An American Mystic: A Novel of Spiritual Adventure

Psychotherapist and parental-advice author Gurian (The Good Son) ventures into fiction with a novel that traces a young American's journey to enlightenment and that is likened by the publisher to Siddhartha and The Celestine Prophecy. Ben Brickman, a 30-year-old psychology student in Paris, has the first of a series of intensely symbolic--and as it turns out, prophetic--dreams, and soon embarks, with teacher/guide Josef Kader, on a quest to discover his life's mission, the purpose of humanity and the divine truths of the universe. These pursuits take Ben and Josef to Turkey, and to the mystical figure known as ""The Magician,"" an enlightened person able to span the dimensions and bring forth cosmic knowledge. Ben's adventures are presented as a series of ""found"" diary entries, and his notes reveal both his epiphanies and the testing of his faith. Saddled with heavy-handed foreshadowing, Ben's discoveries--about his dreams, his ability to travel outside his body, his strange sicknesses and his worst experiences--unfold with few surprises and little dramatic tension. It turns out he is destined to play the role of ""messenger,"" sent to explain to the world the Magician's 10 steps toward spiritual revelation. These steps are simply those precepts espoused by each major religious faith embracing the common concept of love and universality; while the tenets contribute a spiritual, educational core to the novel, Gurian provides no justification for rejecting the differences between the major religions. His prose style is best when it's down-to-earth, as in describing the atmosphere of Turkish locales, but he repeatedly sacrifices full characterizations and plot consistency for less compelling, albeit dramatic, passages of mystical truth telling. 6-city author tour. (Mar.)