My dad often told stories of the early ’70s, when he would be out and about and see, say, a group of young men on a street corner in fringy leather vests and long hair, passing a “doobie,” “jaybird,” or “spliff” (’70s terminology) around the circle, and he would approach them, saying, “Hey, guys. Reading SoulBoom is like an earnest midnight conversation in your college dorm with your genius religious studies friend. I chuckled when you mentioned that during COVID, this was kind of spurred on by reading a headline about a celebrity who had gone through a spiritual transformation in Switzerland.

if Wilson's book can get Christians (and Jews and Muslims and Sikhs and others) to think deeply about their own traditions, consider their own spiritual capacities and journeys while coming to respect the spiritual capacities and journeys of others, and invite those not already inclined to contemplate spirituality in these ways, then I think the book will have accomplished its goal. Wilson's basic stance is that we have a world that is in need of profound healing and a unifying understanding AND that the spiritual traditions of the world all help provide this understanding. In a relaxed and relatable way, Wilson's approach to spirituality - the non-physical, eternal aspects of ourselves - applies to people of all beliefs and/or religions including the skeptics, agnostics, and atheists. Almost to a person, my artist friends would say, "Well, I certainly don't believe in an old man on a cloud, you know, with an agenda scowling down at us.You have a lovely book that I’m confident will help a lot of people out with their spiritual journeys.

I was on this train in Switzerland traveling with my wife, and there was a headline and it said, actor had a spiritual transformation. I hadn't written that first chapter, that introductory chapter that talks about why the hell is the guy who played Dwight from the office writing a book about spirituality? He cites examples of failed nonreligious based societies such as: Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's Cultural Revolution in China and Nazi Germany.

But that is what really sparked my deep and abiding interest in these gigantic topics was they personally affected me and in the exploration of them, they made my life better. In fact, when I asked them when they knew their union was a mistake and they didn’t actually belong together, they both said that it was within a year of their wedding—in 1969. The book reads as part spiritual autobiography and part spiritual manifesto, a weaving together of Wilson's own spiritual beliefs with a broader spectrum exploring a variety of spiritual paths and how they all lead toward solutions to help create the better world that so many of us long for these days. True story: I recently came across a news headline about some model/celebrity who had undergone some kind of “spiritual transformation.

Wilson offers up a variety of genuine insights along with Kung Fu and Star Trek references sure to make readers reflect and smile. If you’re in need of a spiritual shot-in-the-arm from a kind teacher, you’ve come to the right place.So I wanted to leave the audience, the readership, with some tangibles, not to make things all just airy fairy and say, "Hey, be loving to one another. He briefly mentions (in one sentence) that there are places like Scandinavia where secular/atheist cultures work well. There’s also the pillar of a “virtuous education,” which encourages mediation, meaningful use of social media, and financial literacy. I’m no scholar or expert by any means, but this quest for the truth compelled me to study the Bible, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Dhammapada and other writings by and about the Buddha. This is what I’m referring to when I talk about the word “spirituality”: this eternal/divine aspect of ourselves that longs for higher truth and journeys toward heart-centered enlightenment and, dare I say it, God.