Greetings from Utopia Park: Surviving a Transcendent Childhood
3.5/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
In this engrossing, provocative, and intimate memoir, a young journalist reflects on her childhood in the heartland, growing up in an increasingly isolated meditation community in the 1980s and ’90s—a fascinating, disturbing look at a fringe culture and its true believers.
When Claire Hoffman’s alcoholic father abandons his family, his desperate wife, Liz, tells five-year-old Claire and her seven-year-old brother, Stacey, that they are going to heaven—Iowa—to live in Maharishi’s national headquarters for Heaven on Earth. For Claire’s mother, Transcendental Meditation—the Maharishi’s method of meditation and his approach to living the fullest possible life—was a salvo that promised world peace and enlightenment just as their family fell apart.
At first this secluded utopia offers warmth and support, and makes these outsiders feel calm, secure, and connected to the world. At the Maharishi School, Claire learns Maharishi’s philosophy for living and meditates with her class. With the promise of peace and enlightenment constantly on the horizon, every day is infused with magic and meaning. But as Claire and Stacey mature, their adolescent skepticism kicks in, drawing them away from the community and into delinquency and drugs. To save herself, Claire moves to California with her father and breaks from Maharishi completely. After a decade of working in journalism and academia, the challenges of adulthood propel her back to Iowa, where she reexamines her spiritual upbringing and tries to reconnect with the magic of her childhood.
Greetings from Utopia Park takes us deep into this complex, unusual world, illuminating its joys and comforts, and its disturbing problems. While there is no utopia on earth, Hoffman reveals, there are noble goals worth striving for: believing in belief, inner peace, and a firm understanding that there is a larger fabric of the universe to which we all belong.
Claire Hoffman
Claire Hoffman writes for national magazines and holds a master’s degree in religion from the University of Chicago and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She was a staff reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone. She serves on the board of her family foundation, the Goldhirsh Foundation, as well as ProPublica and the Columbia School of Journalism. She lives in Los Angeles, California.
Related to Greetings from Utopia Park
Related ebooks
My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burn Zone: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Urban Hermit: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Timothy: The Devil, My Brother, and Me Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRajneeshpuram: Inside the Cult of Bhagwan and Its Failed American Utopia Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Confessions of a Hippie: Always Searching for Love Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCult, A Love Story: Ten Years Inside a Canadian Cult and the Subsequent Long Road of Recovery Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Once You Go In: A Memoir of Radical Faith Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Into Sanity: Essays About Mental Health, Mental Illness, and Living in Between - A Talking Writing Anthology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Cook Like a Man: A Memoir of Cookbook Obsession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Get Outta Town: A Tale of the Dead, the IRS and Coffee Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCaptive: A Mother's Crusade to Save Her Daughter from the Terrifying Cult Nxivm Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notes From Nethers: Growing Up In A Sixties Commune Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hippie Or, Like, There Was More to The 60s Than THAT, Man! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Family: The shocking true story of a notorious cult Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult That Bound My Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Home Free: Adventures of a Child of the Sixties Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Committed: A Rabble-Rouser's Memoir Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hollywood Park: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Everyday Dad: A Memoir About Single Parenting Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Mormon Life; A Boy's Struggle With Polygamy, Magic Underwear,and Racism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fractures: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Son of Seven Mothers: A True Story by a 'Cult Survivor' Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life Between Two Worlds: My Journey from Phnom Penh to Beverly Hills Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBloodland: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Buddhist Grief Observed Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Operation White Rabbit: LSD, the DEA, and the Fate of the Acid King Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGetting Lost to Find Home Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Personal Memoirs For You
I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gift: 14 Lessons to Save Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mommie Dearest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coreyography: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bad Mormon: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Choice: Embrace the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whiskey in a Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Taste: My Life Through Food Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Greetings from Utopia Park
21 ratings0 reviews