Book review:
Into the Magic Shop, a neurosurgeon’s true story of the life changing magic of compassion and mindfulness, by Dr. James R. Doty, Avery (February 2, 2016), 286 pages
Genre: western occult and metaphysics.
In his book,
Into the Magic Shop, author, James R. Doty covers territory that includes:
Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich;
Dale Carnegie’s
How to Win Friends and Influence People;
Carlos Castañeda’s
The Teachings of Don Juan;
José Silva’s
Silva Mind Control;
Richard David Bach’s:
Jonathan Livingston Seagull and
Illusions:
The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah;
Dan Millman’s
Way of the Peaceful Warrior; and,
Jon Kabat-Zinn Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life; however, without giving any of these predecessor’s credit, other than Dale Carnegie.
We are led to believe through this book that James R. Doty received instruction from a middle-aged woman, Ruth, in a unique “magic” which she imparted to him when he was only12 years old, which he supposedly practiced regularly, but he never read another book on the subject. That is all a bit hard to believe.
On the other hand, James R. Doty’s book provides a refreshing and uniquely honest view into his dysfunctional childhood, and family of origin, and how he used meditation to overcome the many obstacles of poverty and a dysfunctional childhood. Typical of these New Age personal growth and development books is a profound lack of insight into the author’s life, which, if revealed at all, is typically presented as an ideal childhood. Thus, I found James R. Doty’s honesty to be the best part of his book, because the rest I found not unique at all.
The fundamental problem that I have with most books on meditation published in the last 100 years or so is a profound lack of understanding of deep meditation, and what it leads to. James R. Doty’s book does nothing more. The basic problem that I have with James R. Doty’s book, as well as most other books on meditation, is the authors never get that there is anything more to meditation than occupying the mind with something.
James R. Doty’s book begins with deep relaxation, which is excellent, but no different than José Silva’s
Silva Mind Control dating back to 1969, which was a year after James R. Doty received his instructions from Ruth. Deep relaxation is a definite innovation for acquiring skill in deep meditation, which is not commonly taught by most meditation teachers, which might explain why so few people who meditate ever have an experience of deep meditation.
The next skill that Ruth taught James R. Doty when he was only 12 years old was “taming the mind.” It is difficult to believe that a 12 year old can accomplish the stilling of the mind, especially when most Zen practitioners never accomplish the skill in a lifetime of meditation practice. On the other hand, it has been my experience that the mind will not still until one has learned to relax deeply, so, since his meditation instruction began with deep relaxation exercises, then perhaps he was indeed successful at such an early age. Additional aides to stilling the mind were suggested, which included: attending to the breath; and mantra. The method was to be practiced only 20-30 minutes per day.
Most meditation methods define proper meditation practiced to be only 20-30 minutes per day, which is another part of the reason why almost no one who practices meditation ever gets to deep meditation; because in over 43 years of daily meditation practice I have found that only 20-30 minutes of meditation practice is just a warm up. I, and most people whom I have given instruction to who have acquired deep meditation experience, find that deep meditation generally does not begin until one has sat for at least 30 minutes, if not an hour.
It has also been my experience that the mind does not still until the meditation object is released. This is another explanation for why most people who meditate never have the experience of deep meditation. Since Ruth’s instruction to James R. Doty when he was only 12 years old did not include the necessary condition of releasing the meditation object, then we can conclude he most probably never stilled his mind.
The next skill that Ruth instructed James R. Doty when he was only 12 years old was “opening the heart.” Her expression of it was quite a bit (too much like) common Buddhist metta meditation practice, in which one imagines people in one’s life and one projects kind thoughts to them.
The next skill that Ruth instructed James R. Doty when he was only 12 years old was called “clarifying your intent.” The use of the term ‘intent’ is right out of Carlos Castañeda. It was expressed as creative visualization and mental projection, which was right out of José Silva.
One of the useful things that James R. Doty sprinkled throughout his book is psychological and neurological findings into the workings of the mind, and how that might be applied to meditation. This I found useful, as I am sure others will. However, the problem is these professions have simply not studied the deep meditation experience, so why should we expect them to understand it, or meditation itself?
We are told in his book that James R. Doty engaged in creative visualization and mental projection for most of his adult life. He manifested this as meditation used in a mad pursuit of the 7 deadly sins, which are the hindrances and fetters of Buddhism. So, why should we consider that he got much out of the practice of meditation, other than name, fame, power and wealth?
Then in the last few years he engaged in cultivation of compassion, which is yet another aspect of creative visualization and mental projection, so it is difficult to understand when Mr. Doty ever learned to stilling his mind, or experience deep meditation, which, in my experience, begins with a still mind.
There are; however, in his book several useful reports of phenomena that are associated with deep meditation practice, such as the Out-of-Body- Experience (OOBE). On page 174 he related an experience when his father lay dying in another state, in which James went to sleep, then awoke to a vivid appearance of his father saying goodbye to him. Mr. Doty called the hospital afterwards to find out how his father was doing, and he was told that his father was dead.
My explanation for this phenomena is not that Mr. Doty’s father appeared to him while James was awake, but that the lucid dream and the OOBE are so compelling an experience that the experience seems all too real to the subject; and often those who have lucid dreams and OOBEs do not always know that the experience is not physical, but non-physical, or what is commonly called in the occult and metaphysical world, ‘spiritual.’
On page 196, Doty related a near-death-experience (NDE). When we comparatively study OOBEs and NDEs we see how they are one and the same phenomena; however, the conditions for the experience differ in that the NDE occurs when a person experiences death typically in surgery, an illness, or an accident; whereas, the OOBE most often occurs during sleep.
The NDE is generally explained away by science as what happens to the mind during oxygen starvation. However, the OOBE is much the same experience and occurs under sleep and therefore cannot be dismissed as simply oxygen starvation of the brain.
Also, spiritual literature abounds with reports of visitations from the dead upon the person’s death to a living relative or friend who reports it. So, we also cannot dismiss all of these reports as simply games the mind plays when it is oxygen-starved. In fact the experience provides evidence of a non-physical reality to which we all have access to, if we take up a fruitful contemplative life.
One of the questions that came to mind for me while reading this book was, “How is it that a fairly mundane book on meditation, which never goes to any depth, gets published, then receives about 25 recommendations from well-known authors of meditation, and even the Dalai Lama, before it even hits the street? This is easily explained in the last 2 chapters in which we see that Mr. Doty took up the practice of compassion, and garnered the support of the Dalai Lama. Here the Dalai Lama most probably paved the way to publication of Doty's book, and the letters of recommendation. We should also point out that none of the authors nor the Dalai Lama have shown any experience, or value, for deep meditation; nor do any of them seem to understand that genuine compassion comes from the regular experience of deep meditation, and not from mental exercises.
