Raised Catholic and interested in Kabbalah since 1998, I’ve been asking bigger questions for a long time, and my particular area of interest has been human evolution, from biological, anthropological, and religious standpoints.

I consider myself lucky to have been educated in such a way that my Catholic faith and science were never a threat to each other, even as I was aware of people insistent the world was created in 7 days in other fundamentalist and Orthodox circles. Still, no one could really ever dig deeper into what happened at the dawn of humanity, spiritually speaking.

Just a few years ago, I became aware of writings by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Rabbi Sara Yehudit Schneider, Rav Laitman from Bnei Baruch, and Rav Berg from the Kabbalah Centre, which dig a bit deeper into the mystery. I learned about sabbatical cycles, Rabbi Isaac of Acco’s calculations for the age of the universe, The Ari’s wealth of contribution to study even in his short life, and so on.

I read The Broken Gift probably a little less than a year ago, thought it was interesting, and actually returned it because I didn’t think it fit in with the worldview that was emerging – but I know now I just wasn’t ready to receive the message.

I’ve since studied a but of Rav Ashlag’s Ten Luminous Emanations, based on The Ari’s writings, which talk about reverse evolution, or de-evolution.

I remembered this book, and downloaded it again recently for a read. I was ready to receive what it said, and it all made sense. I was amazed.

Mr. Friedmann’s book is the book I have wanted to exist for a long time, but hadn’t until recently.

Tags: human creation human evolution human origins science and religion