Review by Melchi Asuma -- The Unbound Soul
Posted: 08 Mar 2019, 01:50
[Following is a volunteer review of "The Unbound Soul" by Richard L. Haight.]
4 out of 4 stars
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The Unbound Soul: A Visionary Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment is a spiritual guidance book written by Richard L. Haight. In this book, he tries to help readers achieve a level of spiritual awareness and enlightenment by sharing some of his experiences from childhood and the teachings he learnt from these experiences.
The first part of the book is the author’s autobiography. In this part, he highlights different sections of his life beginning from his childhood, which he claims was pretty normal up until the time he saw a vision of Jesus Christ asking him to ‘help him find his bones’ Up until then, he had never considered himself religious. It was after this encounter that he decided to learn more about religion in an effort to help Jesus and become a great spiritual teacher and leader. In the remaining part of the book, he infuses bits of his life story with spiritual teachings for the reader to achieve ‘spiritual enlightenment.’
Given that this is a memoir, it is really difficult to judge the story and claim that it was either “good” or “bad” as it is someone’s life story. As such, I can only analyze the different writing styles employed by the author, Richard L. Haight, in getting his message across. In that regard, I have to give credit to him as the narration was engaging, humorous and inspirational. Not may memoirs that I have read are as interesting and enthralling as this one. However, classifying it as a memoir is a bit disingenuous as his life story is told in a very small part of the novel. It is more of a spiritual enlightenment book.
However, that said I have to applaud him for sprinkling spiritual teachings alongside his life stories. This made it much more believable. It made me identify with the author and relate what he was talking about to some degree, at least. Granted, spirituality means different things to different people, I felt that the author did not take everyone into account. His was a guide on achieving the New Age spirituality, where he claims top take the best of every teaching and applying it to oneself. However, in my opinion I don’t really think that spirituality is a ‘one shoe fits all’ subject. Everyone is usually different in their beliefs and teachings.
All in all, I enjoyed reading The Unbound Soul more than I though I would. I may not agree with all his teachings but as a novel, it passed all my criteria for what makes a great novel. As such, I have to give it the full 4 out of 4 stars. It was well-written and very professionally edited as I only found one grammatical mistake in it. It should be enjoyed by avid readers of memoirs and spiritual enlightenment books. However, people who are not interested in spiritual teachings may not enjoy it as much.
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The Unbound Soul
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like Melchi Asuma's review? Post a comment saying so!
4 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
The Unbound Soul: A Visionary Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment is a spiritual guidance book written by Richard L. Haight. In this book, he tries to help readers achieve a level of spiritual awareness and enlightenment by sharing some of his experiences from childhood and the teachings he learnt from these experiences.
The first part of the book is the author’s autobiography. In this part, he highlights different sections of his life beginning from his childhood, which he claims was pretty normal up until the time he saw a vision of Jesus Christ asking him to ‘help him find his bones’ Up until then, he had never considered himself religious. It was after this encounter that he decided to learn more about religion in an effort to help Jesus and become a great spiritual teacher and leader. In the remaining part of the book, he infuses bits of his life story with spiritual teachings for the reader to achieve ‘spiritual enlightenment.’
Given that this is a memoir, it is really difficult to judge the story and claim that it was either “good” or “bad” as it is someone’s life story. As such, I can only analyze the different writing styles employed by the author, Richard L. Haight, in getting his message across. In that regard, I have to give credit to him as the narration was engaging, humorous and inspirational. Not may memoirs that I have read are as interesting and enthralling as this one. However, classifying it as a memoir is a bit disingenuous as his life story is told in a very small part of the novel. It is more of a spiritual enlightenment book.
However, that said I have to applaud him for sprinkling spiritual teachings alongside his life stories. This made it much more believable. It made me identify with the author and relate what he was talking about to some degree, at least. Granted, spirituality means different things to different people, I felt that the author did not take everyone into account. His was a guide on achieving the New Age spirituality, where he claims top take the best of every teaching and applying it to oneself. However, in my opinion I don’t really think that spirituality is a ‘one shoe fits all’ subject. Everyone is usually different in their beliefs and teachings.
All in all, I enjoyed reading The Unbound Soul more than I though I would. I may not agree with all his teachings but as a novel, it passed all my criteria for what makes a great novel. As such, I have to give it the full 4 out of 4 stars. It was well-written and very professionally edited as I only found one grammatical mistake in it. It should be enjoyed by avid readers of memoirs and spiritual enlightenment books. However, people who are not interested in spiritual teachings may not enjoy it as much.
******
The Unbound Soul
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like Melchi Asuma's review? Post a comment saying so!