Joseph Dispenza has degrees in the humanities and communication. A former monk, former university professor, and cofounder of LifePath Retreats, he writes and is a spiritual counselor. In 2006 Amazon.com listed 16 books by him.

After eight years in a monastery of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Dispenza walked away from his life as a monk and the religion of his youth. The rigid discipline and the required adherence to the orthodoxy of this religious way of life were more than he could stand. In this autobiography I saw both anger and insight – an unusual combination. His anger at his order’s intolerance of alternative understandings made him leave. In that he is unlike Thomas Merton, Joan Chittister or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who wrote and spoke about their alternative understandings, who, even when rebuked by the Roman Catholic hierarchy, stayed within their religious orders.

Joseph Dispenza’s seemingly unforgiving anger at authority seemed to have been too much for him to fight from within, but instead led him to denounce the strict authority from without. It also led him to condemn all religions, not just Roman Catholicism. This to me is quite an over-reaction, for there are many people, both Catholic and Protestant, who value their community and remain within it even when they cannot accept some of its official doctrine. They value community over creeds, and, I believe, want to work towards change from within. Dispenza founded a new spiritual community, but it seems to me that he has lost much by not being able to forgive the religion of his youth for the things he can’t accept. Since his insights on spirituality are often wise and profound, they make this book a worthwhile read. However, I do not rate it highly.