Hard to get into it at the beginning, but once you are at the core of it you wrap yourself deep inside as you cannot leave the book for a minute! the author is a very priest in the background disguised with modern psychology and theology. if you are not that much of a spiritual person you might get annoyed at some parts, but even the greatest unbelievers would find big life lessons, helpful tips to life and a lot of modern psychology revealed.

Another inspirational book by Peck

1. Psychopathy is not about happiness; it is about power.
2. Hey Scotty, you just pay your dues, and leave the driving to me.
3. Lily has the gift of flowing. I have the gift of organization.

Love him. I have underlined this book all the way through, and will keep it on my shelf. I do not agree with him on everything, but, he is one of the few psychiatrists I am familiar with who addresses the spiritual dimension of humanity and its importance in our lives to reach our full potential.

You know the film Eduard scissorhands? The book the creator reads eduard while building him at the begining? Boring as fuck.Nothing new. Well yes, there's evil in the works cause God is busy letting us be. And God is learning too. The writer doesn't contemplate humans being stupid, just human being unconscious. Isnt there a big difference? Maybe not. Can't believe I finished this but on the other hand there's a lot of wisdom in the book but it's just theory, you can't say: hey be good and be councious. There must be a road map to doing so. Where is it? Thanks no thanks.

Didn't hate it, but was bored, so I quite about 25% of the way in. Meh.

I connected with this book. But, with all spiritual books, I think it all has to do with timing and when a person is ready for what they read.

I'm currently reading this book. This is a sophisticated book that needs to be handled carefully. I love psychology. That's why I fell inlove with this book. Scott Peck's strong premises here made the reader, like me to apply it from reality. Such as love is a commitment with action. Because love minus action equates to laziness and non-love. Another one, it by grace that people change for the betterment. Yes, his beliefs were also motiveted by his Christian views. : )

This is magnificent book!

This was my x-girlfriends favorite book. she did alot of coke in college and right after we broke up, she got married in less than a year. Little did she know when I read her book, it backed me from untrapping myself from her wanting kids before 6 months of a relationship. She was 25, YIKES! She found someone and got married at 26. No relationship, straight to marriage. We both got what we wanted. She got her douchebag, I got my freedom! Good read for all :)

Anyone who gives this book less than 5 stars is simply not of the maturity to understand its brilliance.

I’ve read 260 something books, this is top 10.

God bless.

Enjoyed this in the series of 3 he wrote

The author is incredibly open and his reasoning is incredible

This was the third and (hopefully) final book in the series that M. Scott Peck wrote relating to his breakthrough work The Road Less Traveled.  As someone who is by no means hostile to positive psychology and who shares many of the fundamental beliefs of the author concerning the difficulties of life, the benefits of suffering and difficulty, and the need for responsibility and personal growth, there is much to enjoy in all of the books in this series, of which I am aware of and have read three.  While this is by no means a bad book or even a disappointing book, it is a reminder that at this point in Peck's writing he had said most of what he wanted to say.  Like many writers, he points the reader continually, sometimes multiple times in the same paragraph, to books he has written before.  There are hundreds and even perhaps thousands of references that the author makes to a previous case, a previous novel, an insight from a previous book, and all of that makes this book seem somewhat inessential, merely as an opportunity for the writer to remind the reader to turn to his existing works, rather than something new for the reader to appreciate.

Like the other books in the series, this one is divided into several parts, in this case three.  And like the other books in this series, the parts are themselves somewhat complicated.  After an introduction and an editor's preface, the book begins with a crusade against simplism (I).  This includes chapters on thinking (1), consciousness (2), and learning and growth (3), each of them with smaller sections that deal, for example, with paradoxes, and the reality that while thinking too little is your problem, thinking too much is someone else's problem.  After that, the second part of the book wrestles with the complexity of everyday life (II) with chapters on personal (4) and organizational (5) life choices as well as choices about society (6), including sections on civility and various paradoxes about human nature and responsibility.  The book then closes with a brief look at the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity (III), with chapters on the "science" of God as well as a lengthy and somewhat awkward poem to God where the author explores his own tangled and complex path to belief.  While the author may have felt very strongly about this poem it comes off a bit cringy at least to me as a reader.

And that is my sense of the book as a whole.  To a great extent this book feels like a good stopping point.  The author reaches the point where he has little more to say than a strident reminder to the reader to remember (or to go back and read) previous works where the author has explored some aspect of psychology and spirituality.  The author shares some embarrassing poetry as part of an otherwise serious book.  This work feels like a summary of previous efforts tied together to remind the author of their coherence as well as an excellent demonstration of the author's reading of others and some personal discussion of the author's own life history and his own path to what he viewed as insight.  There is a lot to appreciate here, and if the work does not disappoint, it does at least remind the reader that at this point M. Scott Peck had little new to say, and had exhausted his means of saying it by the time one comes to the conclusion of his closing poem.  But while he had little new to say here, what he had to say was worth reading, at least.