West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven Kotler
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 36276
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 1596913444
Dewey Decimal Number: 797
EAN: 9781596913448
ASIN: 1596913444
Publication Date: May 29, 2007
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Product Description
A spiritual and scientific surf quest, West of Jesus tracks a contemporary surfing myth and looks at the neuroscience that connects spirituality and high risk sport.
After spending two years in bed with Lyme disease, Steven Kotler had lost everything: his health, his job, his girl, and, he was beginning to suspect, his mind. Kotler, not a religious man, suddenly found himself drawn to the sport of surfing as if it were the cornerstone of a new faith. Why, he wondered, when there was nothing left to believe in, could he begin to believe in something as unlikely as surfing. What was belief anyway? How did it work in the body, the brain, our culture, and human history?
Into this mix came a strange story. In 2003, on a surf trip through Mexico, Kotler heard of “the conductor,” a mythical surfer who could control the weather. He’d heard this same tale eight years earlier, in Indonesia, but this time something clicked. With the help of everyone from rebel surfers to rocket scientists, Kotler undertakes a three year globetrotting quest for the origins of this legend. The results are a startling mix of big waves and bigger ideas: a surfer’s journey into the biological underpinnings of belief itself.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 The Lao Tzu Of Malibu June 12, 2008
With dry wit and self-deprecating humor, Steven Kotler examines surfing from a Spiritual perspective, or is it Spirituality from a surfing perspective.
This book answers all the big Spiritual questions in life:
Why am I here?
Why do I surf?
Everyone who surfs can relate to observations like, "I was both addicted to surfing and terrified of surfing." But it's a great book even if you don't surf. I just wish my temple had better waves today.
 BUY IT. June 8, 2008
I'm a surfer/extreme sport athlete. Also have a BS in psychology as well as anthropology. Kotler's blend of humor, story telling, and empirical data in his search for the big question is seriously phenomenal. BUY THIS BOOK!!
Wet Hot American Spiritual Journey April 17, 2008
I didn't know what this was about, but seeing the word "Jesus" in the title above a flying surfboard grabbed me enough to check it out. Turns out, Kotler has put together a pretty interesting project in his book.
I call this a project because it doesn't feel like a novel, an autobiography, or any other nonfiction piece. Kotler goes on a multi-continent journey searching for the origins of a particular surfing myth he was told after a bad wipeout, and along the way he tells us all about his research into zen, weather science, drugs, and human psychology. All of these aspects combine with his first person narrative of interactions with surfers from all over the world to create an entertaining read with all kinds of food for thought and future discussion.
Sadly, while he wraps up the ending in a tidy little package, there's no real or satisfying resolution to his quest. After all the fascinating facts and theories and stories he unloads on his audience, he doesn't really deliver any answers. And maybe that was the point, but it makes me as a reader feel a little gypped.
Still, it's a fun read with a lot of insight and many parts where I laughed out loud, so I definitely recommend it.
 The story went nowhere. March 12, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The book was decently written but I found myself wondering half way through what the book was actually about. There seems to be an attempt to tie surfing, philosophy and religion together in some way but it never really happens. It seemed the author picked a bunch of theories and tried to force some sort of analogy to his life and surfing but the connections remained unclear. The book does not have any significant conclusion. I forced myself to finish it just to catch the surfing stories which were ok but couldn't stand alone on their own.
Groping towards meaning ... February 18, 2008
Sometimes a strange disease changes the course of a life. For Steven Kotler, it was Lyme, described by one notable physician as "a very intelligent bacteria." The journey precipitated by these Borrelia burgdorferi lead the author of West of Jesus on a surf trip of sorts. Twin stories of a Conductor who can control the weather and "conduct" the waves, which he hears eight years and thousands of miles apart, lead inexorably to a space where physics and metaphysics converge. Here is an strangely exciting tale of coincidence and serendipity sub-populated with shamans, Tibetan White Buddhists, and kahunas at the intersection of Stoke and Karma - where the Surf Quest, for Kotler, is experienced as a disturbingly real search for the Holy Grail.
Subtitled "Surfing, Science and the Origins of Belief," this is an alluring and stimulating tour-de-force that has more to do with mind surfing through the wonders and paradoxes on our times than with riding ocean waves. The book is replete with attractive speculations; like, that humans' competitive advantage in the animal kingdom is to be found most singularly in our long-distance running ability (we're born marathoners; we'll catch anything eventually). This book is a worthy companion for the journey.
Kotler's story of the pursuit of the Conductor didn't click for me (it felt either like a literary device or a bad justification for a rather aimless surf trip). But the trip's the point anyway, and if you can bring along Einstein and Tom Stone and Rabbi Shifren and sundry commentators on altered states of consciousness, well - hey! West of Jesus resonates right along with its shelfmate, Dancing Naked in the Mind Field, by Novel laureate (and surfer) Karry Mullis. It's an enjoyable and enlightening ride, even if you don't get barreled.
- Drew Kampion for The Surfer's Path [www.surferspath.com]
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