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A Death on Diamond Mountain
Scott Carney
A True Story of Obsession, Madness, and the Path to Enlightenment
Gotham
March 2015
On Sale: March 17, 2015
304 pages ISBN: 1592408613 EAN: 9781592408610 Kindle: B00L9AY08S Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
An investigative reporter explores an infamous case where
an obsessive and unorthodox search for enlightenment went
terribly wrong. When thirty-eight-year-old
Ian Thorson died from dehydration and dysentery on a remote
Arizona mountaintop in 2012, The New York Times
reported the story under the headline: "Mysterious
Buddhist Retreat in the Desert Ends in a Grisly Death."
Scott Carney, a journalist and anthropologist who lived in
India for six years, was struck by how Thorson’s death
echoed other incidents that reflected the
little-talked-about connection between intensive meditation
and mental instability. Using these tragedies
as a springboard, Carney explores how those who go to
extremes to achieve divine revelations—and undertake it in
illusory ways—can tangle with madness. He also delves into
the unorthodox interpretation of Tibetan Buddhism that
attracted Thorson and the bizarre teachings of its chief
evangelists: Thorson’s wife, Lama Christie McNally, and her
previous husband, Geshe Michael Roach, the supreme spiritual
leader of Diamond Mountain University, where Thorson
died. Carney unravels how the cultlike
practices of McNally and Roach and the questionable
circumstances surrounding Thorson’s death illuminate a
uniquely American tendency to mix and match eastern
religious traditions like LEGO pieces in a quest to reach an
enlightened, perfected state, no matter the
cost. Aided by Thorson’s private papers, along
with cutting-edge neurological research that reveals the
profound impact of intensive meditation on the brain and
stories of miracles and black magic, sexualized rituals, and
tantric rites from former Diamond Mountain acolytes, A
Death on Diamond Mountain is a gripping work of
investigative journalism that reveals how the path to
enlightenment can be riddled with danger.
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