Holy Rascals

“Every once in a while a book comes along that will change your life. While you’re waiting, read this one.”

Lama Kakha author of How to Reincarnate as a Famous Lama

“Rabbi Rami is a rare sage and trickster rolled into one. With sparkling wit, he demonstrates in this unique book that profound and daring truths are best conveyed through humor and laughter.”

IMAM JAMAL RAHMAN

author of Sacred Laughter of the Sufis

“Some things are not meant to be known. This book is full of those things.”

Ellen Calhoon author of A Luddite’s Guide to God

“This book is not worth the paper it’s printed on, and I bought the ebook version”

Mandy Montoya author of My God, My God, Why Have I Forsaken You: An Atheist’s Journey

“I love this book. I feel at home in it. There isn’t a sentence in this book that I don’t agree with 150 percent, and it is all presented with an intelligent, sensitive, and brash humor that only slightly veils the sadness over a world so in need of religion and yet ignorant of it. Enjoy the humor, but don’t neglect the wisdom that is on every page. Now I hope Rabbi Rami will anoint me in holy rascality.”

THOMAS MOORE

author of Care of the Soul

“Sure, this book is hilarious. I kept barging into my husband’s studio to read him passages of such sublime irreverence they left us both breathless. But it is also terrifyingly pertinent. The vast majority of religious propositions are not only ridiculous, but dangerous. This book pulls back the curtain and exposes the little man who has replaced real magic with fake power. In his fierce truth-telling, Rabbi Rami reconnects the yearnings of our own wild hearts with the sacred soul of the world.”

MIRABAI STARR

author of Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation and God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

“This book won’t make the New York Times list, but I hope to see it on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.”

Sister Ann Our Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, author of Stigmata for Fun and Profit

“Mystic, scholar, trickster, grenade-roller . . . no one else puts all of these together in one package like Rami Shapiro. If you like fine writing, clear-eyed wisdom, impish irreverence, and compassion for the insanities of the spiritual journey, Holy Rascals is for you. After reading Holy Rascals you may just conclude, ‘Oh, me too! I’m a holy rascal—I just didn’t know it until now!’”

GORDON PEERMAN

author of Blessed Relief: What Christians Can Learn from Buddhists about Suffering

“At once side-splittingly hilarious and heartbreakingly on target, this outrageous tour de force of a spiritual manifesto reminds us once again that great irony wielded with great compassion can be a powerful vehicle of truth.”

CYNTHIA “MOKSHA” BOURGEAULT

recovering goddess and inter-spiritual incendiary; author of The Wisdom Way of Knowing, The Heart of Centering Prayer, and Love Is Stronger than Death

“I didn’t understand this book.”

Morningstar Moonbeam author of Pious Platitudes, Empty Affirmations: A New Age Life Interrupted

“Truth is one. Different people call it by different names. This isn’t one of them.”

Sri Sri Sri Sri author of Sat, Shit, Ananda: The Yogic Path to Blissful Bowel Movements

“Holy Rascals is at times brilliant, funny, abrasive, and insightful. It poses the big question about religion: Are we making all this up, and if so, how can we make it up in the most positive and life-affirming way? An alternative question might be: Is there a Higher Order Reality that human beings might aspire to, sacrifice for, and be guided by?”

KABIR HELMINSKI

Sufi teacher, translator of Rumi, author of Living Presence, The Knowing Heart, and Holistic Islam

“I’m recommending this book for Banned Books Week.”

Rabbi Herschel Ostopol author of Choosing Not to Be Chosen: JuBus, HinJews, Jufis, Jewnitarians, and Other Ways to Avoid Going to Shul