The Spiritual Tourist: A Personal Odyssey Through the Outer Reaches of Belief

by Mick Brown

Book by Brown, Mick

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel, Spirituality, Philosophy, Religion, Buddhism, India

310 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Mick Brown (born 1950 in London) is a journalist who has written for several British newspapers, including The Guardian and The Sunday Times and for international publications. For many years he has contributed regularly to The Telegraph. He is also a broadcaster and the author of several books

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of us who wish we could visit or check out all the superstars of the spiritual world Mick Brown has provided a valuable service. As a journalist he traveled the world immersing himself in the experiences as he found them, asked many questions and recorded his observations. What is refreshing is that he didn't push any particular conclusions or arguments on his readers. In most circumstances he allows the readers their own thoughts or conclusions.

The book is serious, informative and often sobering.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging look at some beliefs and practices you've probably heard mentioned but not fully explained. I did appreciate that Brown shares his personal journey, but balances it extremely well with observation and history of the beliefs he investigates. I also appreciated his balanced approach, presenting what is says and done and his impressions, but allowing the reader to make up their own mind.

[Rute · Rating 3 out of 5]

A felicidade não é um fim em si mesma, antes um subproduto de outras actividades, chegando muitas vezes quando menos se espera.

As coisas que damos mais valor são as que sentimos com o coração, não as que vemos a olho nu.

Uma religião é posta à prova pela sua capacidade para despertar o amor nos seus seguidores e, o que é talvez mais difícil, para estender esse amor a toda a Humanidade

[Paul Clarkson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 3.5. Not so much a spiritual journey, more a vacation stopping off here and there observing and dropping in on thoughts and practice that are well, beyond belief! I enjoyed; a comfortable and unchallenging read.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was anticipating a happy wanderer,
objectively visiting churches, mosques,
temples. This was a different story.
The author starts his journey by openly
stating that he has "received no epiphany
to give (him) faith." He wanders from one
cult-like spiritual group to another, finding
little more than disappointment and
disillusionment everywhere he goes.
His last stop is to a Buddhist group where
he seems to finally feel some sense of peace.

My criticism of his trip centers on two things:
(1) he started the journey with an admittedly
strong bias against religion and (2) he only
went to the very wackiest of spiritual groups.

[Mary Karpel-Jergic · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating read - glad I had my smart phone by my side so that I could investigate his findings further. Doubled the time it took to read the book but worth the trouble. Such an incredible mixture of beliefs and individuals, some very strange but as Brown aptly notes spiritual life has been a dominant feature of late 20th century life. People are not so interested in religion anymore. He sees this search for spiritual meaning as "a symptom of disenchantment with the values of materialism and a weariness of science which has stripped all mystery out of existence".

This book really does showcase the carnival of humanity.

[Rena Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did but found it very uneven in it's writing and even more uneven in it's personal sense of discernment. The list of people Brown found interesting and worth investigating further seemed oddly promiscuous. It was as if he was a sponge with no ability to weigh what he found himself involved in and I found that unsettling. And yet the writing was interesting enough for me to read the whole book, regardless of how many eye rolls went with that reading. He does a great job of delivering character and scenery but I was left wondering what, if any of it, mattered to him in the end.

[Christopher Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

In some ways, reading this book was like bringing my own personal journey to an end. I've read a lot of books lately about the quest for personal enlightenment, including one by Osho, who is mentioned here in perhaps not the most favourable of lights.

Mick Brown's book is a personal journey through the lands of enlightenment, beginning with interviews with people on the fringes of religion in England, people who believed in higher powers and the spirit world beyond the mainstream religions.

Brown's quest takes him, inevitably, to India, and later to America, where he spends time in ashrams and holy retreats, trying to divine the secret to the gurus popularity, the hold they seemed to have over lost souls.

What makes this book so good, though, is the careful, sincere criticism and critical aspect of the writer. Never is he fully convinced; never does he look down his nose at people who believe what others would only laugh at.

In his vivid descriptions of the characters at the heart of his tale, I was reminded of people I had met on my own travels, and in a way I was brought to reconsider my own future plans and expectations.

In all, a very satisfying, if melancholy, book.

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book, beautifully written that explores belief and those gurus and spiritual leaders that encourage us to believe their teachings.

So many great insights in this, one of the biggest being that the extraordinary views, beliefs of mystics, the sense that they are special, which many spiritual teachers have are, in clinical terms, classic symptoms of delusional behaviour. Yet these beliefs are the foundation stones of all our world's great religions.

Ultimately I came away from this book feeling enlightened but a little sad, like I was looking for hope and something better, but the beautiful horizon I was looking at was simply a painting on a brick wall.

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was well done given the subject matter. There's an excellent balance of skepticism, fact checking, and actual reflection on spirituality. The sections fact checking and explaining the history of specific gurus were a bit slow and boring for me, but I enjoyed that this was my introduction to Buddhist and other Eastern belief systems. I think this would be an excellent companion to anyone looking to explore spirituality and the different aspects of it.

[Maria Ripoll Cera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro que todos deberíamos leer para hacernos preguntas sobre nuestras preguntas. Este periodista, Mick Brown, se lanza a conocer de primera mano la espiritualidad que está ahí desde que el hombre es hombre y en la que entran solo unos pocos. Pero está ahí. ¿Cuáles son tus preguntas al respecto? Brown no te dará respuestas, pero tú saldrás diferente de su lectura.

[Alexandra Rodrigues · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A conversa desviou-se para o assunto da compaixão. Todo o sofrimento do mundo provém de nos estimarmos a nós próprios, disse ele, toda a felicidade do mundo provém de estimarmos os outros.
(...)
O verdadeiro milagre do budismo é como uma pessoa pode mudar, de uma pessoa completamente vazia para uma pessoa de compaixão."

[Gratus · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book, taking an interesting and meandering journey through faith as it brushes with rationality. Mick Brown is an honest observer, both of what he sees inside himself and what he sees outside. He questions without belittling, admits his own weakness, and thereby draws us in with honesty and a matter of fact ness not often found in spiritual tales.

[Cherie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Brown travels around India as a spiritual tourist, he calls himself. I wouldn't call him a seeker, but his journalistic self is very present. Still, quite interesting. An outsider's perspective of spirituality in India, a VERY outsider perspective, a skeptic's perspective, I would say.

[Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting journey of self discovery (or no-self?) through gurus, lamas, avatars and finally a Buddhist Monastery in Scotland

[Christopher Byram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first discovered this book when my father sent me a copy of it after I discussed my consideration of converting to Catholicism with him.

[Roxanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this book on my To Read shelf for at least three or four years. I found a bookmark in it from Brookline Booksmith, so I'd guess four or more. I picked it up because it looked really fascinating, but at the time I bought it I wasn't in a good place to do any spiritual searching, and I didn't make it very far in before putting it back on the shelf to read later. I'm in a better place for that now, so I went for it.

Mick Brown is a British journalist who gets drawn in to different spiritual and occult events. He seems to happen upon some of these things by accident--a friend invites him to hear a visiting swami give a talk, or he's assigned to cover such an event for his newspaper--but after a while, these different events and people seem to connect more and more, and he begins to seek them out. Brown travels from London, to Germany, all over India, and to Tennessee in search of truth and answers (and of course good stories). He interviews many different kinds of people, and explores Hinduism, Buddhism (Tibetan, mostly), theosophy, and many other systems of belief.

Brown often slips into reporter mode and gives a ton of facts and research and unbiased information. At first, I wanted more of Brown himself, but by the end, I felt that the journalist is who Brown really is: unbiased, constantly questioning, never choosing just one path. And I could really relate to the moments where Brown does reveal his own feelings, because he feels a lot like I do--at times skeptical, or lost, but other times full of sudden joy. I also loved the ending of the book.

I don't know that I'll ever reread the whole book--it's pretty dense. When I picked it up last week I was really looking forward to reading it and then immediately passing it on and getting it out of my house, but now I'm thinking I'll keep it anyway, even though I don't plan to reread. Brown covers a lot of topics in some good detail (for example, Madame Blavatsky, Sai Baba, and Mother Meera), and I don't plan to do any further reading on those topics, so I want to keep this book around in case I ever need it for reference.

Overall, it was good to get a better idea of the history and ideas of the belief systems Brown visits here. (Particularly it was good to understand more about Madame Blavatsky--I'd encountered her through Yeats, and never really "got" what he was up to there, and now I understand it better.) Brown also helped me discovered that I need to do more reading on Tibetan Buddhism. The best part of this book was reading about the adventures of someone who is questioning the spiritual world, just like me (but, unlike me, actually has the guts to tour around India looking for answers).

[Stevedutch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written account of one pilgrim’s progress.

This is a wonderful book beautifully written as might be expected by a professional journalist but with the humility and integrity of an earnest seeker after the truth. Brown’s pilgrimage essays the search that all of us at one time or another must embark on in order to try to make sense of our own existences. Predictably it offers no answers and there is no safe haven at journey’s end: the bleak and sometimes terrifying idea that we may be, that all of this might simply be the result of the random jostling of cataclysmic forces that, notwithstanding the somewhat arrogant claims of science, none will ever truly be able to understand, is not banished by cosy but ultimately unconvincing conclusions.

Following the echoed call from Christ’s exhortation to seek the truth Brown searches for it along the unsurprising and well trodden byways towards India’s ashrams as well as the somewhat more prosaic but, at least, genuinely surprising streets of North London in search of the miraculous and provides an interesting, informative and, often, humorous account of the ‘sages’ he encounters and their acolytes. As I said, it offers no answers but it just might inspire the ‘right’ questions.

[Vicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is part of being human to try to understand, to find an explanation for the mystery of life. The 20th century brought us numerous gurus, masters and prophets. For some cultures the ideas were an old story. The Western world discovered what East knew for thousands of years and tried to apply old spiritual beliefs for the modern times. The result is a strange mixture of old and new, science fiction and age- old traditions, rituals and philosophies. This book is impossible to put down. Written in a most intelligent and honest way, the story covers numerous cults and spiritual groups but there is no judgement, no mockery only the insight into how far we are ready to go to find the answer to the question of who we are.

[Mattie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Spiritual Tourist is a chronicle of a journalist's personal journey into Eastern mysticism/spirituality. Brown consciously recounts his story with a journalist's distance, which works in some ways, but, ultimately works to the detriment of the enterprise. The main problem I had is the feeling that Brown so steadfastly maintained his journalistic distance, that he never fully was in the moment on his travels, which he later then stepped back and considered more critically or introspectively. Rather it seemed more like he never really connected with his journey. And as such, it was hard for me to connect with it.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A worthwhile read, but a bit overlong for its central point. The book didn't really challenge me particularly, or I didn't rise to the level to realize that I was being challenged (pick one :). That said, the author's humanity did eventually win me over, and his recounting of the places he goes, the things he feels and sees, and the people that he meets is pleasant enough. If you're a spiritual seeker at all, this is a good book for outlining some of the promises and pitfalls along the way. Namaste!

[Lockhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mick Brown sets out to investigate various religious phenomena including Mystcis in Neasden, Indian Gurus, so called miracles in Mid US churches, prophets and charlatans and various spiritual thinkers. He gains access to numerous significant figures and his interviews are often revealing. Not the roller coaster ride that was The Sorcerer's Apprentice [and it does not set out to debunk its subjects:], but interesting and thought provoking.

[Holly Embry · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're interested traveling through the minds of believers in various corners of the world for only the cost of a paperback, this is your book. The author approaches the subject of devotion with humor and skepticism, but also sensitivity. The search for enough information to build a personal belief system is such a relatable quest that you will find yourself growing spiritually alongside the author, asking your own questions and challenging yourself to discover your own truth. I am always satisfied when I finish a book as thought-provoking and entertaining as this one.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished this. It's very interesting. He gives a rather skeptical account of different spiritual groups, mainly in India. Personally, I am also rather skeptical about different cults and groups. I've been there, done that. It was right up my alley. Wish I could find more books like it. All spiritual seekers should definitely read this book.

[Lynn Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown chronicles his own search through the philosophies and practices of ancient spiritual traditions. Wonderfully informational and a great self-help book if the reader chooses to put some of the ideas into practice.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable and engaging. I loved the writers skepticism, curiosity and sense of humor even as he wanted to believe but often just...couldn't. I also appreciated the respect shown to believers and participants.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by a curious but skeptic journalist. You learn a lot about the variety of human religions and you don't get bored doing it. Doesn't objectify people he's talking to, which I like.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

thoughtful musings from a skeptic who wants to believe

[Karl Nehring · Rating 4 out of 5]

The section on Blavatsky and the Theosophists really gets bogged down in detail, but the rest of the book is quite engaging.

[Johannes Bertus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I reread this every two years or so. No other book has had a greater impact on my life. I would give it 500 stars if I could.