Matt McAvoy Book Review

As far as holistic or comprehensive books on fundamental being go, this is about as broad as it gets.  All credit to G.E. Poole; he has covered the foundations of life and death from every possible angle, including the chemical, scientific and natural.  But, of course, you get the impression that at its heart this is really a profound and powerful interpretation of the religious.  The author is as objective as you can get, but you can clearly see his unwavering faith in God and religion as the foundation of The Source; all other approaches in this book, though explored in admirable depth, appear to be supporting or are themselves based on the truth that is Scripture. 

If I’m truly honest, I personally struggled a fair bit with this book.  It feels exceptionally long; this, of course, is testament to the sheer graft, research and steadfast passion that Poole has put into the project – for that is what it is: an investigation of all recorded evidence and commonly-held belief (including pure faith) into the creation and purpose of human life – if the conclusion was already decided.  Additionally, for most of the book I was at a loss to understand the premise, particularly when it was focusing in early chapters on the scientific aspect of creation; of course, when Poole moves on to the spiritual and religious basis, its purpose became a lot clearer, and I realized: “Ah, it’s one of those” – a book about the path to enlightenment and salvation; that kind of thing.  If I had read the blurb it may have helped, but it is my opinion that you should be able to decipher a book without needing to, for the blurb is effectively an afterthought, rather than part of the thesis. 

My rating, however, is a pretty high one for this book, if only because it is such an awesome presentation of an epic subject, handled admirably.  The foundation and meaning of humanity’s existence, individually and collectively, is as big a canvas as you can get for debate, and Poole covers every single part of its surface area in profound minutiae – though again, clearly the bias is based on the religious.  I also feel compelled to avoid scoring this book based on my opinion, because I have no religious faith, nor am I familiar, beyond my learning in this job, with any particular Scripture; the vast majority of what I was reading in this book went way over my head, and my understanding of the role of resonance and frequency was non-existent.  In all frankness, I was completely oblivious more of less throughout the book’s entirety.  Scripture, to me, is a word puzzle – and I mean no disrespect; I simply am not a qualified person to comment on this book’s content; I can only speak for its quality and its appeal to the reader.  On the latter, it will absolutely hold resonance for those who study theology and practise faith, particularly in a scientific context.  In respect of the former, I have to be truthful and say that the proof could still do with a fair amount of work, in terms of grammar presentation. 

The real quality lies in Poole’s hard work and the scale of the book he has created.  I recommend it only to its niche audience, to be fair; I think the rest of you may find it difficult to get a grip on, as I did.  But the credentials and writing ability of this author are absolutely not in question.