Book: Sceptical Spirituality

Making a Start in Spiritual Metaphysics

You really need to want to know the truth for yourself

Peter Eastman
13 min readMar 8, 2023

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Collage artwork by the author.
Genuine objective knowledge vs the sentimental imagination (Artwork by the author.)

First of all, before we even begin (!), you have to realise that this is all going to be about using your mind — that is, your discriminating intellect, and your thinking ability — to ‘set you free’, because you have no other capacity at your disposal with which you can meaningfully engage in this quest. Your heartfelt feelings (your innermost ‘love’ and ‘divine lovely goodness’ and ‘loving kindness’) are — if you can be bothered to examine them critically — infantile, selfish, sentimental and, worst of all, completely useless when it comes to helping your mind to think clearly and objectively as to how to get yourself out of the confusing, bewildering and tormenting mess that is the human condition. You cannot ‘love’ your way out of anything, and it’s childish to think you can: no one has ever managed it in all of the ongoing nightmare that is human history.

New Age piffle

So we’re not wasting time on anything that involves our ‘deep feelings’ and ‘love groovings’ and ‘divine yearnings’. These misdirecting phantoms are the incredibly popular soft engine of New Age kumbaya piffle, and they will keep you locked in a sentimental silliness which will prevent…

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Peter Eastman

Independent Buddhist counsellor, teacher & writer. Objective spirituality, devoid of doctrine, belief & faith. No paywall: https://petereastman.substack.com/.