"The Enlightenment Trap"...Wim Hoff (audio)

Glynn Washington (WNYCstudios.org); Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.) Wisdom Quarterly

The Enlightenment Trap

A student trip to India. A goody two-shoes gal, Emily O'Connor. A delusion that she is a bodhisattva (later developments). A suicide. It's an "Enlightenment Trap"! The existential crisis leads her teacher, Scott Carney, on a search for meaning.

He studies how many Westerners go off the rails in India -- and how many "fake gurus" drive them to it. Like, who the heck is this Wim "The Iceman" Hof?

What Doesn't Kill Us (Scott Carney)

He has to be fake, the fakest of the fakes. A skeptical journalist goes to Poland to take the training then fights freezing temperatures alongside the fitness guru to test the limits of his own mortality.

Read more about Scott’s adventures with Wim Hof and his record-breaking ascent up Mt. Kilimanjaro in the book What Doesn't Kill Us. See what else Carney is up to on his website.

• Produced by Adizah Eghan
• Original score by David Last
• AUDIO: Snap Classic: Season 8, Episode 17