Book Review: Jed McKenna

       This book is not for the faint of heart. You see this in the review and you hear other people say it, but it is kind of like the first time you hear about hotel comforters and how abhorrently filthy they are: You can never not know it. 

I had never heard of Jed McKenna; then, about a month after landing in Kaua'i from my travel to Peru. I couldn't go twelve hours without hearing Jed McKenna:  

"Have you read Jed McKenna?"

"No."

Gasp. "Oh, you have to read him. Talk to me after  you've read Jed."

This was then normally followed by some rollicking expletive about how this man has rocked a person's perceptive world.

About two months after hearing this, I listened.  I ordered the first in the trilogy: Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing

  I immediately tuned into the modern, flatline tone. Nice.  I had't read a spiritual seeking text that was this accessible - in mere language and structure -  in awhile, so intrigued by the writing style and the dog on the cover I googled Jed McKenna. Who is this cat?

"Hey, you didn't tell me Jed McKenna isn't a real person."

"Oh," they say perpelexed by the relevance. "Oh, yeah. No. Of course he's someone else. No one knows who he is. But he's awesome."

What?

 This made less sense. Everyone was raving about the qualities and insights of a man that didn't even put his name on the text.

And then I really started to read.

For me, I saw why he had to be a pseudonym. Jed is merely a function. A man could never live up to the scrutiny of the message he was delivering. It would give the ego an easy excuse to execute the messenger and dismiss the message. Nope, you had to simply read and watch how this truth resonated, and start to look at your life in a whole new way. 

By the time this realization hits you - you are too far in the book to turn around. Your reality has already shifted and now you look down to see yourself, swaddled in layers upon layers of  smarmy hotel bedsheets.

And thus begins your mental peeling a' la Jed.