Lucifer's Game

Book excerpt: Lucifer’s Game is a tour de force first novel that will capture the hearts of followers of Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford, and other popular voices in the growing mainstream fields of spiritual enlightenment and Shadow work. Provocative, witty, humorous and fascinating, it reads like a cross between a metaphysical parable, a touching romance, and a self-help bestseller. Think The Celestine Prophecy sits down at My Dinner with Andre and converses with Debbie Ford’s The Dark Side of the Light Chasers. With dazzlingly literary finesse, Will Schneider takes readers on an intriguing journey into the unknowable depths of human nature and the universal quest to understand the BIG QUESTIONS: Is this level of our consciousness all there is? Can we learn to step outside the illusion of our reality and find wholeness? Can we transcend our “dark” side to find the light? The story unfolds on one of the exotic tropical islands of Hawaii, where the Jackson Trent has come to heal his heart after losing a loved one. As the writer of a popular blog on self-improvement, he believes he understands human nature, including his own failings. His respite trip is interrupted by the appearance of a mysterious stranger who walks with a ‘shuffle, shuffle, dip of the neck.’ It’s Lucifer, Prince of Darkness himself, who makes a personal appearance on earth from time to time to update himself on humanity—and today he’s chosen Jackson. Though wary, Jackson’s curiosity pushes him to agree to spend the day with Lucifer, debating and exchanging views about human nature and the possibility of enlightenment. Lucifer challenges Jackson to understand that humans live unconsciously and are caught in his web, “playing his game,” as he is the Keeper of the Shadowlings, all the negative forces like hatred, envy, and greed that we deny in ourselves and push into the basement of our minds. Jackson defends humanity, but Lucifer shows him the depths of human failings, even tricking Jackson into giving into some of his own. Sucked into Lucifer’s game, Jackson gets played until he recognizes the manipulation. The stakes grow serious—and it’s either Lucifer or Jackson who must win the Faustian bet. Full of plot twists, the ending bends the mind. Lucifer’s Game offers enlightenment seekers at every level a new perspective of consciousness to understand ourselves more deeply and reach for higher levels of wholeness.