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Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment is a compelling, punchy continuation of Jed McKenna’s first book. But it leaves me conflicted; to write a review that unpacks its many penetrating facets would be a book in itself, so I have to be content with the alternative of creating thumbnail images of its magnificence, which in itself would be flawed because there would be too many for the length of this brief review. So let me concentrate on one of the book’s main threads; its central narrative device – that of re-examining Moby-Dick. McKenna does this not as some intellectual exercise in literary criticism, but as an investigation of what was most likely a process of spiritual awakening for Melville. And while doing this, McKenna deftly interprets Moby-Dick’s symbols within the paradigm of awakening, where this unfolding happens within the context of slaying the false, of “the pursuit of truth; truth at any price.” But is this all? I am happy to say no. Why? Because the Moby-Dick thread intertwines with the story of a woman deeply involved in undoing herself through the writing process that McKenna calls Spiritual Autolysis (the journalist Julie whom we met in the first book). And all of this is situated within the story of Jed himself; the story of an awakened author unmasking a literary masterpiece, which is about a character, Ahab, unmasking himself, which is really about its creator, Herman Melville, unmasking himself. And in the process, inevitably, it is about Jed McKenna unmasking himself. For me, this is the true intent of the book. Is it about awakening? Yes. Is it about what others show the awakened condition to be? Yes. But it is more. And if you can pierce this “more”, you the reader will begin to awaken, by unmasking the layers of fictions we are caught in. McKenna points out that Melville plays fair with his readers and shows us in the very first line of Moby-Dick who Ishmael really is. McKenna also plays fair by showing us who he really is. This is also revealed in the opening lines of this book: Call me Ahab. Though, in truth, I am more Ahab than Ahab. I am the underlying reality of Ahab; the fact upon which the fiction is based. Captain Ahab is a rendering; the literary likeness of a true thing. I am that true thing, It is my sense that Jed McKenna is saying to the reader – indeed pulling her by the collar and forcing her to look – that if you can unmask the fictions of this work then you, the reader, will be unmasked. And in that unmasking you might discover that there is no Jed McKenna, as indeed there is no you. And, there’s more… McKenna tells us what we can and cannot do in terms of awakening. We cannot choose to awaken out of the dream, but we can choose to awaken within it. The latter is about becoming a Human Adult. Not something that is characteristic of most of humanity. And let’s not forget the piercing voice of U.G. Krishnamurti, which places in relief the story that McKenna so skillfully weaves.
Kriben
Pillay, D.Phil. Read Dr. Pillay's review of Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing here.
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