The Enlightenment Trap

<p><strong style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>A powerful investigation into the appeal - and the danger - of enlightenment</strong><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>  </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The Pacific Standard</em></p><p><br></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>In 2012 38-year-old Ian Thorson's search for spiritual transcendence ended in tragedy on a remote Arizona mountaintop. His wife a woman anointed as a goddess by an eccentric Buddhist community held him in her arms as he slowly died from dehydration and dysentery. For Scott Carney a journalist and anthropologist who lived in India for six years Thorson's death was just the most recent iteration of an unspoken epidemic that connected intensive meditation and mental instability.</span></p><p><br></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The Enlightenment Trap</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> explores how Tibetan Buddhism in the West morphed from its roots in the Himalayan foothills into a fundamentally new American religion. For Thorson the entry point into this new faith was Geshe Michael Roach the supreme spiritual leader of Diamond Mountain University.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Carney unravels the cult-like practices of Diamond Mountain to illuminate the uniquely American tendency to mix and match Eastern religious traditions like LEGO pieces. The result is that for some enlightenment is a synonym for almost god-like powers and achieving it can become more important than life itself.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Aided by Thorson's private papers and cutting-edge neurological research the book reveals the profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain. Carney exposes stories of miracles and black magic sexualized rituals and tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes. </span><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The Enlightenment Trap</em><span style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> is a gripping work of investigative journalism that reveals how the path to enlightenment can be riddled with danger.</span></p><p> </p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>This revised 2023 edition includes two previously-unreleased chapters an author's note and new updates to the story. </em></p><p> </p><p><br></p>