Jed McKenna is a spiritual dude. He plays video games, he rides a 
mountain bike, he skydives, he reads Walt Whitman. Jed McKenna is an enlightened teacher. He had an ashram in Iowa, numerous students (several of whom became enlightened), and has several books to his name: Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing, Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment, Spiritual Warfare, and Jed McKenna’s Theory of Everything.
A lot of folks criticize Jed McKenna because he doesn’t fit their image of a spiritual teacher. Fortunately, Jed likes to talk about himself, so we can see he’s not such a bad guy:
All eyes are watching me expectantly. “What’s the wisefool gonna say?” they wonder. That’s part of the drama.
A few pockets of resistance pop up, but I plow over them. Their indignation is as meaningless to me as the growls of little pink puppies. I’m indulging myself with a somewhat more forceful manner of communicating now, mainly for my own amusement, and their reaction at this stage is not a factor.
Jed has a stark vision of the quest for Truth:
I like happiness as much as the next guy, but it’s not happiness that sends one in search of truth. It’s rabid, feverish, clawing madness to stop being a lie, regardless of price, come heaven or hell. This isn’t about higher consciousness or self-discovery or heaven on earth. This is about blood-caked swords and Buddha’s rotting head and self-immolation, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something they don’t have.
Yet this stark, no-nonsense approach garners praise for shattering imprisioning images of teachers and the spiritual search.
The emperor has no clothes, and sooner or later everyone is going to see what’s staring them right in the face. When that happens, perhaps, there will be a major shift—a mass exodus away from the complexity and futility of all spiritual teachings. An exodus not outward toward Japan or India or Tibet, but inward, toward the self—toward self-reliance, toward self-determination, toward a common sense approach to figuring out just what the hell’s going on around here. A wiping of the slate. A fresh start. Sincere, intelligent people dispensing with the past and beginning anew. Beginning by asking themselves, “Okay, where are we? What do we know for sure? What do we know that’s true?”
Here’s a simple test. If it’s soothing or comforting, if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy; if it’s about getting into pleasant emotional or mental states; if it’s about peace, love, tranquility, silence or bliss; if it’s about a brighter future or a better tomorrow; if it makes you feel good about yourself or boosts your self-esteem, tells you you’re okay, tells you everything’s just fine the way it is; if it offers to improve, benefit or elevate you, or if it suggests that someone else is better or above you; if it’s about belief or faith or worship; if it raises or alters consciousness; if it combats stress or deepens relaxation, or if it’s therapeutic or healing, or if it promises happiness or relief from unhappiness, if it’s about any of these or similar things, then it’s not about waking up. Then it’s about living in the dreamstate, not smashing out of it.
On the other hand, if it feels like you’re being skinned alive, if it feels like a prolonged evisceration, if you feel your identity unraveling, if it twists you up physically and drains your health and derails your life, if you feel love dying inside you, if it seems like death would be better, then it’s probably the process of awakening. That, or a helluva case of gas.
There is truth in McKenna’s books, yet it is wrapped in fantasy. I criticize McKenna, but praise his first book Spiritual Enlightenment: The Damnedest Thing.
Who is Jed McKenna? Jed McKenna doesn’t exist (I’m sure “he” would agree with this on one level!) — there is no teacher named Jed, no Iowa ashram, and no students as described in his books. It is all a fake. What evidence do I have for this? the fact that there is no evidence for any of it. No photos, no face-to-face meetings, no one saying they have ever met the man or been his student (I welcome any evidence to the contrary). McKenna expertly diffuses this objection:
Q: We’ve received many questions about you personally. People want to know about your history, your relationships, your finances, everything. For instance, do you have friends? Do you socialize beyond the student/teacher relationship?
JM: This whole thing really has nothing to do with me personally and it would be counter-productive to shift the focus onto me.
Q: It’s easy to understand why people would be curious.
JM:I’m not relevant to anyone’s search. I’m just a finger pointing at the moon. There’s nothing to be learned from the finger. Everybody’s eager to find a distraction from the real work of waking up, but that’s all it is, a distraction.
Whoever writes under the name “McKenna” is not a teacher and probably not enlightened, as evidenced by this wishful thinking:
That’s why it might seem like I never give a straight answer to a straight question. Rather, I use the question, or the first few words of the question, to determine the next thing the student needs to hear. The student has no idea what the next thing they need to hear might be, but I know exactly what it is because I’m looking down from an elevation that lets me see exactly where they are, where they want to be, and where they have to go to get there. It’s all perfectly clear to me, but because they don’t have that overview, students cannot effectively chart their own course. That’s the role of the teacher, otherwise everyone could just pick up a book and, as Jolene puts it,bam!
Yet, the mystery writer has interacted with some hard-hitting teachers and understands many of the misconceptions that seekers labor under. There is some great advice in the first book:
Your moments of blackest despair are really your most honest moments—your most lucid moments. That’s when you’re seeing without your protective lenses. That’s when you pull back the curtain and see things as they are.
Self-realization isn’t about more, it’s about less. The only construction required for awakening is that which facilitates demolition.
If I were to reduce this book and my teachings to their essence, I would say it all comes down to nothing more than this: Think for yourself and figure out what’s true. That’s it. Ask yourself what’s true until you know. Everything else in this book, everything else I have to say on the subject, turns on that center.
I never thought of waking up as a spiritual pursuit, I just wanted to get to the truth. Looking back, I can see where I might have used the word “infinity” in a koan-like manner; kind of a Western version of mu. Infinity is beautiful; it destroys everything it touches. It annihilates all concepts, all beliefs, all sense of self. No teacher, teaching, book or practice could ever be as effective as simply allowing the thought of infinity to slowly devour you.
If you wish to make this transition in your own life—to awaken within the dream, to shuffle off the egoic coil—my suggestion would be that you combine Spiritual Autolysis with fervent prayer, using each to advance the other. Use the writing to locate and illuminate your falseness and thereby develop a healthy self-contempt. The strength of that emotion will then empower your prayer, which should be for the courage and ability to locate and illuminate your falseness, and so on.
Why ruin good advice with fiction? Because of the very things Jed rails against: people love drama, the story. McKenna spins the story of his self, the teacher, expertly disassembling the belief systems of all he meets. Just as people became enthralled with Carlos Castaneda’s Don Juan, so too will they be with Jed.
Why care that it is fiction? Because Jed places great emphasis on the lack of success of spiritual teachers.
Don’t you think it’s reasonable to ask to know a teacher’s success rate? The proof is in the pudding, right? Didn’t you ask them about the fruit of their teachings when you started with them?”
He claims that he has a number of enlightened students. If this is all fiction, then his teaching and method is a suspect as any other with a success rate of zero.
Jed McKenna’s second book Spiritually Incorrect Enlightenment is forgettable. It features a series of encounters with stock, clueless spiritual seekers, of whom the wisest become awed by Jed. Combine that with a lot of U.G. Krishnamuti quotes, the ranting emails of one of his students, and Jed’s self-proclaimed breakthrough interpretation ofMoby Dick, and you have … well, I’m not sure what you have besides a paean to Jed Mckenna.
I’ll leave you with one more quote from the first book:
“Spiritual awakening,” I continue, “is about discovering what’s true. Anything that’s not about getting to the truth must be discarded. Truth isn’t about knowing things—you already know too much. It’s about un knowing. It’s not about becoming true, it’s about un becoming false so that all that’s left is truth. If you want to become a priest or a lama or a rabbi or a theologian, then there’s a lot to learn—tons and tons. But if you want to figure out what’s true, then it’s a whole different process and the last thing you need is more knowledge.”
Read Jed McKenna’s first book, then if you’re ready to make the First Step away from the false, investigate some real people like Bob Cergol or Bob Fergeson who are living the stark truths that McKenna eloquently speaks of.
If you like a good story, check out Dave Gold’s book, After the Absolute. It is an entertaining read about his life with the teacher Richard Rose. Filled with great quotes and true stories, it is time better spent than with Jed McKenna’s fiction. By the way, a couple of people have speculated on the Internet that Jed McKenna and Richard Rose are the same person. That is definitely not true. I knew Richard Rose, and he was not Jed. Also confirmed as “not Jed McKenna” are: August Turak, David Scoma.
Ezinearticles.com has four articles by Jed McKenna you can read for free.
Lastly, in case you were wondering, I am not Jed McKenna. However, as a thank you for visiting, enjoy free shipping and get a signed copy of my book Subtraction: The Simple Math of Enlightenment for only $12.95. It’s better than Jed….
I kind of liked reading Jed McKennas books. At least the first one.
I was open to him being the real deal…
…Then came “Theory of everything”. I’ts sad that the whole premise of the book is based on a really weak argument.
“If
Truth is All
and
Consciousness Exists
then
Consciousness is All”
He says “Check your assumtions!” and its obvious it is exactly what he himself should do.
Too bad.
BTW:
Listening to August Turak speaking on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAJiT_Nhkg4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlSxvVtrZak
and after seing him in the film “Mr Rose” I really get the sense that he is Jed McKenna.
Hi Tommy. Thanks for stopping by. I just talked with August Turak a couple of days ago and he commented how people keep asking him if he is Jed McKenna. I am confident he is not.
Thanks for getting back.
OK, I trust your judgment on that. But still…:)
After “Theory…” though, to me that question about the pseudonym isn’t as interesting anymore.
BTW, Thanks for all the great work you have been doing running this website!
Mr Turak isn’t Jed McKenna.
Imagine if August Turak read Jed McKenna’s book after people, as Shawn mentioned above, brought him to his attention.
Here’s a guy – Turak – who writes about selflessness, who’s been known to skydive, who knew an enlightened teacher from Virginia, who had a dog named Dharma, and who knows someone named Pete Reilly.
And he comes across these books by someone who writes about selflessness, who’s been known to skydive, who knew an enlightened teacher from Virginia, who has a dog named Maya, and who knows someone named Pete Reilly (who has the copyrights to McKenna’s books).
What a coincydink … I’d be a bit spooked, to say the least!
You can add one more coincidence to the match of August Turak and Jed McKenna. In the book Jed McKenna Notebook, Jed writes about a person he knew named Frank that was an advocate of LSD. Jed actually speaks highly about Frank. Who is Frank? August Turak has done therapy work with a man named William Richards. Richards is a famous LSD advocate. August has been known to call William Richards his mentor. Coincidence?
Clearly Tommy you did not get ‘it’, I’ll get to Verena later on. There was no need for anyone to get anything, so in that respect the material clearly succeded. The process described in all books is a purely logical one mainly derived from deductions. Whatever stands after all is dead, burned and buried must be true. There is no other way and things could not be simpler. Who cares who McKenna is? What the face lookes like? Why? So you can judge whether or not he says is true or not?! It’s all about you! Didn’t you get that yet? It’s irrelevant, simply because killing the Buddha also meant killing McKenna. Knowing comes from within. Wanting to know that face proves your attention is aimed at the ‘has been processes’ seemlingly occuring outside of ‘you’. Mis-take. You’re looking in the wrong place, you’re asking the wrong question. You weren’t reading some books; you are writing the story as you go along. Same goes for Verena: all is consciousness, including the Universe, your ego, your opinion, whatever. Switching the labels simply helps you under-stand that not the Universe is (ever) leading, but that it is a playground which sprouted from and within consciousness. Feel the change by placing the dot on a piece of paper, and then looking at it first from the perspective of the human looking at it as if it represented consciousness (as most humans look at it btw) and then – feeling the change of the widening perspective – switching the labels from human in U-rex to consciousness in C-rex looking at it’s creation, the Universe. Again; it could not be simpler. I suggest you both do the work, dig deeper within; – or not, because it is useless anyway – then you will know there will be questions no more. Then you are truely done. Adios!
How you can see anything but clouds from that high horse of yours is beyond this benighted fool.
Thank you
Wisely spoken!
I loved the book and understood most of it while reading. That says enough I guess. It helped me getting trough my last answers, and I wasn’t even looking for them. I’m on the start of writing my own first book now as being a noobie in “all this”, but certain of sharing some unique experiences in the context i’m gonna write them down.
Good luck everyone!
Jed Mckenna = Stephen Mitchell ( husband of Byron Katie ) , in my opinion. I read some of Mitchell’s books and noted a similarity in style with Jed Mckenna.
Stephen Mitchell is a spiritual author , poet, translator, scholar, and anthologist. He is married to author Byron Katie. Mitchell was educated at Amherst College, the University of Paris, and Yale University. He is widely known for his translations of ancient classics such as Tao Te Ching.
Stephen Mitchell’s books include The Gospel According to Jesus, Tao Te Ching, Byron Katie’s A Thousand Names for Joy, etc.
Well, if August Turak really is Jed McKenna- why on earth should he lift the curtain? That said, he or anybody else who is- or is not Jed McKenna is kind of bound to say ‘no’ when being asked- right?
What I really would like to ask you, Tommy, is why you think the mentioned assumptions are weak?
The only flaw I detected in this Theory of everything is, when he comes to the idea of switching labels, regarding the universe an consciousness.
That is, in the ‘U-rex’ paradigm, nobody would say, that consciousness doesn’t exist only because it is located in the body, which is located in the universe.
But after switching labels he falsely concludes that the whole universe wouldn’t exist, only because now it is ‘located’ within consciousness.
A kind of non-dual, nihilist trap, that is already being pointed out in the term ‘neti, neti’ -neither this, nor that. As I see it, he kind of tries to kill the living paradox that becomes apparent in realization. That too me, is a poor understanding, since nothing is won by simply changing the content of the claim. E.g. claiming there is someone in a sense is the same thing as claiming there is no one.
Still, the core assumptions too me seem to be fairly accurate. Thus, I’d love to hear from you, what exactly is wrong about them.
Thanks in advance!
Jed’s new book review
http://www.zmark.ca/2016/12/jed-mckenna-dreamstate-conspiracy-theory.html
Hi Zee! Thanks for the link.
I think it is AdyaShanti
May well be. In the Mckenna books it has a very ‘American’ syntax structure to the writing, yet in Jed Mckenna’s online forum he writes in somewhat of a style that suggests he is from somewhere like Inda. I only suggest this as his writing in English is slightly disjointed and reminds me of someone from that part of the world who has English as their second language. Unless of course this style is just another double bluff.
If you don’t know who it is, how can you say for certain who it isn’t?
Here is a photo of August Turak with Richard Rose:
http://augustturak.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/RR_Kitchen.jpg
Here is a purported photo of Jed: http://datinggod.typepad.com/datinggod/images/2007/12/10/jed_mckenna_2.jpg
Chances are that the guy that writes the forum in not the author of the books.
In addition, the books are licensed to Peter Sweeney at Wise Fool Press. Could Peter Sweeney be the brother to Anne, who has a long relationship with Turak?: http://www.augustturak.com/the-next-fortune-500-female-ceo-its-a-lock/
Then there is this:http://spiritualteachers.proboards.com/thread/850/site?page=2
As I pointed out above, there are interesting similarities between the two. But there are also interesting discrepancies: McKenna writes about his aversion to places “where the greed and vanity of the people seem to permeate the air”. Turak is a salesman, now selflessly slaving away at his Twitter feed to push his service schtick, and as a salesman, he would naturally, in fact inevitably and constantly find himself in situations and places where ego and money is the name of the game.
But who knows? In his latest boon to humanity, “Dreamstate”, McKenna writes: “Advertising is […] the art and science of monetizing fear”.
Perhaps the salesman and the enlightened teacher converge after all, sharing a laugh or two on the way to the bank …
Look at the marketing of the McKenna books, the bonus content in the PDFs, the republishing of the bonus content in physical book form as a bonus for buying the trilogy in physical book form, etc. Wisefool Press is McKenna. That strengthens the Turak connection for me rather than diminishing it.
Completely right, Joe. There are far too many similarities to completely dismiss Turak: the skydiving, his dog Dharma (compare with McKenna’s dog Maya), the obvious marketing acumen that has made McKenna’s books such a success, the enlightened teacher in West Virginia … Of course, there are also many similarities in the ideas they disseminate.
My hunch is that Turak and Peder Sweeney wrote the books together.
Thomas Pynchon is Jed.
Jed has an online forum at: http://jedmckenna.createaforum.com/
where he posts just about every day. Good stuff. I’ve been reading it for a couple of years now. Apparently he is in Cambodia where he runs his “Navigator Series” for students.
That forum is a testament to the intellectual capabilities of his readership.
In other words, that’s not him.
It is him.
Well, that’s that, then – at least as far as you are concerned. But it most definitely is not; however, believing anything you want is your prerogative.
For the more curious I’ll mention that he makes a reference to impostors pretending to be him on the Internet in his next to latest book, “Dreamstate”. Make of that what you will (as if anyone could stop you!).
I know. I have been a member of his forum for some time. I tried to take the Navigator
series but he said I was not ready yet. After going further he let me taken the series and it changed my life. He might be mad at me for sharing this, he told me to get of all kind of social media like Facebook and Twitter, but I feel I have to. I can not be certain this man (or woman) is Jed McKenna but after the series I do not even care. I went so far as to go to Cambodia in search of this great man just to thank him. No luck so far but at least I’m over my lifelong depression.
Surely someone could have hooked you up with some drugs, street or legal, to overcome your “lifelong depression”. Couldn’t cost all that much more than a (fruitless?) trip to Cambodia …
No the forum is run by a Canadian conman called Ken Mcmordie he is scamming money from people. He fled Canada after running a Ponzi scam
When i first woke up inside a dream i approached a dream character and asked whether he knew he was in a dream i was having. He laughed at me, said i was crazy, and walked away.
If someone came up to me in waking life and told me that i am a character in their dream i would laugh at them, tell them they’re crazy, and walk away.
What if someone told you you were dreaming that you had woken up?
Would you laugh at them, too, or would you get your thinking cap on and actually consider the statement honestly and truthfully?
Then you are still sleeping…..
Jed McKenna is a salesman who believes he woke up, and is now catering to a non-spiritual demographic within the spirituality marketplace.
I agree with those that believe Jed is Adyashanti. Reading Emptiness Dancing recently, that are various sections with sentences almost verbatim from Jed’s conceptual staple – ‘no belief is true’ and ‘dreamstate’ are two of them. The lectures from that book are from 2001 and I believe Jed’s first book is from 2003-2004 perhaps? In the End of your world there is the same underlying message and view of enlightenment as radical demolition and deconstruction, which few other contemporary teachers spouse, Jed being one of them. I have a feeling that Jed might be a hard-hitting voice that perhaps Adya couldn’t integrate in his formal teacher role. This is not unusual with writers and poets. Perhaps if it turns out to be him in the near future, he could integrate these two facets and become a completely new teacher. Well, who knows.
I have no idea who Jed McKenna is, nor do I have an idea if the guy moderating the JedMcKenna forum is indeed Jed or just some guy or girl claiming to be him.
I would advise people to stick to what they know to be true and not stick to what they don’t know to be true.
Seems to have helped all the enlightened folk…
Interesting! It looks like Jed Mckenna is actually Ken McMordie. A man who, if you are Canadian, might owe you money. Details: https://enlightenmentmyth.com/
Hate to say I told you so, but …
“Jed McKenna is not an active teacher, online or off. He does not engage in social media or forums. He does not give classes or workshops or accept money from students. He has no teachings or products other than those offered by Wisefool Press and our international publishing partners. Anyone claiming to be Jed or to speak for him is misrepresenting themselves. -WP”
This being the disclaimer on the front page of the Wisefool Press website.
Told you so.
Jed McKenna is a fictitious literary character and so cannot engage in any of those activities. The disclaimer is both true to nominal reality and deceptive to factual reality.
It is part of the marketing Game. If Wisefool had truly wanted to dispel the myth of the impostor – they would have been less ambiguous.
Jed McKenna’s books are for morons.
As has been amply proved by his readers, here and elsewhere …
We are all morons, until some become not.
Jed McKenna was once a moron too and didn’t hide this fact.
The desperate searcher will give anything for the key that will shift perception, the key needed here was found in Damnedest, for that I am forever grateful as the shift is abiding. The personality behind the book, totally incidental and irrelevant.
I thought it was the shower, Steve.
You would say the same even if the personality behind turned out to be a murderer. Lack of critical thinking on the lines of ‘Nothing really matters’ is not what Mr. McKenna advocates, but he surely advocates that in relation to his own persona ‘I am only the finger’ and all that nonsense.
Who any man is and what ANY man is made of in real life – matters. A man can sound beautiful on paper and be the SOB in life.
Take more showers perhaps.
A few years ago I surmised that Jed is August Turak, or at least his creation. This was after reading the first three books. I don’t know a lot about Richard Rose, but I’ve read some of his stuff and seen some of the videos. One day in thinking about who Jed is, I saw Jed and Richard Rose overlapping, the character Jed having characteristics of Richard Rose. And then I realized that if this was true I had visited and walked around the house in The Damnest having attended a TAT meeting about 20 years ago. As for August denying this, as already stated by another here, of course he would deny it. To add, I don’t think the internet web site guy is Jed, so the guy in Southeast Asia is likewise not Jed. (A while back, maybe about a year ago, I traded about ten exchanges with the website Jed, he’s pretty good, cut to the chase pretty quick with me, but don’t think he’s the writer of the books. Tano’s accounts of the guy she knows pretty-much seals the deal for me that it isn’t him).
The Invisible Guru forum host is not Jed McKenna. I started with the premise that he was, but in the course of the 2017-2018 discovered his identity and got the confirmation.
Reality is stranger than fiction, or I would say.. Reality feeds the fiction with rich and often improbable details.
Regardless of whether Jed is real or not, his first book was full of very funny irony, some of it subtle, but most of it was so overt that it’s just as equally funny to recognize when someone has failed to notice it. All the drama about Jed’s identity is of course, very precisely, one of those ironies.
Regardless of whether or not the author has ever tried to “teach” anyone about the existential truth, the one spiritual practice that Jed recommends is a potential show-stopper. It’s also one that the internet was tailor-made to enhance.
Shawn — thanks, as always for your recommendations, they’re almost always worth the time, and I look forward to following up on the ones in this article when I can find some.
I’ve been obsessed on and off for years about who the author of the JMK books was. I devoted literally thousands of hours doing of research and reading and listening and web surfing of all sorts of different spiritual teachers – both popular and obscure (I was also on a spiritual ‘knowledge’ journey). I found 2 or 3 pretty good matches. But then I became convinced that the old Jed forum guru was actually him and stopped searching (since for at least 4 years).
Sigh. Thanks Tano for the clarity :-).
So, the last few weeks I’ve done some revisiting of my prior guesses.
The JMK authur that I now believe is one that I had dismissed previously for a range of reasons. But in revisiting and digging a bit deeper and without the prior ‘rose’ colored glasses (scuse the pun) – everything adds up to AT. Yup.! The contents, the writing quality, the timing of the books (AT retired in 2000), the intellectual depth and smarts, the quotes every chapter, the wide understanding of spiritual philosophy, the style, the life stories, the various terms (‘Truth’ being an obvious one), the process of SA, the desire to teach and disseminate the truth, the desire for anonymity, the ability/money to set it all up so well to publish, the marketing, the bloody dog – lol. So… what did we all think the author actually ‘did’ day to day before and between writing books! He sure as hell likely doesn’t lead a normal suburban life.
AT isn’t willing to put his name to them as they aren’t particularly kind to ‘christianity’ (nor any religion for that matter) and his world is surrounded by christian endorsements and friends (we are talking the US here!). Why upset his own Apple cart? (to use a phrase both JMK and AT have used!). He can continue his life and ‘selfless’ service teachings for those not ready for the unvarnished truth – but can write it anonymously for those that can take it. I love that it’s AT behind the curtin – JMK is a wealthy entrepreneur who posites business success as a side-effect of no-self (selfless service). Very apt.
Sias..
Do you think it’s okay for Jed that people find out he ist AT?
SIAS, do you think it’s okay for Jed that people find out he is AT?
He seems clever enough to be able to hide all sorts of hints about his true being (in sense of personhood, not his *true* true being, which he does not hide at all 😉 )
Kind regards from Germany
Garjan
SIAS, shouldn’t Jed be able to hide all hints to his true being (meaning personhood not *true* true being ;)) if he wants to? Seems to be a smart guy…
Kind regards from Germany..
Garjan
Hi Garjan, great questions…. for what it’s worth – my 2 cents follows;
I think AT wrote the JMK books anonymously for 2 (or possibly more) reasons. He didn’t want to upset his own apple-cart life, but probably mainly because he knew that readers would have filtered the message and teachings he wanted to convey through his ‘AT’ persona. And, the way he wanted to write the books – i.e. a combination of fact, fiction, philosophy, teachings and stories – could only really be written by either an anonymous author, a previously unknown author or a very well respected/known ‘spiritual’ guru. AT was none of these (although he was/is a respected spiritual identity, he is more known for being a successful, spiritual businessman and a student of RR). He is however, a very smart man who has dedicated his life to Truth and to leading others there. He realised that if these books had his name as the author they would not be as credible as if they had the JMK pseudonym. But honestly, if you do some research on RR and AT (including the wayback machine) there are so many matches, similar stories, approaches and flavors it would be hard to contemplate the possibility of a different author – especially if you’ve looked extensively for alternatives. I’ve also done lots of research on into who it could be (reading their books, listening to interviews, communicating with them, researching their history). Most were/are easy to negate very quickly (sort of like a spiritual autolysis process – lol), but I came up with a few whom I really, really hoped was it (Adyashanti, Greg Goode, Richard Bach). But they all fell away as the ‘one’ at some stage. I was also completely misdirected by the wonderfully convincing invisible ‘Jed McKenna’ guru who ran a couple of on-line forums forums – whom I though was the real deal author (he’s a good ‘guru’ – just not the JMK author). Interestingly, I’d also researched AT and the rest of the RR crew as possibilities too – but was too attached to my own vision of who JMK ‘really’ was, and the likelihood of the other possibilities, to consider AT as more than a second level option. But I never ‘negated’ him out.
AT has done an incredible job of keeping his identity secret. Truly incredible. Especially as there must be a decent number of people who know it’s him as the have helped with the writing/publication etc. And there are those that MUST know it is AT (e.g. the owner of this website) but feel a responsibility not to ‘tell’ – and in fact to even mislead as to it NOT being AT (why?). I wouldn’t be surprised either the first book was driven by AT but was written in collaboration with the old RR group (the current TAT crew) or if a draft of the first book was distributed to them for review and comment – hence them keeping the obvious secret as they were all ‘in on it’ from the start. All good – they know the books really were written by no-one (lol). When RR died AT decided to write some more JMK books himself as he owned the franchise.
So, to your concern about Jed being outed. Well, this is all just my opinion – not proof -just another story. Other people have said they believe it’s AT in the past. My opinion is not ‘new’ or unique. It will convince no-one who has their own story or belief as to who the author should/could be. Unless they did the amount of research I did – my opinion will be dismissed as just another opinion – not proof. And so it is 🙂
The JMK books are wonderfully entertaining and a massive smack in the head – but I eventually wanted to stop being entertained with stories and philosophy and wanted to wake the fuck up. I could never get a handle on JMKs spiritual autolysis process. So, if anyone does think my ‘opinion’ is interesting and started looking into RR and his teachings – they would find a wealth of very useful Jed-like insights into Truth realisation and especially ‘self-investigation’, that certainly for me are more easy ‘to do’ than the JMK process. Also, check-out Michael Langford’s amazingly simple and straightforward ‘rapid’ direct path teachings https://albigen.com/uarelove/most_rapid/contents.htm.
Best of luck
There is no I and there is no am. I just killed Jed. NEXT.
Further Jed, past the trilogy, into a series of dreams killing all the I’s and all the am’s along the way.
Happy Trails To You because there is no one here and there is no here. Isn’t that great? It is great if you have no attachments to dreamstuff.
hahaha I love it. It couldn’t make more sense and it couldn’t be any better.
THIS is what you call “done” but there’s always further.
Writing style, premise, imagery, and ideas have always smacked of a Ken Wilber “alter ego.”
Why does any of this discussion even matter? We are who we are and the author is who the author is. We can only do the foot work into our respective selves, if there is such a thing. You can spend all the time you want trying to figure this thing out and come up with a handful of air.
++++
In the book “Jed McKenna Notebook”, Jed mentions someone he knows by the name Frank that is an advocate of LSD. Jed actually speaks quite highly of him. August Turak has gone through therapy with a famous LSD advocate by the name William Richards. August has referred to him in the past as his mentor. Coincidence?
Instead of getting to the core, you’re blablah about who Jed really is. Who cares?
Aren’t you too fond of messing with “personalities”?
Coincidence, Shawn.
How many people in so called spiritual circles took a liking to psychedelics in false hope of getting to ‘enlightenment’? My guess – a lot.
August Turuk admittedly confessed that he read the book Moby Dick over fifty times. Is there a possible connection there?
Shawn,
Imagine that I read ‘Moby Dick’ once and put it aside.
Then I read Jed McKenna’s literary observations about the book, grabbed the book and read it fifty times, looking for deeper meanings in it.
Possible? In other words, what occurred first: reading ‘Moby Dick’ fifty times OR reading Jed McKenna and THEN reading ‘Moby Dick’ fifty times?
Did August Turak also confess to reading Jed McKenna —> is question I would ask.
Correlation does not imply causation, right?
August Turak has said that he never read any of the Jed Mckenna books (probably because he wrote them). August has been obsessed in reading the book Moby Dick most of his life.
I once corresponded with customers for four very successful escorts, who initiated meetings with their clients via personal correspondence initiated on an escort website .
I pretended to be them, freeing them up to live their lives and consequently only needing to show up, offer their salacious wares, entertain the men, and be on their way.
BTW, I am not Jed McKenna, but I’m sure he would excel in my former role.