The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century

Spiritual environmentalist Thom Hartman ventures into the genre of parables with this story about a jaded, unemployed newspaper reporter named Paul Abler. The same day that he's fired for being "too driven" as a reporter, Abler has a spontaneous debate with a street corner religious zealot. Moments later Paul risks his life to rescue a 5-year-old girl who is about to be hit by a Mack truck in a crosswalk. These two chance encounters set off a chain of mystical events that change his life.

Like in any great parable, we see an ordinary skeptic wandering in a land of spiritual teachers disguised as misfits and vagrants. More so, we have a straightforward storyteller, able to keep the dialog moving at a clip while giving a strong sense of scene and action. As Paul heads toward the frightened girl in the crosswalk, Hartmann writes, "Three steps out, the voice inside his head was now shouting, you're gonna die, but he didn't stop. Just five more steps and he could shove the little girl--now frozen in horror staring at the truck, whose brakes were screeching--hard enough to knock her out of the way.... If he succeeded he would then, himself, be in front of the truck that he knew would take his life. But even if he wanted to turn back he'd already gone too fast and too far." Even if readers wanted to turn back from this fast-moving parable they will find themselves, like Paul, mysteriously committed to a magnetic journey through underground tunnels, distant lands, back in time, and into the greatest spiritual secret of the century. --Gail Hudson