Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine

When a health scare puts him in the hospital, Eric Weiner-an agnostic by default-finds himself tangling with an unexpected question, posed to him by a well-meaning nurse. "Have you found your God yet?" The thought of it nags him, and prods him-and ultimately launches him on a far-flung journey to

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do just that.
Weiner, a longtime "spiritual voyeur" and inveterate traveler, realizes that while he has been privy to a wide range of religious practices, he's never seriously considered these concepts in his own life. Face to face with his own mortality, and spurred on by the question of what spiritual principles to impart to his young daughter, he decides to correct this omission, undertaking a worldwide exploration of religions and hoping to come, if he can, to a personal understanding of the divine.
The journey that results is rich in insight, humor, and heart. Willing to do anything to better understand faith, and to find the god or gods that speak to him, he travels to Nepal, where he meditates with Tibetan lamas and a guy named Wayne. He sojourns to Turkey, where he whirls (not so well, as it turns out) with Sufi dervishes. He heads to China, where he attempts to unblock his chi; to Israel, where he studies Kabbalah, sans Madonna; and to Las Vegas, where he has a close encounter with Raelians (followers of the world's largest UFO-based religion).
At each stop along the way, Weiner tackles our most pressing spiritual questions: Where do we come from? What happens when we die? How should we live our lives? Where do all the missing socks go? With his trademark wit and warmth, he leaves no stone unturned. At a time when more Americans than ever are choosing a new faith, and when spiritual questions loom large in the modern age, MAN SEEKS GOD presents a perspective on religion that is sure to delight, inspire, and entertain.

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One man's search for God takes him around the world as he samples different belief systems. Sometimes humorous, but always honest, Weiner bears his soul as he searches for a resonating truth.

Eric has a scary visit to the hospital and a nurse asks him "Have you found you God yet?" This sends him on a tour of religions in search of his god. Each chapter starts with a personal ad: CWM seeks forbidden deity. Looking for a crazy love. Take me for a spin, and let's see where our hearts lead.

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Are you my hidden treasure? This ad starts off the chapter on Sufism. Eric makes a great effort to learn as much as he can about the history of each religion reading all the books he can find on the subject. He also tries to put aside his natural skepticism to absorb as much of the experiences as he can. In a Sufi workshop he learns to whirl like a dervish, in Raelism he shaves he legs and dresses like a woman. He spends hours walking around a stupa he affectionately calls the Giant Marshmallow, he learns qi gong, he discovers his spirit animal and he practices walking meditation on the Sabbath. Eric travels all around the world and looks into eight different religions (Sufism, Buddhism, the Franciscans, Raelism, Taoism, Wicca, Shamanism, and Kabbalah). What he brings away from this journey is that instead of looking for God, "he must construct, assemble Him". I learned quite a bit about religion and this book makes me want to create my own personal ad for God.

February 2013

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This concept has been an idea of mine for years, but I have this in-the-way thing called a day job, and I can't abandon my religious practice to fully engage in another. I had to leave the job to someone else. Mr. Weiner took up the task, though I would have done things differently. Firstly: eight

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religions are too few, and the subsets are too small. Secondly: I'd spend more time investigating each, both physically and on the page. Taoism and Wicca are left practically unexplored. However, what is in the book is nonetheless entertaining, albeit mostly jocular, and not anywhere bordering on scholarly. The reading is perfectly hilarious through his aching neurosis, so what this lacks in sound and erudite investigative journalistic reporting, it makes up for with the lens of achy-breaky humor through which the tale is told. One insight towers above all for me: remove the origin story of any religion, and practice seems sane; include it, and practice seems quite the opposite.

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Wonderfully informative and personal. I gave it to two other people before I'd finished listened to the CDs and they both loved it, too.

Edifying and entertaining. I recommend this book for those who like to read and think about profound ideas.