Review: Golden Keys to Open Doors by Harry Meier

In the realm of modern spirituality, there are many authors who propose to have the answers, or to know the correct path for spiritual well-being, spawning an entire spirituality industry – valued in the hundreds of billions—for people to lean into in order to clear their mind and cleanse their spirits. In Golden Keys to Open Doors: About Spiritual Cotton Candy, author Harry Meier exposes some of his biggest criticisms with the modern realm of spirituality, and provides his own alternative path.

Meier takes a unique approach to his subject, because where so many other spiritual gurus and guides will propose one pathway among many, this author focuses on the unreliability of many of those paths. Using a variety of personal experiences, and relating the pertinent questions that each one raised for him, he proposes a path towards enlightenment driven solely by your own sense of curiosity and fearless self-examination.

While this is a valid approach for self-enlightenment, he doesn’t do as good a job at reducing the authority or validity of other techniques – especially given his own book could be criticized using his own criteria. Meier isn’t so much debunking the industry, as adding another tome to fill its bookshelves, so there is something fairly self-serving in his approach – as if he mainly taking down his competitors.

The irony in the writing is that it comes across as another spiritual book of wisdom, with easy-to-digest language, and the occasionally esoteric metaphor or wise statement that will make readers ponder. For all intents and purposes, if a reader didn’t know the premise of Meier’s argument, and flipped to a random page, they may have no idea that the author holds modern spirituality in such suspicious regard. Adding to that, the book suffers from some of the same problems as other books in the field. There are some pages filled with single-line mantras or bold, declarative statements, which lack narrative flow or connection.

The book does gain more steam when it’s focused on problems in the industry – which, indeed, can be overrun by people making outsized, empty promises. Meier goes through dozens of examples and personal anecdotes to solidify his point that modern spirituality needs to get its comeuppance. If you’re a cynic about the industry, these points will hit home. However, those same cynics may not be entirely on board with his antidotes, which aren’t too far afield from what he’s criticizing. Once the argument against spirituality has been made, Meier slips into a different form of wordplay, a new variant from the same playbook as the guides he claims to dislike.

That being said, there is nothing false or misguided in his philosophy; indeed the ideas and language presented in Golden Keys to Open Doors are well-expressed and inspiring. As a pure work of self-help, the messages could be beneficial for many different people looking for answers, as there is real wisdom to be found in these pages. The author’s recognition that there are dangers in the modern spiritual industry is valid and worthwhile, so there is a lot to recommend this book as both a work of spiritual self-help, and an overview of the current state of modern spirituality.