Reviewed by Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite

In introducing The False Paradigms of Today and the Timeless Truth of Tomorrow, John Bliss states that “We can never know what is true,” and that what we understand as truths are merely those things that most people can agree on. The book is a collection of thirteen philosophical essays that offer a compelling inquiry into the contemporary crisis of meaning. The book is divided into two parts. The first part dismantles what the author calls our “false paradigms,” which include the cognitive schemas of confirmation biases that distort perception, the myth of inevitable progress, the perils of group psychology, and the unexamined dogmas of scientism. In the second part, the author discusses how organized religion dilutes the original messages of the mystics, how history reveals spiritual evolution, and how historical figures from Jung to Swedenborg and Ramakrishna show us a “Timeless Truth.” This book illustrates how we can acquire genuine meaning by transcending the illusion of the isolated self.

The False Paradigms of Today and the Timeless Truth of Tomorrow starts with the premise that Western civilization has successfully replaced spiritual wisdom with corrosive groupthink and bankrupt rationalism, and that we need to recover the understanding of our shared destiny. John Bliss puts together his arguments like a jigsaw puzzle, providing an eclectic body of references, from Hegel and Toynbee on the philosophy of history to Kaczynski and Kierkegaard on the limits of reason, to Schopenhauer on the will, and psychologists from Jung to Maslow. Basing his claims on historical episodes from the Roman Empire to the Enron scandal, he uses mystics such as Ramakrishna, Krishnamurti, and Swedenborg to illuminate his thoughts. This is a powerful book that will appeal to thinkers, philosophy students, and those seeking to understand how truth works. It is written in a conversational, accessible tone that makes it even more engaging and enjoyable. This author confronts the nihilism of our age with something even bolder: a vision of spiritual evolution and collective consciousness that provides a roadmap for meaning.