Jeff Hoke '72

Jeff's Site - Book Page

Book Description
1) The Museum of Lost Wonder is a book with a mission, simply stated: To illuminate life’s mysteries. The execution is nearly indescribable. Think traditional esoteric symbols in a childhood garden of wonder. Think graphic novel and an adult version of the coolest activity book ever made. And you’ll be somewhere in the neighborhood.
Jeff Hoke has created a history of the human imagination with visual cues and clues and wonderment about and around everything you ever thought and everything you wish you’d been crafty enough to think. He has built a museum accessible to all, in book format, arranged with 7 halls (representing the seven stages of alchemical process) in which the questions of the universe unfold. All one needs to enter is some basic understanding of the human experience.

2) Open The Museum of Lost Wonder, and step into an alternative world full of beautiful drawings, interesting historical tidbits, thoughtful challenges to common myths, and projects and pursuits to complete at home. Pages pull out with cutouts for building models. Hoke’s museum is graphic novel meets quantum physics meets mythical journey meets spirit.

Hoke begins with The Calcinatio Hall where the featured exhibit is The Beginning of Everything and leads us into halls like The Sublimatio Hall, with the exhibit How To Have Visions. In The Separatio Hall the exhibit Where Are You Going challenges us in our own journey. Through each hall we are led into an exhibit that questions our own understanding of life and urges us into new ways of thinking. As in wandering the great, immense halls of an ancient museum with endless corridors and fascinating exhibits, the reader is instantly pulled into this enormously imaginative pursuit. Each page is full of depth and questions. And each hall features a special fold-out interactive page.

3) The Museum of Lost Wonder is a ray of hope in a dreary world. It is an oasis in an age when we are inundated everywhere we go with messages of consumption and materialism. It is an invitation into the imagination of a brilliant artist as well as a welcome back into your own imagination. It is a call to challenge your mind and your mind’s eye to re-assess what you believe to be true and what you know to be true. Once you enter the museum, there is no turning back. For the price of admission you get a whole new perspective on the meaning of life and your purpose in it.

Have you ever thought there was something better just around the corner? Somewhere beyond where you are now? Leaping Through Life is an adventure story, and a spiritual journey, spanning over 60 years. Jeff Hoke has traveled from east to west, and his autobiography takes us from the heights of the Himalayas to the depths of creativity. On his travels, he meets dreamers, visionaries, and the famous and ordinary heroes of everyday life. This is an inspiring tale of chances taken and lessons learned—a funny, irreverent search for meaning. Hoke explores different spiritual traditions to search for truths and finds many surprises along the way. You’ll go behind the scenes to uncover quirky cults and even quirkier museums. Through lucid dreaming, hypnosis and meditation he sometimes finds answers, but they often lead to more questions. How far would you go to escape the mundane to find meaning? This book takes you there and back again.

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