Following this guy around on his spiritual journey was both riveting and calming at the same time. I think he exaggerated some experiences at times but that did not detract from the more personal & compelling passages. The author is very sincere in his quest and his writing style brings life to the amazing people he meets and writes about. The detailed references made to that particular time in the world make the book even more interesting. His exchanges with his final master the maharshi are partcularly fascinating and impart timeless wisdom. I really enjoyed this book - it was charming to read and a great antidote to my usual cynicism.

Paul Brunton is one of the greatest sages recently produced by the West. I pair him with Plotinus. His books should be studied, more than read. "The Quest of the Overself", however a great book, is just a a starter to his later developed concept of mentalism (akin to Bishop Berkeley's philosophy but more in the line of the Upanishads and other Christian esoteric teachings). The reader is advised to continue to "The Hidden Teaching Beyong Yoga", and then "The Wisdom of the Overself". After that Brunton wrote "The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man", and literally went into seclusion in Switzerland until his death at the age of 81. He left thousands of written pages to his disciple Anthony Damiani (deceased), who had sent Paul Cash (alive and running the Paul Brunton Philosophical Foundation and Larson Publications), to help Brunton in his last days. All his later writings are in "paras" (terse paragraphs, similar to Sutras).

What else to say? Paul Brunton traveled and experienced the spiritual path. His message is universal, however he had tried to bring together East and West, it is above and beyond geographical locality. I respectfully and gratefully bow to Him!

It would be appropriate to point out that one needs to read and apply the teachings of Paul Brunton's earlier book 'The Secret Path' before one can fully appreciate this book. Paul Brunton attempts to bring the eastern methods of attaining oneness with God to the western world using techniques that are appropriate in this day and age. The eastern methods of renouncing materialism and other worldly temptations are no longer practical in this day and age.

The author expands on the teachings provided in the book 'The Secret Path', which I feel would be greatly helpful to the beginner. He devotes individual chapters that give greater detail to the analysis of physical self, emotional self and intellectual self. He also provides additional techniques to help the meditative process that were missing (for a reason) in his earlier book. Though I have read various books, the bible, books by Rudolph Steiner, books about Edgar Cayce's readings, and come across the term 'I AM', this was the first book that actually gave me an explanation that made sense to me.The chapter 'The Overself in Action' is a chapter that I hold especially dear to my heart. It describes the gradual changes that one will experience, some of which I can attest to. It brings new meaning to many of Jesus's words in the bible.

A very cool book, especially about his experiences spending a night alone in the great pyramid. Don't expect scholarly, scientific-type writing. This is a personal work, full of thoughts and observations of a culture rapidly being erased by the West. Very interesting, especially the story about the fakir/magician who can suspend his body for days, weeks, even years at a time.

In this book the author Dr. Paul Brunton, explains the 'trance' like state attained by various people in Egypt, while making references to India. He provides a glimpse of the mystic rites that used to take place in Ancient Egypt for people who had the desire and strength to become initiates in those times.

Those of you who have read Rudolph Steiner's book 'The Gospel of St. John' in the chapter 'The Raising of Lazarus' will be able to link the explanation provided there with the explanation of Jesus's message that these rites are no longer required to become one with God.

An excellent book........my quest continues.

I found that book absolutely interesting even if I did not give much credit to the spiritual experiences of the author. Although I think Paul Brunton has invented some of the content, I admire his talent of writer. He has a great imagination and his book gave me many hours of pure pleasure. The way he describes atmospheres is worth buying the book.

The book is a long excuse for Masson's personal problems and is interesting only to readers very concerned with Paul Brunton. Masson looks for the worst he can remember about a person, he knew in his youth, and expands on every little word. If I was held accountable for every stupid word and phrase I have myself uttered (and the book is littered with that stuff) then my sisters could have me declared insane. Paul Brunton affected many people and engaged many readers, but to require him to be absolutely right all the time would be to ask for Buddha combined with Jesus. The book makes Masson sound childish and preoccupied with himself. The destroyed childhood, he describes, to me sounds like and extremely privileged situation where several adults deeply cared and paid attention to a pretty uninteresting kid. Get a grip Masson.

I would give this book a zero if Amazon made such an option available. And I would have quit reading it after the first chapter had my book group not selected it for discussion. (What on earth possessed us to choose this book, I cannot say.)

Unless one has a personal interest in Paul Brunton (the guru in question), as do some of the the other Amazon reviewers, the book is boring, superficial and pedestrian. To my mind, the interesting story here is how members of an intelligent, educated, Jewish family suspended their critical faculties and cultural assumptions to became followers of a man who claimed variously to come from another planet and a far off star. But Masson offers no insight - psychological, cultural, religious or other - into the motivations of his father, mother and uncle to reform their lives in supplication to a wacky charlatan. Instead he gives us an event-by-event account of the details of life with Brunton, told in the mind-dulling, repetitious prose of a what-I-did-on-my-summer-vacation type of essay.

Self-deluded gurus are a dime a dozen. Intelligent, intimate insight into what makes others follow them is not. This book does nothing to disturb that balance.

The only insight you'll get from this book is that the author thinks quite highly of himself, with no demonstrable evidence to support the conclusion. I got my copy from the library, and though it was overpriced at that.

Jeffrey Masson recounts his experiences growing up with a family under the direction of self-appointed Guru and misdirected(-ing?) "Eastern Star" Paul Brunton. Masson makes no attempt to hide the illusions he and his parents and sister were held by, telling how "P.B." (Paul Brunton) was able to hold sway over his impressionable if well to do and world traveled, educated parents while himself undergoing no scrutiny. Indeed, I found this book to be a blueprint for many families that have chosen to drop everything, and seek "spiritual improvement" from an outside source. It seems so much easier sometimes to get all of the answers from the source, a teacher or minister, rather than be truely introspective and fix the very real personality problems and faults we all have.

Masson unflinchingly includes excerpts from his younger years, when he was convinced he was on a higher spiritual plane than most of his fellow beings. The arrogance and naivete of his youth is humorous if somewhat worrisome, though we find that he is gifted with a humble introspection that allowed him to outgrow the worst of these. He also explains how over the years through his own education he came to find that most of Brunton's teachings were manufactured or misquoted, the man he'd once so admired didn't know the difference between Sanskrit and Hindi, and certainly was confused as to the texts he supposedly had mastered. Perhaps most interesting, Masson documents his years at Harvard when he has the opportunity to meet other "spiritual" minds in the orientalist religious movements, and discover that supposedly great spiritual men like Alan Watts and Edward Conze were hardly above treating their own families with disregard and cruelty (see page 160). Slowly Masson comes to take critical account of what the "spiritual masters" around him, including family guru Paul Brunton, lack--compassion and a base in reality is traded for the freedom of power over others. Paul Brunton is humiliatingly debunked by the newly savvy Masson upon his return from college--a lesson in developing critical thinking skills and overcoming pithy know-it-all canned "spiritualism" for all of us, written in a thoughtful and reflective manner. Why after all, do the "spiritually developed" so crave the "Maya" of worldly recognition and devotion? Masson is critical too of his old self, and closes on a gentle note.