Therefore, we do not see the valuelessness of our lives even as we suffer from it. An inner journey, outwardly masking itself as a sojourn up the side of a high mountain, Stephen of the Holy Mountain seeks answers to the most perplexing questions that come to those who have awakened from the sleep of ordinary existence. The mysterious figure of Stephen acts as a guide both to the author and to many others who climb Stephen's mountain to find him. His advice is often too harsh for many who think they seek it. Unfailingly kind, however, Stephen does his best to aid all who come to him.
Metaphysical assumptions are and have always been a necessary and unavoidable part of human life.
Consequently, we have rendered ourselves unable to distinguish between the metaphysical and non-metaphysical aspects of any knowledge and are still less able to judge whether our hidden or flaunted metaphysical assumptions are faulty and, if so, how they might be corrected. The Metaphysical Imperative explores the nature of metaphysical assumptions, how they are all-pervasive, which ones dominate our attitudes today, what their flaws are, and how we might improve them. The spirit or energy that life grants us to fulfill our destiny is seized, imprisoned, and then turned away from its natural direction, usually to be amplified for ulterior motives. The various derailments of spirit operate unconsciously upon their victims. We today are particularly vulnerable to blindness here because of our ignorance of the dynamics of spiritual life-even as many of us pretend to spirituality and feel energy which we trust to be helpful.