I just finished the book Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

The book centers around a character by the name of Donald Shimoda who crosses paths with the narrator, Richard. As they travel the countryside together as barnstormers, selling joy rides on their small planes, Shimoda is revealed to be a “messiah”.

The book brings the truly simple, yet profoundly complex theory of life, into perspective making one feel that they may be able to conquer all of their insecurities by simply always being happy. But happiness seems to be one of the hardest feelings to be and hold on to, for all of us, so how do we start?

With thoughtful, and deep quotes and a beautiful story line, Bach explains the secrets of the world and then undermines them all. He portrays a new way of looking at life. It's the same world, yet different, because the Messiah is a normal automobile mechanic, who heals people and teaches Richard about the Illusions of life, and how he can overcome them. This book is full of wonderful teachings to apply to one's own life.

Shimoda passes along the wisdom of many lifetimes to Richard, who in fact may be a messiah-in-training. These include gems like:

“You’re like everybody else. You already know this stuff—you’re just not aware that you know it, yet.”

and

“Believe you know all answers, and you know all answers.”

Illusions does what good spiritual fiction should do. It gets you to see the world from a fresh perspective, looking at seemingly ordinary events in a new way. The book also gets across the important point that wisdom gained is not to be coveted by its owners, but needs to be shared with others.

Bach closes the story with one of many choice passages from a book of wisdom that pops up throughout Illusions:

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.”


The book is really about how to develop yourself, how to exceed your own expectations and how you may use the people around you as teachers to get the knowledge you need and to get self-realization. These things are really the underline of the book and the story is more of a metaphor to express the real message that the author wants to deliver. I believe the best thing about this book is that everyone who reads it can identify themselves with the message and also understand it differently.

The larger statement here is that each of us has in us, the power to make our own path just the way we want it, if only we let go.

To quote, “Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours”.