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West of Jesus: Surfing, Science, and the Origins of Belief | 
 enlarge | Author: Steven Kotler
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $7.89
You Save: $6.06 (43%)
New (23) Used (6) from $7.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 50850
Media: Paperback
Edition: Reprint
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
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling books online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080515211443T
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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 18 more reviews...
 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
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]
Loved the Journey October 12, 2007
I've surfed much longer than Steven (since 1967 and have 4 surfboards now) but found his kinship with the waves and his parallel journey just a fascinating journey to boot! Kotler grabs images and hurls them at just the right speed into the reading so that I found myself again and again saying, "yes that's it!" when he would describe a feeling or a signpost of life. I only lost energy at the very end with his wandering conclusion and the Eddie Aikau metaphor which I thought was contrived. The entire lure of the story of the "Conductor" almost convinced me but not really. What I found most interesting rather than all of that was his usage of surfing as a return from the problems of a chronic disease. That was the heart of this book. In that Steven was a maestro. His journey to the beach and his encounter with what we surfers have come to know as "stoke" is no joke. There really is something transcendent about surfing and something so divine as being in the midst of God's stuff when it all works right--that is the juice that keeps me returning to the sea and what drew me to this book. Probably for surfers only however!
 West of Awesome September 19, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Michael Crichton's "Travels" used to be my favorite travel/real life adventure book. West of Jesus has completely knocked that book off my shelf! The only way I can describe it is that this is a perfect combination of three of my most favorite books: Travels, Lamb and Dancing Naked in the Mind Field with some Kem Nunn added in for good measure. I really think I should give it to a friend, but I think I want to read it again--so I will just have to buy a lending copy--that is how good it is!
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