In January 2018, best-selling authors Brian Keene and Mary SanGiovanni witnessed a group of unidentified flying objects over their home. That encounter with the unexplained forms the basis for this honest, revealing memoir-styled treatise on faith, religion, the occult, atheism, agnosticism, science, and the supernatural, as World Horror Grandmaster Award-Winner Brian Keene takes the reader on a journey through his own belief structure, revealing how it has influenced him as both a person and as a writer, impacting everything from his lifestyle choices to the books he’s written. Regardless of your own individual experience, you’ll find yourself pondering THE TRIANGLE OF BELIEF.
Title: The Triangle of Belief | Author: Brian Keene| Publisher: Amazon.com Services LLC | Pub Date: 05/04/2020 | Pages: 68 | ISBN13: 979-8631064065 | Genre: Non-Fiction, Philosophy/Religion | Language: English | Source: Purchased | Starred Review
The Triangle of Belief Review
As children, many of us had experiences that defy explanation. It is easy for children to take things on faith. Kids believe in all sorts of things that are illogical. The same children taught stranger danger fully accept the idea of Santa Claus entering their home and leaving them presents. Children are often illogical and capable of holding contradictions and accepting opposing ideas as equally true. They don’t consider factors that may make them vulnerable to suggestion.
As adults, we tend to believe in what we can see, touch, understand, label. We apply logic to our thought processes and decisions. We rationalize away the things we couldn’t understand as children and seek explanations for what we see as our childish beliefs.
When we get older, things often change again. Some of us have other experiences that we can’t explain away. We begin to realize that the rationalizations we’ve used to dismiss the experiences from our youth can’t explain away everything.
There are things people go through that defy logic.
This is what Brian Keene explores in The Triangle of Belief. He looks at events from his childhood, and how they shaped him as a person. Keene then goes through the teenage years and early adulthood, and explores how the events of his youth were excused and explained away. He uses simple, straightforward language to complete the triangle and lead readers back to the point of belief, to that stage later in our lives when we realize that our logic can’t account for everything.
That point when we realize we may have been closer to the truth as children, when we took our experiences on faith, than we were as adults when we dismissed the things we’d seen.
This is a short work that uses Keene’s personal experiences to explain the process. It’s a guide that reaffirms that, whatever the reader has experienced, is probably not as far-fetched as they convinced themselves it was when they got older.
The Triangle of Belief is accessible. It’s written in a way that’s easy to follow, so that the widest audience possible can follow the stages of belief that Keene works through. Using personal experiences also makes it relatable. It isn’t theoretical, although the book has the ability to shape and define the stages of belief that we all go through.
The Triangle of Belief is a short work that doesn’t overstate its case. It presents the salient details clearly. You can read it in one sitting. For me, the message has lingered long after I finished the last page. I found it inspiring. Those who are still mired in adult logic and what can be scientifically proven can be inspired to keep an open mind and begin to search for the wonders and horrors they once readily accepted in their youth. And perhaps that will lead us all to discover truths that might otherwise have eluded us.
4/5
You can find this book at many retailers via clicking on the appropriate link on Goodreads. (Buying direct from retailers is a good way to support indie authors); however, in the spirit of supporting literacy programs, we would like to point out that you may be able to purchase this book through BetterWorldBooks.)
Eliza writes YA, horror, sci fi, fantasy and crime fiction. She also reviews for Sci-Fi and Scary. Stay up to date by following her on Twitter @ElJBrandt
