009 Manny rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Men Who Hate Women

Recommended to Manny by: No one, thank goodness.

If I had wanted to read a memoir by an anti-monogamy commitment phobic, I would have picked up a book with the title "Why I Hate Women," because this is the ultimate subject of this anti-feminist screed masquerading as current events non-fiction.

While the author mentions a few relevant facts about the Mayan calendar in the beginning, most of the book is dedicated to his world travels in search of psychedelic intoxication which he believes gives him "special insight" in the coming apocalypse. Th...more If I had wanted to read a memoir by an anti-monogamy commitment phobic, I would have picked up a book with the title "Why I Hate Women," because this is the ultimate subject of this anti-feminist screed masquerading as current events non-fiction.

While the author mentions a few relevant facts about the Mayan calendar in the beginning, most of the book is dedicated to his world travels in search of psychedelic intoxication which he believes gives him "special insight" in the coming apocalypse. The only apocalypse the reader can anticipate is the life of the author's daughter, whom he abandons when he leaves her mother for a series of women, all of whom reject him.

The book starts out like you expect, leading the reader through the history of the 2012 prophesy, and we are treated to a world tour of crops circles and the usual unsatisfying alien discussions, hoping further on the author will bring new information. By page 300, however, the author finally drops all pretension and succumbs to vicious generalization, such as the opinion that monogamy is "cultural" but certainly not "natural," bolstering his view with such pithy observations as, "Women tend to feel they are in competition for men and their 'value' (in quotes, to make sure we know they actually have no value) rests in their powers of physical attraction, making them possessive, jealous and insecure." Despite having no background in anthropology (or college training whatsoever, the reader later learns) the next sentence reads, "It is possible.... that their innate propensity for gathering has reasserted itself as a cultural obsession with shopping." (p. 323-4). Several pages later, when the author's sexual advances are yet again spurned by a woman not his partner, he talks about his "hurt and disappointment." At this point, the reader is feeling some empathy, at least in the hurt and disappointment categories.

What any of this has to do with 2012 and Maya is for the reader to guess. "Nothing" is my guess.
(less)

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Apr 29, 2009 Patrick Pants rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 15, 2009 Annie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Before reading this book, I assumed it would be an embarrassing read, aimed at forwarding some sort of New Age agenda, or perhaps a dry treatise on a manifestation of apocalypse ideology in popular culture.

I found that, while I couldn't really stand the author's self-centered ranting on the demands of monogamous relationships, I really enjoyed reading this. It opened up my mind to certain aspects of mysticism and I understood, because of the way the book is presented, that you can be a casual to...more Before reading this book, I assumed it would be an embarrassing read, aimed at forwarding some sort of New Age agenda, or perhaps a dry treatise on a manifestation of apocalypse ideology in popular culture.

I found that, while I couldn't really stand the author's self-centered ranting on the demands of monogamous relationships, I really enjoyed reading this. It opened up my mind to certain aspects of mysticism and I understood, because of the way the book is presented, that you can be a casual to extremely interested observer of 'dumb hippy stuff' without having to degrade the ideas presented as ridiculous or untrue. Instead, fundamentalist acceptance of this somewhat pervasive discourse is no different than the uncritical acceptance of the tenets of organized religion or belief that scientific discovery is the key to human salvation. Both are widely practiced, but probably not preferable. Likewise, one doesn't have to fully buy into the radical aspects of the mythology surrounding the year 2012 to get a good education of the who, what, where, when and why.

Pinchbeck is a journalist, which is apparent in this book. He also states that he a 'generalist' and makes no claims to be an expert on any of the topics he attempts to interpret for the audience. But he goes on many personal interludes, to add his own ideas and reactions while keeping somewhat objective in his presentation of ideas. He provides biographical information about his family and other close relationships. I wouldn't say that he presents himself as a particularly likable guy, and his writing isn't particularly likable either. (It's very good at times, though.) But, because I had this biographical information, I was able to read this book knowing the author was in a process of discovery both of himself and of his subject matter, a process which probably couldn't cumulate into anything convincing enough to come off as prosthelytizing.

While it's clear that Pinchbeck fully believes that something will change with human consciousness near the date December 21, 2012, he never fully commits to exactly what it is. It centers around the concept that Carl Jung's 'collective consciousness' will manifest itself concretely into a human mind soup called the noosphere, but doesn't give an indication about how metaphorical or intense or sudden this will be, just that it will happen.

Without having the book on me, and having read it a few years ago, I can only give a partial summary. Pinchbeck discusses the Mayans, their calendar and how their warriors fought with their minds, so were unprepared when the Spanish decided that it was more effective to eliminate enemies with weapons. I giggled a little bit at that image. He also discusses that their calendar predicted the end of their civilization, and 2012 is the next cycle after that 'civilization end point'. He does a lot of experimenting with psychedelics. I wasn't totally excited about these passages, but he did an okay job of writing about something that doesn't seem easy to put into words. He also interviews several important figures from almost every aspect of the 2012 mythology, including the author of several books based loosely on Mayan mythology and calendar, José Argüelles, who is probably the only person Pinchbeck comes pretty close to calling bullshit on. What else... he loves to talk (babble) about German philosopher Martin Heidegger, also Carl Jung. I liked his writing on Terrence McKenna. I am sort of intrigued by McKenna, but not enough to try to figure out what he's talking about. DP can do it for me. Burning Man he finds isn't quite the forward thinking festival he thought it would be, but he ends up getting something out of his experience.

One last thing. It bothered me that the edition I read was full of typos. For example, Pinchbeck uses the word 'antinomy', a philosophical term, several times, and it is misspelled as the chemical element antimony at least once. Some of the passages contain repeated ideas, two sentences next to each other saying exactly the same thing, but worded differently.

I would recommend this book for anyone who wants a thoroughly researched yet skeptical review of just what is the big deal? surrounding the year 2012, and doesn't care if it's far from perfect.(less)

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Dec 02, 2007 Vanessa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: spirituality

fascinating, eclectic, weird. i was really into his musings on 2012, ayahuasca, shamanism, crop circles and thought it was interesting to see the synchronicities within his own experiences and with all the similar stuff i've been reading and exploring regarding the Mayan calendar and the shift to higher consciousness that is coming. he got to be a little annoying--pretentious, self-involved, clueless man-problems with hijacking spirituality for his sex-drive and ego, but hey...he's only human.

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Nov 09, 2011 Benito Jr. rated it 3 of 5 stars

An overwritten, self-indulgent and sometimes incoherent mess of a book, but oddly engrossing at the same time. (I read it in a few sittings.)2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl gets its structure from Daniel Pinchbeck's own peripatetic interests and self-absorption. That's both good and bad: it prevents 2012 from becoming a dry academic treatise because it's deeply (sometimes cringingly) personal, but it also flits from topic to topic, depending on the author's level of enthusiasm or disillusionmen...more

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Jul 15, 2009 John rated it 3 of 5 stars

An esoteric, highly speculative and auto-biographicalucinogenic tour of possible meanings behind the Mayan-predicted apocalypse in 2012. In short, the author explores the possibility that this apocalypse is a transition from one era to another. From an era marked by materialism and physical/spiritual duality to one marked by the unification of the physical and spiritual and of global consciousness. At times the book focuses too obsessively on the author´s belief in the benefits of sexual promisc...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Jeff Turboff added it · review of another edition

Only very obtusely about 2012, this book is more a memoir or essay by a spiritual seeker trekking to Africa to try iboga, to the Amazon to take ayahuasca, to the monuments at Stonehenge and the crop circles near Glastonbury, to the desert festival Burning Man, while his relationship with a woman back home falls apart from neglect as he rails against what he seems to see as the tyranny of monogamy and eventually channels the mythic Mayan figure Quetzalcoatl. Although he does introduce some intere...more

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Apr 06, 2009 laura rated it 2 of 5 stars

I heard about this book, saw it at Borders while I was book shopping and figured I'd check it out since I had read and enjoyed Breaking Open The Head. I enjoyed it up to about three pages in. To me, this was comparable to reading an extremely dry research paper and then getting absolutely confused by all of the tangents Pinchbeck went off on. He made some cool points, but they were delivered in a rambling manner. I got annoyed with his (in my opinion) pointless Burning Man stories and his pseudo...more

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Dec 15, 2011 Josh Livingroom rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

sooo much going on here. we got off to a rocky start, then I got really into it for like 250 pages. then he blew it for a while by whining about wanting to bang some chick who wasn't his baby mamma. although I agree that clinging to archaic mores like monogamy may be holding us back,I think he needed a better editor becos he just came off as if he was trying to justify his wandering eye with metaphysics and it sorta cheapened the whole deal. a lot of strange things happened to me while I was rea...more

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Dec 12, 2011 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, spiritual

Well despite how much I might want to like Dan Pinchbeck, his book leaves me unsatisfied. I agree that there are more thngs in heaven and earth than may be explained by simple material reductionism. I don;t even really discount his own subjective experience, after all, I've had a few of these kinds of inexplicable-any-other-way times myself. But not being one of these "end of the world is coming! All hail the great Serpent God!" people, I find it hard being worked up over this particular epismet...more

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Nov 20, 2012 Graham rated it 2 of 5 stars

Interesting but really fragmented collection of ideas. Some of it is really fascinating - I like the elements discussing the quantum nature of the universe (in language understandable to somebody as relatively scientifically illiterate as I am) and its relationship to spirituality, just as a lot of the ideas about egalitarianism in the face of increasingly oppressive socio-political machinations are always welcome.

The problems with this book are manifold, however. Pinchbeck relies heavily on th...more Interesting but really fragmented collection of ideas. Some of it is really fascinating - I like the elements discussing the quantum nature of the universe (in language understandable to somebody as relatively scientifically illiterate as I am) and its relationship to spirituality, just as a lot of the ideas about egalitarianism in the face of increasingly oppressive socio-political machinations are always welcome.

The problems with this book are manifold, however. Pinchbeck relies heavily on the input of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, many of whom hold to some fairly unconventional belief systems. There's nothing wrong with believing in any of the things presented, but these sources are often taken at their word, which can sometimes be difficult to swallow for somebody who hasn't done the same drugs or hung out in the same crop circles. These ideas are somewhat messily arranged, and seem to fit more with the author's own experiences and revelations. This inchoate structure, coupled with the fact that what Pinchbeck reveals about himself often makes him seem like an insufferable jackass (I could tell he was an only child before it was ever mentioned) does his ideas no favors. Maybe it's just that I'm too immured in the sort of faulty reliance on empiricism that this book tends to shy away from, but I think that if the contents had been presented a little more clearly with a little less emphasis on the author's personal life it would've been a far more compelling read.

It is important, though, to consider what Pinchback states at the book's onset. The text works far better as an elaborate thought experiment and, even at his most out-there, the author's strongest moments are when he's approaching his subjects with some doubt. It is an interesting compendium of interrelated esoterica, one riddled with ideas worth implementing and pursuing. There's just a lot of distractions as well. Not a bad book, but one requiring the largest grain of salt imaginable. (less)

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Jan 29, 2010 Maggie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I could only read about a half chapter at a time before I got really sleepy but it found that I was questioning and underlining many passages within the book. There is this link between drugs and mental elevation within the book I was reading at the time. I wonder if enlightment and new pathways through the brain can be forged without the use of these stimulates or if the lose of control over your known way of thought during these eposides causes non-rational jups to be made thereby creating a u...more

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dwa	1	6	Apr 03, 2012 12:49pm
The Book Challenge: Sadaf's 2012 Challenge	3	4	Jan 15, 2012 12:51am
SPOILER::Let's Get Pretentious-Messianic Narrators, can they ever not smack of ego?::SPOILER	2	43	May 05, 2008 07:58pm
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About Daniel Pinchbeck

Author Daniel Pinchbeck has deep personal roots in the New York counterculture of the 1950s and 1960s. His father was an abstract painter, and his mother, Joyce Johnson, was a member of the Beat Generation and dated Jack Kerouac as On the Road hit the bestseller lists in 1957 (chronicled in Johnsons bestselling book, Minor Characters: A Beat Memoir). Pinchbeck was a founder of the 1990s literary m...more

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Books by Daniel Pinchbeck

Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism

Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age

Exploring the Edge Realms of Consciousness: Liminal Zones, Psychic Science, and the Hidden Dimensions of the Mind

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1814.2012?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309283883l/1814.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1814.2012?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck[/url]

2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

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