The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist's Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experi

by Eliezer Sobel

Book Overview

Suffused with a unique brand of irreverent humor, this account recalls the autobiographical explorations of the most significant alternative communities, ashrams, gurus, shamans, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 159580028X
• ISBN13: 9781595800282
• Release Date: February 2008
• Publisher: Santa Monica Press
• Length: 310 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

That's my boy!

I'm the father of this genius, and so I am absolutely without prejudice! How could you not love such a person who had the good sense not to tell us about many of these escapades while he was living through them. I have enough grey/white hair as it is! I think that living Eliezer's life vicariously (+ a little help from up above) has allowed me to almost reach 85 - and getting ready to reread his book for the 3rd time. It gets better all the time and who knows, maybe I missed something during the first two readings. Seriously, I loved the 99th Monkey and can't wait until I get a chance to read the sequel. Keep up the great work El.

A frank and funny collection of stories.

"I am the 99th Monkey. If you don't get me, you don't get your critical mass, and it screws up the whole works. I seem to be single-handedly holding back the Great Paradigm Shift of the Golden Age simply through my continuing to be a resistant little putz." Most people of the hippie/new age/spiritual enlightenment seeking ilk have heard the infamous legend of the 100th monkey. Scientists who were studying monkeys on Koshima Island in Japan in 1952 introduced the sweet potato as a new snack, which the monkeys loved even though it was always covered in sand. One day Imo the monkey got the brilliant idea of taking her sweet potato to the water and washing off the sand, making the snack even yummier. She taught this trick to her family members and soon it spread. In 1958 the number of potato washing monkeys reached a critical mass (99, they say) and suddenly every monkey of Koshima and the neighboring islands began spontaneously washing their potatoes. So if humans work this way, an idea spread to that 99th human monkey would quickly and spontaneously spread to the population at large. Now, you would think that with all the great spiritual movements and teachers out there over the past several decades that the world's population would have gotten past materialism and greed and onto a more enlightened plane of peaceful loving existence. Well, the reason this has not happened is Eliezer (Elliot) Sobel, the 99th Monkey. Not that Sobel hasn't tried, mind you. The 99th Monkey is a frank and funny collection of Sobel's encounters with just about every major consciousness raising movement, written as editor of The New Sun magazine in the 1960s, the Wild Heart Journal, and as a freelance journalist. But what is great and refreshingly different about this book is that Sobel ends these encounters basically unchanged and unfazed. What encounters he has! Through Sobel we get to meet Ram Dass, Hilda Charlton, Gabrielle Roth, Rabbi David Cooper, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Muktananda, Asha Greer, and the Dalai Lama. We get to travel to India, Israel, Auschwitz, Big Sur, Nepal, and Brazil. We experiment with LSD, Ecstasy, Daime, mushrooms, marijuana, and every anti-depressant on the market. We laugh, we scream, we trip, we cry, we vomit, and we refuse to drink the water used to cleanse the guru's sandals. And we go through primal scream therapy, EST, Landmark Forum, Moonie initiation, Daime rituals, yogic meditation of varying forms, sexual therapies of many kinds, and good old western psychotherapy. Oh, Sobel does learn one great lesson in the end. After hearing the refrain of kindness from one spiritual teacher after the other he goes to a lousy therapy session with his wife. "He wanted to see us regularly, at $150 a pop. We left his office and in an epiphany, we both realized that we could save $600 a month if we just tried to be nicer to one another. It definitely works."

Superb!

Sobel's book does what few spiritual books I've read (and I've read my share)have done -- made me laugh at my own shortcomings and embrace my humanity. The true genius of the work lies beyond the abundant humor; Sobel's text has a strong message (in an odd no-message-here kind of way) that the essence of life is wrapped in a package both haunting and uplifting; hilarious and brutal.

Funny and, actually, helpful

Well, I fit the profile of an Ivy League Hippie who, as Eliezer's college roommate, watched him emerge from the musical genius he was freshman year to the Enlightened and Funny Being he is now. I bought this book to support the cause of his small "e" ego and his checking account and found, not entirely to my surprise, that I really enjoyed the book and actually found it Very Helpful. I like seeing all those "isms and ologies" in lite form encapsulated in a stand-up routine. The wisdoms are still wise when they come easy to eat, and the insights feel even more insightful when you read them laughing. May this monkey stay eternally at the gate shouting for entrance and may the movie be not far behind. Doug Day

Fast forward flash back of the best kind

A wonderful ride of a read full of laughs, permission to be, reminders to remember, and the authentic poignancy of truthfulness. Sobel's honesty is a healing in itself that few manage to communicate so seemingly effortlessly in the midst of a tale of so much trying out. Whether you are filling in gaps in your journey or find yourself reminiscing over your own hilarious and horrible times had, this book is a wonderful travel guide for a deep, light and loving trip.