Simon Kidd

“There are no significant shortcuts to intellectual competence. Domain-specific knowledge and long practice are essential to consolidating a skill in long-term memory. Neither computers nor general critical-thinking techniques can circumvent those arduous requirements.”
― E.D. Hirsch, Why Knowledge Matters: Rescuing Our Children from Failed Educational Theories

“The question of Meher Baba’s background context has to date been neglected. The devotional movement associated with his name has never shown any interest in antecedents. Former biographers have exhibited an ignorance of philosophical links pertaining to the subject’s ethnic and ideational heritage. These omissions require correction, not least because of the instructive nature of the links discernible.”
― Kevin R.D. Shepherd, Meher Baba, an Iranian Liberal

“In Meher Baba, the investigator has the opportunity to view at close range the Iranian spirit divested of Zoroastrian and Islamic dogma and ritualism. He is as much 'Mazdakite' and Zurvanite as he is sufi; he is both ishraqi and irfani (gnostic) in affiliated perspective, and yet at the same time elusive of ready-made labels which require a deeper understanding than customarily awarded them.”
― Kevin R.D. Shepherd, Meher Baba, an Iranian Liberal

“Many people who want a worthwhile alternative to current societal attitudes will have to become much more literate in order to be able to gain a critical sense that distinguishes viable values from crippling ones. Few people read Plotinus and other temperate writers of the past, and so it is little wonder that philosophy is not understood, and that mysticism has become a con game. Most professed seekers of 'values' fall victim to the sentiments of 'New Age' psychotherapy and Western Occultism. With Aleister Crowley an advanced yogi and Wilhelm Reich a visionary genius, it is anybody's guess what further Western monstrosities will be created in illiterate climates.”
― Kevin R.D. Shepherd, Meaning in Anthropos