Enlightenment by Trial and Error: Ten Years on the Slippery Slopes of Jewish Spirituality, Postmodern Buddhism, and Other Mystical Heresies

by Jay Michaelson

The "spiritual but not religious" are the fastest-growing denomination on America today. Yet what are the roadmaps? What does the spiritual search look like for a seeker in 21st century America, fully plugged-in, online, cynical, and sincere? Enlightenment by Trial and Error is a unique book by bestselling author and Daily Beast columnist Jay Michaelson. Today, Michaelson is a rabbi with a PhD in Jewish Thought, a teacher on the Ten Percent Happier meditation app, and a political columnist read by a quarter million readers per month. But not long ago, Jay was a young spiritual seeker, pursuing mystical experiences (and even enlightenment) with an open heart and restless intellectual curiosity. Drawn from essays written over a ten-year period of questioning and exploration, this book is a unique record of the spiritual search, from the perspective of someone who made plenty of mistakes along the way.

Genres: Spirituality, Jewish, Religion

274 pages, Paperback

Published November 18, 2019

About the author

Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson is the author of ten books, most recently "The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth." He is an affiliated assistant professor at Chicago Theological Seminary and holds a Ph.D in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Dr. Michaelson is also a regular contributor to New York, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, and other publications. His journalistic work primarily focuses on the Supreme Court, religion, law, and sexuality. And he is a senior editor and podcast host at Ten Percent Happier, a meditation startup.

Reviews

[Stefan Dion Garcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really did not like his shallow reading on paganism. You are just going to accept the master/slave dichotomy of religion that Nietzsche made up without properly looking at paganism?! While I agree there are some strains of “master morality” in paganism, that is just one strain of very multiple and diverse forms of paganism. In fact, a lot of the presuppositions of this book do not take pluralism seriously and only pits monism against dualism as serious world views. I do not agree that mysticism necessarily tells the “all is one”. I believe pagan mysticism tells us something different, that “all is connected” but that reality is made up of a multitude of different amazing things.