Missouri Mystic

MM is a fabulous book. It made me smile, laugh and cry my heart out. Jon's story is heartwarming and thought provoking and a must read for all "Course in Miracle Students".

**** I enjoyed Karen Bentley's review (above) of Jon Mundy's "Missouri Mystic"---it is comprehensive and there is not a lot that I can add to it. I just finished reading Missouri Mystic, and although I did enjoy it for the most part, I only gave it four stars because I'm not sure that everyone will enjoy it as much as she did. It is pretty much all that she describes it to be, a candid and revealing spiritual autobiography of an authentic and admirable man. Jon Mundy is very highly regarded in the "Course in Miracles" community as an esteemed spiritual teacher. His experiences are diverse and interesting to read about. That said, certain things about the book made it hard for me to get through. The author's writing style is in the present tense, even when he is talking about the past. I have not encountered this type of literary device before, and found it a bit distracting. Another thing that was hard about the book was that there was a lot of detail; some of this detail enhanced the book, I thought, like the detail about his spiritual experiences. Much of the rest of the detail about the events of his life that were not as pertinent to his spiritual journey seemed tedious to me. Overall, though, this is an excellent book, and one that anyone interested in people's spiritual journeys would find worthwhile. I do not think you need to be a student of "A Course in Miracles" either, to benefit from reading it. I was glad I read it. I feel like I received benefit from knowing more about a humble and honest man. ****

Many people claim to be serious spritual seekers, but few dedicate a lifetime to the study and personal experience of a wide range of religions and mystical practices. In Missouri Mystic the reader is able to objectively sample the search for God through the wide open mind of author Jon Mundy, PhD. Being the quintessential Missourian, Mundy constantly poses the same "show me" question. How does this system of thought work? What's behind everything? And then he shares his remarkable findings with us.Mundy heard and responded to the call to God at the age of nine when he started holding church services for family, dolls, and animals. By the time he's 19 Mundy officially baptizes seven people in the Cuivre River. Eventually he becomes a Methodist minister, but still there is an undercurrent of interest that takes him elsewhere. He continues to check out other Christian Churches. He studies Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism and the Kabbalah. In addition, there are the great mystical thinkers of the world such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and others that turn him on. And finally Mundy begins to dabble with alternative paths to God including yoga, meditation, healing, parapsychology, firewalking, dream interpretation and LSD.Says Mundy, "I long for the deeper experience I have read about in the mystics' descriptions of rapture." So he slips on his backpack and begins a trek through India in search of a living avatar. Along the way he meets Rajneesh, Sai Baba and Muktananda. Of the three, Mundy is convinced that Rajneesh "has it, that he is enlightened." Yet it's back in New York City that Mundy finally finds what he's spent almost thirty years looking for. It comes to him in the form of a book, A Course In Miracles(r), which is personally presented to him by scribe Helen Schucman. "Helen hands me the newly printed book and says I think you're supposed to teach this."The Course, as it's also known, brings Mundy to the end of his 22-year relationship with traditional religion. "Over the years, I've come to believe that the church provides a kind of inoculation against religious experience. It gives enough experience so you feel as though you've got something. It is somehow also not 'the' experience..We go to church and get a vaccination to protect ourselves against the real thing...Despite its profound message, to my surprise, the Course interests few ministers. After Mundy leaves the Methodist Church he becomes co-founder of an Interfaith Fellowship. While this non-traditional religious interlude satisfies for a while, it's in his break from any organized religion whatsoever that Mundy finally finds his peace and his place.Mundy's quest for God unfolds against the backdrop of his personal life, and he is in no way exempt from the milestones and melodramas that we all share in our earthly experience. This guy from Missouri tells all about the women he's loved and lost, the money he's made and lost, and the disappointments he's encounter