Hello,

I'm posting this because like many people on this forum, I've suffered because of the 'teachings' of this man. And why? Because I accepted what he was saying without questioning. This is the key to the whole thing. It is nice to know that it's not just me that became duped in this manner and also heart warming that so many people have the same critical views that I have, which I should always have trusted.

The reason I say it is is more than a religion is that; mainstream religion is basically a belief which is very easy to say yes or no to. People that go to my local church I'm sure have very different private views about christianity but it doesn't really matter that much. I've been in and out of churches all my life, but it's never caused me suffering. Eckhart Tolle is a different matter altogether.

I've come to the conclusion that at best Tolle's teachings are unfounded and incoherant, and at worst the most pernicious form of mind control you could buy in a bookstore.

People get into this kind of spirituality because they think it's all fluffy and blissful, and there are no real rules, it's all about feeling better. However Tolle's books are not all light and fluffy. They are cruel, insensitive and brutal in their content to the point that you have to wonder how the hell it gets authorised in the first place.

There are too many examples in his books to list, but the main one which is the basis of all his 'teachings' is that you have to give up all identity of self. He eloquently disgards our wonderful personalities by calling them 'a voice in the head' that we must disidentify from, whilst using his own voice to state that. He claims that the 'real' you is not the thinker, and your true identity is just 'space', however he does not provide any evidence to back this up. He just says it in that quiet, slow, spiritual manner which is proof enough that he knows 'truth' and you don't.

In fact, from what little evidence is available, and we obviously can't know for sure, but people who reportedly have had near death experiences do actually continue seeing, feeling and thinking as an individual outside of the body. This again would go against any of Tolle's views, which is maybe why he doesn't talk about it.

Thankfully I saw through Eckhart Tolle through using some proper discernment and critical thinking, and with the help of this forum. I learnt a valuable lesson in that you should never accept anything at face value from people you don't know, no matter how sincere or pursuasive they might be.

I realised that the only voice I really need to trust is my own.

I've never read Tolle but have read quotes and accolades from followers. I always found him a bit fishy because of the sycophantic accolades. And as superficial as this sounds, the eyes freak me out.

In anything I look into spiritually, I've come to ask myself "Is this making me a better person?"

Then, of course, I need a definition of "A better person". What qualities do I respect and admire in people? Do I respect and admire when people talk in "that quiet, slow, spiritual manner"? Etc.

In any case, wherever your seeking takes you, remember that the truth can always withstand any inquiry.

That is one dogma that hasn't done me wrong yet.

Thanks for sharing.

In the language of Self Psychology, Tolle has done all he could to turn himself into an 'idealizable self-object' -- which totally undercuts the agenda he verbally claimed.

In the old days seating at Tolle events was priced according to proximity to him - a strange thing if the teaching is supposed to be independent of the personality of the teacher.


[forum.culteducation.com]



And from someone named Wanderer77

[forum.culteducation.com]

Here is how someone described how seating was made to seem scarce at a Tolle event.

[forum.culteducation.com]

Thanks for the links.

For me, one of the most arrogant interviews Tolle gave was on ABC when the reporter made the comment that his teachings were "flaky". Tolle's response was that "it is your mind that has some judgments about it, because it doesn't understand what I'm talking about", and "there has to be a recognition from somewhere deeper than the mind that says, we'll yes he has a point".

So in other words, if you agree with what he's saying it is "from somewhere deeper", if you disagree, it is "from mind". And who the hell decides what is mind and what isn't? He does of course!

Obviously the converted wouldn't want to be using their "minds" to make judgments about him and be unenlightened so they agree with every word he says. He doesn't give people the opportunity to question or disagree with anything, because that would mean you're mind dominated.

This is not spirituality or religion or self help, it is mind control. Our greatest freedom as humans is to be able to think for ourselves as an individual. You cannot have critical thought and believe in Eckhart Tolle's teachings, the two are completely incompatible.

This is a variation of what Jim Chamberlin identified as the 3 cards trick - its commonplace for these types to say its OUR problem or our lack of perceptiveness when we dismiss their stuff as twaddle.

Chamberlin was discussing the case of Ken Wilber. But Tolle and others do versions of this as well.

[www.integralworld.net]


-----------
The Higher Level Card (i.e. Sorry, it's just over your head). You're just not smart enough to realize I am smarter than you, because you're on a lower (less divine) level.

The Projection Card (i.e., I know you are, but what am I). By criticizing me, you are really just criticizing yourself, because any problem you see in me is just a projection of a problem in yourself.The underlying essence of the previously mentioned 3-cards, played often by cultic leaders and apologists of the eastern religious/western psychological milieu, is this: any negative response to the leader or inner circle of the group can only be ones own fault (i.e. blame the victim). You're either not smart enough to understand (at a lower level), lack sufficient self-awareness (are simply projecting), or have failed a very deep test (when the group/leader hurts you, this is actually helping you).

(3) The Skillful Means Card (i.e., it was only a test, dickhead). The most potent card of all! It's not abuse; it's not pathetic or ridiculous or wrong; it's a crazy-wise teaching. You know, like Zen stuff. So when I call you a dickhead, it's not because I'm a dickhead, it's because you have a dickhead-complex that you need to evolve past, and I'm here to help you see that.

The underlying essence of the previously mentioned 3-cards, played often by cultic leaders and apologists of the eastern religious/western psychological milieu, is this: any negative response to the leader or inner circle of the group can only be ones own fault (i.e. blame the victim). You're either not smart enough to understand (at a lower level), lack sufficient self-awareness (are simply projecting), or have failed a very deep test (when the group/leader hurts you, this is actually helping you).

Consider the following in regards to Ken's latest Blog, and notice how he's now playing a few new cards, equally cultic:

[www.kenwilber.com]

(1) The Ultimate Guru Trump Card (Witness me, and see the truth): The evidence Helen offers in support of Ken's actions is not at all relevant to the issues at hand, but is, instead, this: "(I've) SEEN YOU, SAT IN YOUR AURA, and HEARD YOUR VOICE". Helen offers nothing of substance in regards to the actual issues being discussed. This is nothing more than GURU talk by a devotee and should be seen as a huge red flag to folks at II. This card is a real 'trump card' favorite among cultic apologists (i.e. if you felt his spiritual energy, man, you'd know it's true).

(2) The Hook, Then Heal Card (Listen, and be healed): Ken calls his previous Blogs "Hooks", which is just another name for the skillful means card. The "hook, then heal" combination deal, however, is necessary once the GURU trump card has been played. That is, once wisdom is established, it's time for compassion, forgiveness, and healing. This particular card implies two things at once: (a) Ken is the teacher (wisdom), you are the student; and (b) there is something wrong with you that can be healed by the teacher (compassion).

Consider how this has all come about. Ken, after taunting someone into a fight, with derogatory comments and snide remarks (HOOK), tries to then HEAL their angry nature by asking that they look at their own shadows (if they have the COURAGE to do so). The implicit point of this move is the following: if you listen, now that you've been HOOKED, and follow my instructions, you just may realize what is wrong with you, and be HEALED, never to get HOOKED again. In other words, when Ken hooked you, he did so only because you don't really know your true Self (IAMness). By listening to Ken, however, you might truly "RE-OWN" yourself, "RE-INTEGRATE" yourself, because he does care, he does FORGIVE YOU, and he is filled with compassion for you (notice he mentions he did this out of much love for Frank and Don) and will not teach you through his Blog and classes at IU (so sign up now!).

b]The Game Over, I Won Card[/b] (everybody stop, I'm the game-master): In the end, Ken is trying to silence critics/outsiders by asking that they simply STOP, which is all he really wants at this point. He asks that they take a moratorium on judging others, on loathing and condemning him. Notice that none of this addresses anything of any real substance; it's just an attempt to bring it to an end, with him still on top as the teacher. He is the game-master, after all. In real academic and/or spiritual circles (or within an adult community) such cards are considered completely and totally out of bounds. They only work in guru and cultic environments. Ken, PLEASE, you are the one who needs to STOP.

Ken, bringing it all together now, concludes by combing his wisdom and compassion, with spiritual waxing about bathing in the infinite well of rehabilitation.

Folks, outlining how and why this is classic cultic behavior is too elementary to even go into. Just pick up any book on the subject, or go read about the true root of all this: Adi Da.

Is there anyone at II with the courage to tell him this?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem with the "three cards" is not that playing them violates all standards of rational discourse, though they do. Nor is the problem that someone might have their feelings hurt if someone plays "three cards" on them. (Someone might, but that's a non-issue.) The problem is as anonymous said in his/her comment to MD's blog:

Note that these cards are not designed in any way, shape or form to prompt a discussion or dialogue. What can one possibly say to any of these cards? Nothing… and that is exactly the point. They are designed to end all discussion...
Da and Daists play these cards.

Cohen and his loyalists play these cards.

And now Wilber and some of his loyalists are playing them.

Is the pattern here not painfully obvious? Da, Cohen, Wilber.

Someone once said:


a positive group: Is NOT out to save the world. It has often been pointed out that a very high percentage of those in problematic groups initially entered with apparently very altruistic and idealistic impulses, a desire to help people and better the world. But that idealisim usually has a structure very similar to that of the "perfect master" -- archaic and narcissistic. The underlying impulse is "me and the group are going to change the world"...
Further, its narcissistic core is evidenced in the arrogance of the stance itself: we have the only (or the best) way, and we will change the world, that is, we will impose our ideas on the poor ignorant folks out there. Now they may not state it that way (I put it rather harshly); but they must in fact feel that way, more or less - how can you possibly presume to help someone, especially without being asked, unless you assume they are in need of help (i.e., inferior) and you are capable of providing it?


Consider the following in regards to Ken's latest Blog, and notice how he's now playing a few new cards, equally cultic:

[www.kenwilber.com]

(1) The Ultimate Guru Trump Card (Witness me, and see the truth): The evidence Helen offers in support of Ken's actions is not at all relevant to the issues at hand, but is, instead, this: "(I've) SEEN YOU, SAT IN YOUR AURA, and HEARD YOUR VOICE". Helen offers nothing of substance in regards to the actual issues being discussed. This is nothing more than GURU talk by a devotee and should be seen as a huge red flag to folks at II. This card is a real 'trump card' favorite among cultic apologists (i.e. if you felt his spiritual energy, man, you'd know it's true).

(2) The Hook, Then Heal Card (Listen, and be healed): Ken calls his previous Blogs "Hooks", which is just another name for the skillful means card. The "hook, then heal" combination deal, however, is necessary once the GURU trump card has been played. That is, once wisdom is established, it's time for compassion, forgiveness, and healing. This particular card implies two things at once: (a) Ken is the teacher (wisdom), you are the student; and (b) there is something wrong with you that can be healed by the teacher (compassion).

Consider how this has all come about. Ken, after taunting someone into a fight, with derogatory comments and snide remarks (HOOK), tries to then HEAL their angry nature by asking that they look at their own shadows (if they have the COURAGE to do so).

The implicit point of this move is the following: if you listen, now that you've been HOOKED, and follow my instructions, you just may realize what is wrong with you, and be HEALED, never to get HOOKED again.

In other words, when Ken hooked you, he did so only because you don't really know your true Self (IAMness).

By listening to Ken, however, you might truly "RE-OWN" yourself, "RE-INTEGRATE" yourself, because he does care, he does FORGIVE YOU, and he is filled with compassion for you (notice he mentions he did this out of much love for Frank and Don) and will not teach you through his Blog and classes at IU (so sign up now!).

Ken, bringing it all together now, concludes by combing his wisdom and compassion, with spiritual waxing about bathing in the infinite well of rehabilitation.

Folks, outlining how and why this is classic cultic behavior is too elementary to even go into. Just pick up any book on the subject, or go read about the true root of all this: Adi Da.

(3) The Game Over, I Won Card (everybody stop, I'm the game-master): In the end, Ken is trying to silence critics/outsiders by asking that they simply STOP, which is all he really wants at this point. He asks that they take a moratorium on judging others, on loathing and condemning him. Notice that none of this addresses anything of any real substance; it's just an attempt to bring it to an end, with him still on top as the teacher. He is the game-master, after all.

In real academic and/or spiritual circles (or within an adult community) such cards are considered completely and totally out of bounds. They only work in guru and cultic environments. Ken, PLEASE, you are the one who needs to STOP.

Is there anyone at II with the courage to tell him this? (end of quoted material)

(Note: II stands for Integral Institute, Wilber's think tank)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The problem with the "three cards" is not that playing them violates all standards of rational discourse, though they do. Nor is the problem that someone might have their feelings hurt if someone plays "three cards" on them. (Someone might, but that's a non-issue.) The problem is as anonymous said in his/her comment to MD's blog:

Note that these cards are not designed in any way, shape or form to prompt a discussion or dialogue. What can one possibly say to any of these cards? Nothing… and that is exactly the point. They are designed to end all discussion...

---------
Traps and pitfalls

[www.enlightened-spirituality.org]

(tiny quotation--the whole article is worth reading)

The teaching of traditional Advaita is gradual. It begins from where we believe ourselves to be. It acknowledges an identification with the body-mind organism, desires and fears etc. and aims to educate and undermine this belief gradually, using unarguable logic and a variety of devices aimed at reducing the dominion of the ego. In contrast, Neo-Advaita attempts to force the truth of the matter upon an unprepared mind at the outset (denying indeed the very existence of a mind), offering no process of gradual discrimination or logical development. It says ‘this is it’ and that is that! The bewildered ego is possibly left with an intellectual acceptance that it doesn’t really exist but, in fact, it remains as strong as it ever was. [...]

There are also two significant dangers regarding the Neo-Advaita ‘movement’. Firstly, there is the clear possibility of charlatans who, having read a little or heard the fundamental elements of ‘descriptions’ of reality, can devise a few ‘routines’ of their own and then advertise themselves on the circuit. Providing that they are good speakers/actors, it is certainly possible to make a living from deceiving ‘seekers’ in such a way, without ever giving away their true lack of knowledge or the fact that they are no nearer any ‘realisation’ than their disciples.

Here is an older thread

[forum.culteducation.com]

Someone was discussing Tolle on an older Google listserve and mentioned something.

There is a discussion on the Google listserve that raise intersting points

[]'A cessation of mentation as a result of intense concentration _may_ be
a precursor to Awakening in some "accidental" enlightenment
experiences (e.g. Eckhart Tolle's, or John Wren-Lewis'), or in some
very thorough systematic approaches (like the Theravada), but it is
not Awakening itself: or, put it this way, it isn't a _necessary_
precursor to Awakening.

'In fact, Awakening is a BREAK in any form of
samadhi-like concentration (taking "samadhi" in its lesser meaning -
for it can also mean the Result itself, in some systems). It's at
complete right angles to anything you've ever experienced or imagined.
(I say this based on your writings - you may be playing a game of some
sort, but I am responding to your words as they stand.)

It's like this: if you fix your gaze, the saccades (the little
jerkings about) that your eyes constantly unconsciously make cease,
and because the visual system normally sees things by noticing
borders, edges and differences, the visual system "whites out".

(This fact is taken advantage of in some Daoist practices, and some Dzogchen
Longde practices, if I'm not mistaken - right Namdrol?)

Since the whole mental system works in an analogous way, by noticing
differences, I believe something analogous may happen if the _whole
mental system_ is "frozen" in a concentrative state - it ceases to
experience anything at all. BUT THAT IS NOT AWAKENING.

[groups.google.com]



(Corboy note: in the early days of Guru mahara-ji, a lot was made abotu 'white light' experiences. Ditto for clear white light being seen in some systems as a sign of advancement.

If this is merely caused by fixing one gaze and its only a normal neurological event that is given an excess of meaning that it doesnt actually have on its own, its scary to imagine people throwing lives and money into the lap of someone on account of a neuro-tingle)

[www.google.com]

I love the projection thing. I want to tell the guy "Your thinking I'm projecting is just a projection of your own tendency to project."

Is projection really anything more than the fact that we kind of figure other people are like ourselves until we know better? So a reaction of shock and disgust to the behavior of somebody you looked up to is in fact a *shattering* of projections, not a manifestation of projection. Before, you thought this person shared your sincerity and idealism, but now, you know better.

IMO the more of a know-it-all a person is about others, the more that person is likely to be projecting. So when the "guru" pretends to know exactly why the confused student is voicing an objection to his teaching, which of these two is projecting?

In yo face!

There is a guy named John Falk who had a dramatic, before and after with depression. Its damn interesting to compare his situation with what Tolle self reports about his suddenly dropping his own allegedly suicidal depression - and Tolle never saying a thing about where he got support during the time that he by his report, was blissed out on a park bench in London.

John Falk woke up at age 12 or 13 in a suicidal depression. He suffered it in secret for ten years.

By his early twenties, he was ready to kill himself. He had found a rifle in the house.

He was terrified of how horrible it would be for his family.

At last, he went downstairs and as he put it, faced his mother and asked for the simplest and most difficult of favors. He begged her for help.

After some years, a new medication, zoloft, came out.

Falk had not benefitted from Prozac. He was being monitored by a psychiatrist who put him on the Zoloft med.

A few weeks later, Falk noticed he actually enjoyed a visit with relatives--something he usually dreaded.

Not too long after that, he realized he was enjoying the fragrance of woodsmoke on a winters day, enjoying the wind ruffling his hair.

He had expected his cure to take the form of a mood lift.

Instead, for him rebalancing from depression was physical. He felt he was no longer detached but had become physically grounded.

But he also realized that after ten years of depression he didnt know how to live and had to learn how.

Falk published a memoir, Hello to All That. He also write an article, No Zoloft No Peace, in Esquire, November 2001.

(Falk tells us what happened when cut off from his medication in a war zone. In about a week, he realized he had lost interest in writing, and began wondering what the point of it all was. He resumed distrusting humanity, human relationships and people. He went insane and Sebastian Junger, another war correspondant, risked his own life to drive Falk through sniper territory and back to a UN post so that he could resume medical treatment. In ten days Falk was good as new)

Here is an interview.

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]

(interviewer)

Quote

In the book, your mother seems like the most amazing, supportive mother a depressive could ever possibly have. Do you credit her with your recovery?

(Falk)Without the medicine, that’s the sickening thing about thirty years ago, you could have a mother like that and someone probably have killed themselves. And the mother probably would have died from guilt. It wasn’t her fault, it was just one of those things.

"Without her, there’s no way. For me, to have someone always in your corner, and then just love. I hated myself. Self-loathing is not even close to the word, and then you have someone who somehow finds some love in you, some goodness, and loves you more than you love yourself, that’s saying something.

"In a way, your life is not your own. You’re not just not alone, but if you wanted to kill yourself there’s this other problem, these other people who are kind to you. Your life is very important to them. It puts up a roadblock to the ultimate solution.

"The other thing was just having someone around who loves you and willing to be with you. She often said, “I won’t leave until we find a solution.” That’s a big thing to happen. Especially with broken families these days, if you find yourself alone in this situation, it’s got to be brutal.

What happens when people dont have social support?

They may be attracted to the social support provided by a Tolle group.

Quote

Although the book’s not selling well, so I’d like to go into therapy now. If I could afford it. I have nothing against therapy at all, I think it’s great. If I had 200 bucks a pop, I’d do it because my insurance won’t cover it. Just go chat with somebody. Why not?

(Interviewer)That seems to be a problem, the health insurance not covering therapy as well as it covers the medication.

(Falk)Medicine’s not like a cure-all. It’s not a happy pill.

(Corboy, a "Tolle high" might give some relief, but it wont help you learn to live again, either.)

(Falk)I went to Bosnia and what I really learned was to reconnect with people. For whatever reason, that’s where it happened. And I don’t recommend it at home, going off to a war zone. But you need both sides of the coin. It depends on how long you’ve been depressed and how severely. But if you’ve been depressed for ten years and you go on medication, you feel a lot, that’s the beauty of it. Go on living. But you’ve created this personality that is used to living this way, and it might be self-destructive or not exactly beneficial to the way that you want to live, and that’s where it’s great to go into therapy. But I think they only give you 20 sessions or something. I don’t know what it is. My health insurance gives me nothing.

(Corboy. Many who can afford therapy dont go--they fear it is a confession of weakness or are in social circles where therapy is stigmatizing or considered "oppressive". So they may be drawn to Tolle meet ups. If lucky, they may through some Tolle related group, learn to live again and extend their autonomy. But if very unfortunate, they may be routed via the Tolle scene into groups and toward gurus who are far more exploitative than Tolle appears to be. I knew of someone who came from a broken up family, too macho to go into therapy, got involved with a Tolle group, and is now entangled with a guru who is getting some very bad publicity. For him the Tolle scene was a gateway into a rather hazardous cultic milieu scene)

If one has been genuinely depressed for a long time, one doesnt get cured and suddenly acquire PR skills.

Quote


(Interviewer)What made you want to combine the two stories of the depression and your days as a war correspondent?

(Falk)It’s one story. Basically what it is, is one guy… I mean, they’re the same guy, but they’re different guys in a sense. One guy’s battling an almost unwinnable war against a chemical imbalance, if you will. Or whatever. Imbalance is a loaded word. He can’t live the life that he wants to. No matter what he does. There’s a neurological reason for it, and he can’t admit it and he won’t admit it. On the other side is this guy whose neurological whatever is opened to life a little bit, but he’s built up a lot of character flaws that keep him from living the life he wants to live and he doesn’t even know it. One side’s getting over the chemical.

(Falk)I wanted to do it because I built up a depressive’s personality, which is just kind of logical. But when I took the medicine it didn’t go away.

(Corboy even if you have a Tolle type epiphany, the character effects of a long lasting depression or addiction or co-dependency are not gonna go away, either)

(Falk)You still have that personality because you’ve been living with it, but suddenly you’re out in the world and experiencing it in a totally different new way, and it was a subtle change, but it’s big enough that I could do things I couldn’t do before. I just had to learn how to live. There were problems with my personality in that I was too self-focused still from the depression and whatnot, so it was sorta like you watch the person build up the personality on the one hand and dealing with it on the other. Growing up.

Tolle claims that epiphany cured him.

But how long has it been since he has functioned without a wrap around team of caregivers - ie his entourage?

Have a look at how we have to function. We have to stand in line at the grocery store, move our cars so we dont get parking tickets (we hope), and all the other nit picky things demanded of us by modern living.

A guy who is surrounded by an entourage is kind of like an ambulatory invalid. The entourage guards him from anything unexpected, anything "not in the script".

Aha--thank you, Esquire! John Falk's wonderful article from November 2001 is here.

[webcache.googleusercontent.com]

The onset of his depression

Quote

I remember clearly the day it started. It was a morning in the fall of 1981, and I was thirteen.

I woke to a world that was different from the one I had fallen asleep in. The world, so full of possibilities and optimism, was now bleak and pointless.

My mind had gone from outwardly focused to suddenly, oddly obsessed with finding the answer to the most fundamental question: What is the point of life? I couldn't move until I knew the answer. It was as if some demon stole into my room that night and chained me to an iron ball of metaphysical doubt.

Overnight a wall had sprung up between my world and the carefree one it seemed everyone else lived in.

I had my first thoughts of suicide, and for several days I begged God to kill me.

But slowly the intense sense of alienation waned, and I worked my way around the maddening voice in my head that wanted to know at every moment what the point was in going forward. I carried on by telling myself that someday it would get better. But always there was that iron ball, and over the years it grew bigger and heavier and began to take its toll.

I was becoming two people: a happy-go-lucky, athletic, clean-cut kid on the outside and a brooding, negatively self-analytical depressive on the inside. I left for college in 1986 and very quickly busted apart.

This is what happened after Falk got cut off from his medicine. The depression and the metaphysical doubts returned and he lost ability to write--which he had been able to do before.

Quote

We quickly fell into a routine. Sebastian spent his days looking for slice-of-life stories while I worked on an article about Celi´c, a small town we'd visited weeks earlier. At night we ventured into Old Town for beer and to meet women before curfew at 10:00 P.M. After a year and a half on Zoloft, one would think I'd have had one eye always on my mood, but that wasn't the case. It's probably confirmation that the drug was still in my blood; I was too busy living to think about it. But after about a week, the world began to slowly, imperceptibly change.

One morning I tore up everything I had written and began again on the Celi´c piece. I wanted to pursue a new angle or something. I scribbled for hours but made little headway because I started to recognize some fundamental problems.

Why was I writing?

What difference would another article on this place make?

Who cares?

(Just what he had woken up to ten years earlier when the depression bit down onto him Corboy)

I couldn't concentrate, as these questions stood like sentries in front of any coherent thought. But I tried to push ahead. Sebastian even left me his laptop after I promised I would put it to good use.

Three days later Sebastian (Sebastian Junger, journalist extraordinaire who later saved Falk by driving him out of town so he could get back to medical treatment)
snuck into the living room to see how I was doing. He found me sleeping next to a pile of cigarette butts, my five o'clock shadow lit by the glow of the screen. He assumed I had written myself into exhaustion. He looked over and read my story. It said only, "Celi´c was a small town."

For days ... tried to keep afloat by telling myself that what I was thinking was nothing more than the result of a faulty connection in my brain. But it was a losing battle, as that little rational part of me was drowned out by that old question: What's the point of all this?

That question, that damn need to understand everything before I could do anything, came on like the Ice Man. It reappeared with a new strength and bitterness, focused like a laser, tearing at the illusions upon which I had rebuilt my life.

Those kids you smuggled out of Sarajevo and were supporting in Italy? They hate you and are playing you for a fool. That sniper hunter you consider your friend and learned so much from? He's a desperate killer who's using you. Zoloft? A crutch, because you're pathetic and weak.

When the alienation and emptiness had become too much, I put blankets over the windows, too, and sealed all light from entering my room. I made a cave and I slept as much as I could, but fourteen hours was my limit. (Disruption of sleep wake cycle. This is biochemistry at its worst, friends. Falk tries to willpower himself out of it and cannot succeed.)

What he felt like when the Zoloft began to rebalance his biochemistry.

Quote

the call came in the summer of 1992 that there was a new drug, one that had shown glimmers of success with dysthymics, called Zoloft. I went on it for six weeks. I didn't attend classes (I didn't see the point) but spent my days smoking and waiting. In early October, I stopped taking it, under the assumption that it wasn't working.

Then something hit me. My sister and her husband had made a trip down to see me a few weeks earlier. Normally, this would be a living hell, because it meant I had to come out of my cocoon and force myself to engage other people. I usually had an hour, maybe two, of energy to keep up appearances before a panic attack set in. But this time I actually looked forward to seeing them, and I was sorry to see them go. It had to have been the Zoloft.

I tried to get a refill through Dr. Atchley, but he had moved up to Massachusetts that fall and told me I would have to find a doctor in Virginia. I went to the school clinic and was assigned to a woman resident, who made it immediately clear in her soft, insinuating voice that to get the Zoloft I would have to see her repeatedly. ("The goal is to become balanced," she said gently. "To become whole and healthy, and, yes, drugs can play an important role. But life-changing skills are just as important, if not more so.") I could see that to get the dope, I would be chained to this hippie for months, but now that I had seen the light, I wasn't about to delay my dash out of hell to play Mr. Wellness with Joni Mitchell. In the next week I arranged to get my hands on a sizable load without a prescription. The maximum prescribed limit was 200 milligrams, but I started with 400 and soon ventured into the 500 range. This is how I won the title of American Most Heavily Medicated on Zoloft (a title, the professionals tell me, that I hold to this day).

For weeks I munched my Zoloft, just hoping to feel better again. One day I woke, took a shower, and headed to class for the first time in weeks. I was crossing a bridge on fraternity row when it hit.

First, I smelled burning wood. I stopped dead in my tracks because I had a rush of pleasant memories from childhood.

I noticed the breeze through my hair felt nice, and not like something to be observed or analyzed. It was small, but it was everything. I stood on the bridge for several minutes, taking it all in: the bushes, the trees, the dirt, the sky.

I watched smoke rise from a chimney, but I didn't ask myself why have a fire on a sunny morning like this.

Suddenly, I had it.

The epiphany.

The change I had been looking for before was emotional. An uplift in my spirits, maybe even an answer to the big one: What is the point of life? But that wasn't it.

Rather, the difference was essentially physical.

It was like my mind's eye had had double vision and now my sight was clear. Where before I had this consciousness of floating above life like a passenger in a jet watching the patchwork of the earth slide beneath, now I was suddenly on the ground, where the patterns of life were not visible but the feeling of being part of it was once again in my bones.

If you saw me that day on the bridge, with the wondrous look I had on my face, you may have thought I was seeing God.

That's not to say I was suddenly "happy" or "whole," as the doctor in the clinic would have put it. In fact, I was filled with the burning desire to make up for lost time. I felt very uneasy. It was like some cosmic force suddenly plunked me down in a strange forest, and now it was up to me to find the way home. It's where the Zoloft stopped and the rest of life began. If depressives have too realistic a view of life and happy people are deluded, what I needed then was to find a set of illusions that would give my life meaning. I needed to create my map of the world.

As I said before, many people come to this bridge and go to the couch for guidance. But to me it was crystal clear that exactly what I didn't need was more detachment and analysis. I needed to live, and since I had been removed from the currents of life for so long, I now felt the need to dive in where the current was strongest.

I had ostensibly been studying Yugoslavia in graduate school, so I picked the wars there to jump into life. By day I feigned interest in job openings on Capitol Hill to appease my now-relieved family, and at night I planned my trip to the killing fields.

I read up on how to work as a freelance war correspondent, forged press credentials, bought a flak jacket and helmet with my student-loan money, and stockpiled massive amounts of Zoloft, and five months after the bridge I left for Bosnia.

I soon talked my way into the war, and over the ensuing year before my trip to Tuzla, I was more or less successful in realizing my goal of building a new life.

Depression faded into a distant memory.

As the years passed, however, something nagged at me. When you've been on an antidepressant as long as I have, questions naturally arise about its role in your life. This is so because it operates in that netherworld of nature versus envi- ronment where genes, hormones, life experiences, and upbringing interact in a hundred billion electrically charged synapses to produce a self.

Seven years later, then, the question I had for Dr. Atchley was simple: Why did I go there to start my life over? Was it the Zoloft or was it me?

"I was waiting for you to ask that question," he says. "The truth is no one knows how this stuff exactly works. But you went to Bosnia for your own reasons--that was you, not the Zoloft."

And, at the end of the Esquire article, Sebastian Junger is there as a friend.

Quote

That night, we parked outside a Swedish UN outpost for protection. The forests were filled with heavily armed, unsavory characters, and the guards in their bunkers agreed to watch over us while we slept. Sebastian rolled out his sleeping bag on the grass while I took the jeep. Then something dawned on me.

"What's the date?" I asked.

"May twenty-second."

"Hey, it's my birthday," I said.

Sebastian got up and walked over to the jeep. "Congratulations," he said. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

"Twenty-six years ago today," he said, smiling. "When you were a kid, is this where you thought you'd end up, Mr. Falk? Curled up outside a UN base, covered in dirt and crazy?"

"Sure."

"Okay," he said. "If you can have one gift on your special day, what do you want?"

"Zoloft," I said. "Fresh batch. Enough for both of us."

It took another four days, a bout of pneumonia, and a visit to a Doctors Without Borders outpost before I got to my sneakerful of Zoloft. I had been off my drug for six weeks.

Ten days after that, I was as good as new. Today, I am reasonably sane.

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