Eliezer Sobel is the author of The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist’s Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments, as well as Minyan: Ten Jewish Men in a World That is Heartbroken, which was the winner of the Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, and Wild Heart Dancing. His short story, Mordecai’s Book, won New Millennium’s First Prize for Fiction, and his articles and stories have appeared in the Village Voice, Tikkun Magazine, Quest Magazine, Yoga Journal, New Age Journal, and numerous other publications.
Sobel was the Editor-in-Chief of The New Sun magazine in the 70s and was Publisher and Editor of the Wild Heart Journal more recently. He has led intensive creativity workshops and retreats at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, the Open Center in New York City, the Lama Foundation in New Mexico, and Elat Chayyim Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut. Sobel lives in Richmond, Virginia with his wife, Shari Cordon, and three cats: Squarcialupi, Peanut, and Plum.
Q: Thank you for visiting us at Divine Caroline, Eliezer. Let’s begin with Eliezer Sobel, the author behind the book. Can you tell us why you chose to write about your life’s experiences?
A: My life experiences were so unusual and over the top that I knew my story would provide a vicarious and entertaining glimpse of a world that many readers would never really get to see otherwise. Also, throughout my life, friends kept bugging me to write a book about all the weird things I did in the name of finding myself, getting enlightened, meeting God, or just to feel better about being here on this scary planet. So I wrote the book to get them off my back. I also wrote it because writing teachers were always telling students to “write what you know,” and you’d be amazed at how little I know about virtually anything apart from my own story. My lack of knowledge is a bit embarrassing.
Q: You call yourself the 99th monkey. Can you explain why?
A: There’s an idea called “The 100th Monkey” syndrome, which has to do with the way new ideas and practices spread rapidly through a group, a culture, even the world. It requires reaching what’s called a “critical mass” of people getting on board with it, thus causing what today we might call a “tipping point,” where suddenly the idea springs up everywhere, seemingly overnight. I bought a new car recently, and it came with an MP3 audio input in the sound system. That’s because some time ago enough people bought iPods that even the Toyota people got wind of it. My title is tongue-in-cheek: I’m playfully declaring myself to be “The 99th Monkey,” meaning I am the last hold-out among spiritual seekers, and through my lifelong resistance to transformation, I am single-handedly holding back the next great paradigm shift of the ages.
