Ramakrishna's life was completely God oriented and he was as pure as the new fallen snow throughout his extraordinary life. Outside he was the embodiment of Compassion and Love, and inside he was the fullness of spiritual discrimination. From my perspective he was, without a doubt, God Incarnate!

Jesus said to his disciples, "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.". Ramakrishna in concert with this said, "Man is born to no purpose having been given the rare privilege of being born a man, is unable to realize (become one with) God in this lifetime.".

The Gospel of Ramakrishna, written by his devotee "M", is one of the most wonderful spiritual books ever written. If you read it and your heart does not soar, it must be frozen.

This book is a diary of the author's experience in the presence of Sri Ramakrishna 125 years ago. To the modern mind, Ramakrishna would seem like a schizophrenic or epileptic but after reading this book and hearing his explanations of Hindu concepts you realize that although he had no formal education he was a very knowledgeable and loving man. I love that he always says - do not follow anything I say blindly, work it out for yourself, take what's useful to you and leave the rest. He says a lot of people forget to do this where religion is concerned. They don't assimilate the information - they just repeat the pretty words.
His relationship to Narendra, who later was known as Vivekananda, is an awesome love story. Very beautiful. My favorite part was when Ramakrishna asked Narendra a significant question about God and Narendra says, "I'm currently studying the views of the atheists." He was completely able to be himself with Ramakrishna and Ramakrishna loved him for it. He didn't have to put on a "holy-holy" act with Ramakrishna. They didn't have any of that you'd better obey and agree with everything I say attitude going on.
Something that struck me as interesting is I think the author added some comments in the 1940's while translating the book to English. The events took place near Calcutta, India in 1885 but there are statements describing the connection to God as being like having the gas company hooked up to your house. Did they have a gas company in Calcutta, India in 1885? There are other statements relating peoples beliefs in the righteousness of their religion to everyone thinking his watch has the correct time. Were watches a widespread item in India in 1885? I don't particularly think so... But the allegories work.
I don't agree with everything Ramakrishna says. For instance, I don't believe bhakti or devotional religion is the key for this day and age. I think you should keep your bhakti a personal thing tucked away in your heart otherwise you'll wind up looking like a nut. I don't agree with worshipping the divine as a parental figure. I think it adds to the emotional immaturity that we already experience - but I'm glad Ramakrishna mentions other modes of relating to God and acknowledges their validity. I also don't believe that bliss is an important factor in anyone's relationship to God. Hell with the availability of street drugs today - bliss is just down the alley. But joy - joy is something different. You can't find real joy in a pill or in a drink.
Towards the end of his life things get a little weird. It's almost as if someone else has taken over his body or something. He starts emphasizing being a paramahansa (incarnation of God) and expounding on how paramahansas and ishvarakotis (pure souls) are different from everyone else. It really doesn't seem to follow how he used to talk before that. Plus he starts letting yes-men, like that Ghirish Ghosh guy, hang around. I didn't like that part but it happened so what can you do?
So, whether you agree with what Ramakrishna says or not, you can't help but love and respect him after reading this book. It's a very intimate encounter with a man totally devoted to God and you gotta respect his honesty and willingness to be himself no matter what anyone else thought.

With Ramakrishna, the custom started, that disciples write down every word of a guru and publish it in a book. However troublesome that usually is, in the case of Ramakrishna it was a great blessing to mankind. Ramakrishna was a god-man with deepest spirtual insights, and an enormous richness of spritual diversity. At the same time, in this book, human ascpects are shown as well. The book does not pretend a perfect world or a perfect Ramakrishna. The time one invests into spiritual development is obvously lost from investing into other things, like presentig oneself in an optimized way. I'm sure, Ramakrishna wore no tie and would fail in a modern management school. This is no joke, because many people do not beleive certain enlightend people, because they behave not quite propperly according to social standards. A reader of this Gospel has to be prepared to be confronted with a strange, but extremely spritual, environment.

Before reading this book, I had read 'Brave New World' and a few other essays of Huxley.My image of him and the tone of his writing was that he was more concerned with issues that link man to the society(the immediate one he interacts with, which also exerts an influence on him like town, city, country etc). While Huxley in these pieces, is no doubt, extremely clear and has convincing arguments, the entire tone of his writing and philosophy was to look for solutions from 'The Without'. All his earlier works have the tone of objectivity or externality.

The 'Doors of Perception' on the other hand is completely different from anything that Huxley had written before. For the first time, possibly, Huxley looks for answers to the riddle of the human predicament from 'The Within'. The classical mechanics led tone of impartiality/ objectivity is not there. It has been replaced by the subtler quantum mechanics treatment of the observer being as much involved(if not more) in the process of self-realisation and understanding of experience.

The book is brilliant and takes one into what possibly lies in the realm of 'The Transcendental Country of the Mind' - but the reader should get into it..and to realise the full potential of the book one has to suspend existing precepts in our limited consciousness.

There is an oft quoted zen koan which might make my point clearer. A professor of a university once wanted to know what Zen was all about. So he went to this famous Zen teacher and asked him to teach Zen. The teacher invited this prof for a cup of tea. He placed a cup before the prof and continued pouring tea into his cup even though it was full. After sometime, the prof got completely agitated and told the Zen Monk, "Why are you still pouring into the cup? Don't you see it? Its already full".
The monk replied, "Exactly. How can I teach you Zen when you are so full of yourself in the same way as this tea cup".

The same koan applies to reading 'Doors of Perception'..

This book simultaneously sythesized everything in my life and changed everything. It is a guide for understanding man's place in the world. enjoy its beauty.

If there ever should have been a person to experience and report on the higher states of consciousness that the use of psychedelic chemicals permits access to then this is he. Huxley expresses his 'sacramental vision of Reality' like no other could hope to, merging science and religion into a completely logical whole, and divulging to the reader the secret of Being, Existence, and the Not-Self. Readers experienced themselves in these states will possibly discover a meaning of Life. A timeless masterpiece.

perhaps the greatest piece of truly inspired spiritual literature ever written. considered by many to be the epitome of the vast collection of writings that is Vedanta. its the story of lord krishna's holy teachings and advice to a warrior whose heart is in great distress on the eve of battle. and aren't we all warriors on the eve of the battle of daily life? lord krishna lays out the various ways a person can seek and find and know God. i love the book very much indeed and have read it many times over during the past few decades. this particular translation is a thing of sheer beauty and power. this is by far my favorite translation of the several i've read. this book belongs on the reading table of every sincere spiritual seeker. its simply sublime.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. If you're at all curious about Hinduism - this book has it all. Now I don't personally believe that a blue-skinned guy named Krishna ever really existed. But I do believe he is an excellent allegory, or character, used to convey the beliefs of Hinduism and the experience (and non-experience) of Brahman(God). My favorite thing about this book is that Krishna is active in everyday life. The story is actually an excerpt from the epic "Mahabarata". It takes place in the middle of a battlefield. Arjuna, a warrior, does not want to fight because he sees that all the guys on the other side are his relatives - his brothers so to speak. Krishna tells Arjuna to fight and then goes on to explain why it's ok - all the while expounding the ideals and beliefs of the Hindus. What's cool is that even though they express that God is in everyone and everything - it's ok to participate in ordinary life according to your nature. Arjuna has the nature of a warrior so he is supposed to fight when there is a battle. Not everybody needs to sit around meditating and smoking hemp.
The book is a masterpiece and it is beautifully done. Check it out.

This is not a translation of the Gita as much as an intepretation. Scholars will find much to irritate them here as direct translation was not Isherwood's aim, but rather an interpretation of the text in such a way that was best suited to Isherwood's own aim's of self-enlightenment. This volume is easy to read, and many sections have been put into a semi-poetical form to recall the feel of the original (a big plus, as few modern translations have attempted to do the same). Also, quite interesting is the introduction by Aldous Huxley, in which he relates his "Perennial Philosophy" to the Gita and speaks in detail about Hinduism as well as it's relation to other faiths. An appendix on various Hindoo ideas is included that makes some potentially foreign concepts a little bit easier to assimilate. For anyone who loves the Gita as I do, this book is a treasure trove.

This book attempts to put Zen into the realm of western thinking. It has the right stuff. Unfortunately, it is sometimes very difficult to read and comprehend. Perhaps it is the translation from French, but I found the phrasing, punctuation, and some of the vocabulary very cumbersome.

Take a look at the excerpts on this page to see a sample of the style. Nonetheless, this book is a must read for anyone seriously investigating What Is.

There are many diamonds here, but you will need a pick and shovel.

Zen is probably the most radical approach to existence devised through human history. Authentic Zen has nothing New Age or feel-good about it: it promises no comfort or self-aggrandizement, only absolute existential salvation, and THAT only have a laborious emptying out of the cup of ego that runneth over.

Most Zen masters refuse to discuss the discipline or explain it. Hubert Benoit takes the opposite, and for intellectually-inclined Westerners, the more accessible path, and discusses Zen in exhaustive detail in terms of psychology and philosophy--especially phenomenology and existentialism. I was skeptical of this approach until I actually read this book. Benoit writes at an extremely high level of abstraction (something quite alien to traditional Zen, which deals mainly in parables) but any experienced meditator will concur that practically every word Benoit writes rings with utter truth and fidelty to the workings of consciousness. He is clearly a man who has absorbed the Zen teachings and then examined the workings of his own mind with unfailing rigor and perceptiveness; he has taken those findings and translated them into language with a care and accuracy that nobody else, to my knowledge, has ever matched. The results are utterly profound.

Indispensable for anybody interested in Zen or the expansion of consciousness.

***Note*** This is an update of a review I wrote in 1999 ......
Few of us have the opportunity to retreat into an actual monastic way of life for years and years in order to sink into the nature of Zen experience. Therefore, many branches of Zen, with their emphasis on monastic methods, are often somewhat anachronistic amid the modern world of busyness, speed, information, and seemingly continual bombardment from every direction. Hubert Benoit's Zen and the Psychology of Transformation goes back to the impetus of Zen--a philosophy called Chan that derived in China in the 7th century from an illiterate philosopher named Hui Neng--in order to offer a form of Zen that is fully possible in the context of modern life. Chan is not centered in sitting meditation, or in traditional zazen techniques, but rather simply in a restful type of introspection that leads one directly to the core of Zen experience. Benoit details the mechanics of this introspective life in poetic and technical form, and in a way that leaves one with a clear and simple knowledge of how one is to live one's life according to the restful life of Zen.
Hubert Benoit, like the Greeks and other thinkers before him, was a philosopher dedicated to the study of nature-as-a-whole. Often such thinkers choose to conduct such an expansive study through a single, chosen aspect of nature. The Greeks used, among other things, Logos. Modern physicists often use atoms, as did the Greek Democritus. Modern biologists use such vehicles as the cell, the macromolecule, or evolutionary theory. For some modern mathematicians, the fractal or the topological structure is used. In many ways, these areas overlap one another. The mind is another instrument that can be adopted for this study. To Benoit, as to many modern thinkers, the mind is simply another aspect of nature, much like an insectile or anthropoid form, or much like a cause, an effect, a black-hole singularity, a volume of space, an atom of light, or a duration of time--all different aspects of nature. Benoit's vehicle for investigating the mind--and therefore morphology of reality--was not biology, math, or physics, but Chan Buddhism, the earliest form of Zen; however, he dabbled also with Western Philosophy, the Greeks, conceptual science, and other areas in order to carry out his very personal, rational-inquiry. Benoit has nearly nothing to do with the popular, degenerate form of Buddhism commonly known as "American Zen" or "Western Buddhism," which is one of the main engines of the New Age Movement. Chan, being the original form of Zen, is nearly unrecognizable to the rest of the modern, socially-oriented Buddhist forms. It is however, very much aligned with archaic Taoism, as invented by Lao tsu.
Chan, in its ancient form, is bent on enlightenment. Yet it simultaneously claims that enlightenment does not exist. Contradictions such as this abound in Chan, and to the outsider, initially Chan will appear to be a wholly nihilistic, anti-social philosophy replete with allegorical tales of violence and destructive insanity, self mutilation and self torment, and monks lambasting each other even to the point of death. These elements are of no consequence to the serious student of Chan.

This volume brings together selections from Huxley's Brave New World, Doors Of Perception, Heaven And Hell and Island, as well as magazine articles, letters, lectures and scientific papers. It also includes writings by Timothy Leary, Laura Huxley and Dr. Humphry Osmond. Leary's interesting account of a 1960 meeting with Huxley at Cambridge is titled Mushrooms For Lunch, whilst the same year's Harvard Sessions is a report of a psylocybin session where Huxley took part in a group experiment. Other very thought provoking chapters include Dr. Humphry Osmond's May Morning In Hollywood and Huxley's own Disregarded In The Darkness, Doors, Mescalin, Heaven And Hell and Brave New World Revisited. But the highlights of the book are Laura Huxley's 1962 account of her husband in a psychedelic state and especially her moving account of his illness and death, titled Nobly Born. The appendix is titled Instruments For Use During A Psychedelic Experience and the book concludes with an index. This is a brilliant collection of this refined author's best work and an insightful investigation into the use of entheogenic substances for the expansion of consciousness. I also recommend Huston Smith's Cleansing The Doors Of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogentic Plants and Chemicals, William James' Varieties Of Religious Experience the title Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness by Ralph Abraham, Terence McKenna and Rupert Sheldrake.

Aldous Huxley was clearly a man ahead of his time: imagine an English intellectual writing about mecaline and LSD, how they relate to psychology, sociology and religion in our world during the 1940's.
This was not a cult leader or an Edgar Cayce/Aleister Crowley sort of philosopher: his essays were published in periodicals as varied as the Saturday Evening Post and Playboy Magazine (!). He was simply a very sophisticated explorer of the mind. Many of his thoughts from the 40's and the 50's still sound as relevant today as the day they were written.
His timeless thoughts are his genius. I recommend this book highly.

Entheogens (psychedelics) through the eyes of an articulate and cultured man of letters. We get to see through this series of essays why Huxley turned to psychedelics as a tool for spiritual exploration. It also raises important questions that need to be addressed by those of us using entheogens (psychedelics) as a means of expanding consciousness.

Thomas Seay

A perfect biography of one of the most celebrated and most interesting figures of the 20th century. The panoramic range of Huxley's genius is magnificently brought to life in this book. Everything is here- his historic antecedents, his famous family, his 30 yr. marriage to the beautiful Maria, the creation of his books, and not a little as well about his "psychedelic" period and his book "The Doors of Perception." Of course, Huxley is a marvelously inviting subject, intelligence and temperament combined in a man possessed of extraordinary natural gifts. The keen intellect of novelist Bradford is the key element; a rich understanding of Huxley's singular dialectic and his notably uncanny inner aesthetics makes splendid reading. The whole book is warm and true; the affection of the writer toward her subject is clear, but never interfering, never common or cloying. Bradford generously lets the reader walk and talk, travel and sup with Huxley, and her narrative skills are perfectly honed for such a daring operation; after all, it's one thing to merely write a biography of note, and quite another to transparently unsheathe someone down to pure gold. The latter would seem to be Bradford's forte in these pages; it is a miracle of literary biography and a quite extraordinary experience. Highest recommendation without reservation.

SB does a truly remarkable job of portraying Huxley as he really was; from the vantage point of a next-door neighbour who soon moved in with the Huxleys, SB slowly reveals the everyday life of a man who was regarded as a prophet in his lifetime and has now come to be acknowledged as one of the most erudite men of the last century while at the same time being a humanist to the core. The book could have crossed over to being an eulogy but manages to maintain its balance and objectivity through its length and provides us with a scholarly perspective on the man as now other book does. She has integrated the personal life and impressions of many of the people who figured in Aldous's life with the works of the man and analyzes how the various experiences of his life influenced his books. It continues to remain the definitive book on Aldous Huxley three decades after its first publication.

It's a great novel, truly a classic. It really makes you think. Aldous Huxley seemed to "look into the future". It makes you look at where we are now and where we maybe going!

I loved this book. Anyone with an interest in science will enjoy it. Somewhat satirical, but that is what makes it so interesting. The characters of Bernard, Lenina, the Savage, and Linda all contribute to the plot. Huxley's new world makes the reader think about their own society and what would happen if it turned into the one in the book. The "scientific processes" in the book are quite amusing. Enjoy!

Michael York dosent simply read this book, he acts it out. Each character has their own specific tone of voice, and each voice has their own emotions. Simply an AMAZING work.

This is certainly one of most characterful and dramatic readings in my experience of having heard over 200 audio books. BRAVO to Michael York! I wish more actors of such talent would record more important literature unabridged. Don't miss this phenomenal performance of a great novel!

This is a very well researched historical account of hell in this world, by the author of the better known opus Brave New World and The Doors of Perception of Heaven and Hell.
The historical situation of the Catholic Church and the Jesuits, the politics in France during the 17th Century, the downfall of the Huguenots, all constitute the fabric were the personal drama and martyrdom of father Urbain Grandier are sewn.
POLITICAL BACKGROUND: Cardinal Richelieu is directing the policy of France, during the reign of Louis XIII. After Richelieu convinces the King that self-government of small provincial towns must end, the feudal nobility lose their independence by an edict calling for the destruction of their castles and walls, whilst the Hughenots are being crushed by force. One of these towns is Loudun, where the priest (a Jesuit) is Urbain Grandier, an intellectual priest of 35, that knows the meaning and consequences of the edict calling for the destruction of the fortified walls of Loudun. Consequently, when Laubardemont, an agent of the Cardinal Richelieu arrives in the town, he is confronted and stopped by Grandier.
GRANDIER'S VICES: Father Grandier is strikingly handsome and a sensualist. His vows of celibacy have not prevented him from fathering a bastard child with the daughter of Trincant, the town magistrate, and performing an illegal marriage with Madeleine, a young lady with whom he has fallen in love.
THE ANGELICAL DEVIL: The Convent of the Ursulines in Loudun is ruled by Sister Jeanne of the Angels, a young humped back noun, with a beautiful face. She develops an obsession with Grandier and has sensual visions which involve the young priest. When she hears about the illicit marriage, she gets mad and falsely accuses the priest of sorcery and lewdness.
THE CONSPIRACY: Grandier's enemies (Laubardemont, Trincant, Father Mignon and others) grasp the false accusation as the means with which the destruction of the priest can be achieved. They accuse Grandier of sorcery and sent for an exorcist, Father Barre, who starts performing a series of exorcisms never seen before in France. The methods used by him and his assistants to extract the devils reputedly within the bodies of the nuns are base and sadistic. From Sister Jeanne's altered mind come the screams and the behavior that affect the other nuns. From there, collective hysteria spreads and as the nouns bask in their notoriety, their fantasies become more and more unreal. Those who oppose this infernal circus, on the grounds that the exorcists are the ones depraved, deliberately provoking the nouns, are arrested by Laubardemont, who wants to see the matter through. Both Richelieu and his agent are well aware of Grandier's innocence but the raison d' Etat calls for the destruction of the young priest.
THE TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM: Not surprisingly, based on the hysterical accusations of the nouns, Grandier and Madeleine are arrested. Grandier is brought to trial and found guilty of sorcery. He is viciously tortured, vainly, in order to extract a confession of his guilt. When Grandier is burnt alive at the stake, in the public square of Loudun, finally the walls of Loudun can be demolished.
BALANCE: A very stirring and moving account of these tragic events, dotted with a psychological analysis of the protagonists of the drama and some insightful reflections about the ruthless workings of politics, this is my favorite Huxley's book. UNFORTUNATELY OUT OF PRINT, BUT NOT A NOVEL, A SAD INQUIRY INTO EVIL

This book in an account of the strange events in the French town of Loudun in the early seventeenth century. It's a tale of religious hysteria, sexually frustrated nuns, scheming in-fighting clerics and ambitious politicians. Huxley describes the hyprocisy of the time, and the uses to which apparent devil-possession and witchcraft were put, not only by the exorcists, but by the "possessed" themselves.

The first 100 pages are interesting, yet merely set the scene for the rest of the book, and as such the reader has to be prepared to read in anticipation of a quicker pace and more gripping account later on.

But this is not a tale along the lines of "The Exorcist" (though Huxley does not spare the reader the grisly details) - it's a more reflective and scholarly work than a mere sensationalist entertainment. Huxley relates the history of the events in Loudun, but tries to place those events in a wider historical context, examining what they meant to contemporaries, and contrasting them with later attitudes, and the common beliefs of his own era. Huxley's standpoint is that although the events in Loudun appear gruesome and unacceptable now, beneath what we consider our own "culture" and humanity lurk more sinister latent tendencies:

"Few people now believe in the devil; but very many enjoy behaving as their ancestors behaved when the Fiend was a reality as unquestionable as his "Opposite Number"."

No doubt Huxley's psychological and historical analyses will appear out-of-date to modern experts, but his approach is nontheless a deeply humane one - seeking to understand some of the most base and basic features of the dark side of our behaviour. Given the present state of the world, who would disagree with:

"Montaigne concludes with one of those golden sentences which deserve to be inscribed over the altar of every church, above the bench of every magistrate, on the walls of every lecture hall, every senate and parliament, every government office and council chamber. "After all" (write the words in neon, write in letters as tall as a man!) "after all it is rating one's conjectures as a very high price to roast a man alive on the strength of them"."

Write them in the East and in the West too.

This book received some attention when Ken Russel's movie came out in the early 70's. Before and since it's been pretty much neglected, which is a shame. In my estimation, Huxley is one of the foremost masters of prose writing in the English language. Those who are unfamiliar with his essays should seek them out. His was a mind that ranged far and probed deeply. The incidents portrayed in this book are indeed bizarre. It will remind some of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, in that a group of young women, in this case nuns, fall victim to mass hysteria. A local priest, Father Grandet, becomes the fall-guy and the true victim of a superstition-riddled Inquisition.

I'm sorry to see that this book is currently unavailable. It's really one of the most interesting historical accounts that I've ever read. Actually, Whiting's play, based on the same incident, is also excellent. I have mixed feelings about Russell's film. I thought Vanessa Redgrave was remarkable and Oliver Reed was very good, but Russell went too often over the top as is his wont.

If you can't find this book online, perhaps you will come across it in a used-bookstore or, if you are luckier than I am and have a well-stocked library, you can find it there. You shouldn't pass up the opportunity if you want to have a satisfying and unusual reading experience.

I first read this book thirty years ago as an adolescent, and it made a big impression on my impressionable, snobbish mind. And it was (is) funny!

Reading it and some other Huxley material this year, I am struck by how singleminded AH is in his ideas. Every essay, every story, at least after the 1930s, is driven by his desire to show how humanity is lost in a maze of materialist illusion. He is a mystic, and if that tickles you, perhaps his extended intellectual diaglogs in this book will interest you. Otherwise, just read the deliciously satirical parts. (His detached verse describing the movements of the nearly naked young starlet's body are a tour de force of clinical eroticism).

His literary skills are enormous, his description of southern california in the 30s rang true in the 70s when I lived there and read it, and still do. His humour, arch, esoteric, but sharp, can be a joy. When he gets serious, that's when he has a problem as he lapses into portentous nonsense about the ground of being, the One, etc. Huxley was a acid head long before he started dabbling with drugs - and his mystical discussions make little sense, unless you are already of that mind. Aesthetically, they are highly repetitive and rather irritating.

Readers who want an introduction to his work would do better, I think, to begin with his best, Brave New World. In that one, he used his considerable gifts to their best advantage, and kept his endless and indulgent maundering to a minimum.

Most people read Huxley's Brave New World (under duress, maybe, in school) and possibly Chrome Yellow and Eyeless in Gaza, his two other popular novels. However, After Many a Summer is a wonderful, not-very-long novel that displays Huxley's superb sarcastic wit.

In this novel, Huxley plays on man's fear of death. He creates a somewhat W. R. Hearst-like rich businessman who wants to use his money and power to cheat Death, and a scientist who has no compunctions against using any means to lengthen life, without questioning what quality that extended life really has. The ending is a real surprise.

This is one of Huxley's most enjoyable novels to read. It is also a timely one that can be read in the light of the new genetic research pusing the boundaries of science. As in Brave New World, Huxley was frighteningly accurate in his prophesies.

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan is a book set in America in the thirties. Jeremy Pordage, is an English scholard who was hired by millionaire Jo Stoyte to study and decipher the Hauberk papers which Stoyte acquired in England. Jo Stoyte, with his millions, his castle on the hill, his acquisitions, and his mistress, young Virginia, may very well have been Huxley's parody of William Randolph Hearst, who was very much alive when this book was written.
Stoyte had in his employ, a Dr. Obispo who was searching for a modern medical solution to immortality, also had the job of keeping Soyte alive as long as possible perhaps to one day eventually benefit form Obispo's findings. However, it is Jeremy Pordage who uncovers in his readings of the Hauberk papers, the secret to the indefinite extension of life, and that is through the eating of triturated carp entrails, as metal rings put through the tail of some carp in a pond by the great grandfather Hauberk, could be seen by the great grandson Hauberk.
The surprise ending in this book which occurs in the last five pages is nothing short of a Rod Serling, Twilight Zone type of Tour de Force. Money may buy a bed but not comfort, money may buy a house, but not a home, money may buy food, but not an appetite, and money may buy art, and furniture, but not taste, and this book shows that maybe too much money and too much time to live may not be the best thing after all.