Finding Heaven Here
Review of John C. Robinson, Finding Heaven Here (O Books, 2009). It is hard to know how to approach this book. It flows without pause from the language of religion into that of psychotherapy. Within this, a whole range of authorities are cited. Most are Christian, but representatives of all major religious groups can be found here, and even an atheist or two. From this mass of material, Robinson spins a web of experiential religion that he implies, not least by the variety of his quotations, should work for all people. The simplicity of his offer is just this: ‘I found heaven on earth, and so can you’ (p. 9). His thesis is simple. Heaven is present all around us right now, if only we would learn to see it. ‘Heaven on Earth lies here, wherever you are, right now, always full and always enough’ (p. 2). But we do not see Heaven on Earth, rather we need help to see it. It ‘arrives through a change of consci...