Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spirituality at the End of an Age

This is a work of uncontestable brilliance, the most important contribution to the history of thought since Nietzsche published "The Birth of Tragedy"; in addition to its own merits, it is a monumental work of the intellectual history of humanity from its origin in the protoplasmic goop of the Big Bang through the end of the 1990s.Ebert's essays place him in that great line of scholars that starts with Nietzsche and branches out with Spengler and Jung, Jean Gebser, Joseph Campbell, and William Irwin Thompson. In terms of its creativity, one might call it a contemporary "Finnegans Wake" (without the puns).And though his writing shines with Ra-like luminescence, and for all the passages of soaring lyrical grandeur (his prose at times evocative of the arias of Wagner), Ebert manages to keep his proverbial feet on the ground. He incisively interviews seven fascinating subjects from various academic and theoretical backgrounds, and applies the deft touch of Barbara Walters and razor-sharp intellect of Mike Wallace (his interviewing persona is a sort of hermaphroditic blend of those two) as these magnificent seven share with us fortunate readers the true essence, the cuori sacrissimi, of their various and sundry philosophaei.After reading "Twilight of the Clockwork God," try as they might, readers will never be able to think of life, or humanity, or damned well anything, in the same way, ever again.Be prepared for a mind-blowing paradigm shift on an unprecedented scale. Reading it is like flying on an airplane or losing your virginity.