Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Pros: This book aims to provide tools and insights to enable people to alter their own experience of life so life feels more meaningful and less compromised by the stresses that seem to be growing worldwide, and also so that possibilities show up that contribute to the human race surviving and thriving. That is pretty useful at a time when for many of us, it appears that things may be headed off a cliff. In a world where many people, governments, and corporations are playing win/lose short-term games, this book aims to provide tools for everyone to find and play the "infinite game", where the aim of the game is to have the game last as long as it can, for all of us. This book has a glossary. I recommend you scan the glossary before reading the book, because Jamie uses some words in their ancient esoteric meaning, which is different than the meaning you find if you ask for a definition through Google. The book is presented in three sections. The first section gives ample evidence that humanity is currently hurtling toward a shit storm that has no precedent in human history. Given the people that Jamie is in touch with, I would guess he has even more (non-publishable) evidence. Jamie title's this section "Choose your own apocalypse". By that he means "choose what you think will be revealed", because he uses the word "apocalypse" in its ancient Greek meaning of "unveiling", rather than the typical modern usage of the word to mean "the end of the world". One gem of an observation from the first section for me is that what are in one aspect groups of people with totally different beliefs (Christian fundamentalists, ISIS, the elite of Wall Street), are all preparing for a cataclysmic event, and each believes that on the other side of that event, they will be part of the chosen few who remain, and for whom the world will be a better place. Jamie categorizes all these beliefs as "Rapture ideologies". The middle third of the book is titled "The alchemist's cookbook". This section lays out a host of modern research into techniques of altering state of mind and the human nervous system for insight and/or resilience and/or higher mental capacity and/or more creativity and/or peak performance. Jamie lays out the human need to cycle through experiences of inspiration, healing, and connection. Techniques covered include breathing techniques, sexual practices (covered in detail in the appendix), gasses and gas mixtures that can be breathed, meditation, and substances (from magic mushrooms to MDMA to DMT). Take your pick. I'm not an athlete like Jamie is, but I find some of the peak performance stuff quite useful in giving myself an edge to help me be part of the solution to the global shit storm we are headed into. One gem from the middle section of the book is that in terms of both stabilizing the experience of life, and also in terms of having more mystical experiences, studies have now shown that couples engaging in a set of planned periodic sexual practices is more effective than people taking magic mushrooms. Another gem is Jamie's very personal sharing of his own transformation at a Grateful Dead concert. The final third of the book is titled "Ethical cult building". From one perspective, this section could provide guidance in building an organization that is truly playing the "infinite game", to have humanity survive and thrive as long as possible. From another perspective, this section is a wake-up call to distinguish many of the myriad ways that historically so many "movements" that have magnetically pulled so many people in have done as much (or more) harm than good. Cons: For me, Jamie's "cool kid" language sometimes gets in the way. When an idea being expressed is deeply impactful, I find having it expressed in a way that is "cool sounding" can detract from its impact. Sometimes the information density of the book is so high, it is like drinking from a fire hose. Given a choice, I would not change that, but it can be an energy drain at times. I listed the glossary as a "pro". The other side of the coin on that is that for me, the author's choice to use esoteric terms where more commonly used and understood terms could be used increases the amount of work needed to fully get what is being said. Some of the most useful tools of the tool kit this book aims to provide are in the appendix. The appendix is not part of the audio of the audio book, so you have to download it as a separate PDF and read it. If you are visually dyslexic as I am, that is annoying, but the appendix is one of the best parts of the book. Errors: On page 170, where Jamie talks about the "overprescription of antibiotics and how it’s creating superviruses", he has viruses confused with bacteria. Overprescription of antibiotics creates super-bacteria, not super-viruses. Antibiotics don't interact with viruses. On page 174, where Jamie says "3 grams of psilocybin" he probably meant to say "3 grams of psilocybe cubensis mushrooms" (which are about 0.7% psilocybin by weight when dried, so the amount of psilocybin in s ceremonial dose is about 21 milligrams, not 3 grams). Three grams of pure psilocybin is over 100 times too big a dose.