An interview Sam Bercholz

America’s largest Buddhist publisher discusses the myth of millennialism and the challenges of spiritual publishing in the New Age.

When Sam Bercholz founded Shambhala Publications twenty-eight years ago, there was relatively little interest in America in Eastern spiritual teachings, meditation or other esoteric subjects. Bercholz, at Shambhala’s helm, has introduced millions of readers to the spiritual teachings and philosophies that are his passion and has gained a reputation for skillfully navigating the changing times, including the turbulent waters of popular spirituality and New Age movements. We were intrigued by a statement in Shambhala’s company literature: “As many of these subject areas have been increasingly commercialized under the nebulous catch-all of the ‘New Age,’ we have quietly continued to fulfill our original mission of publishing serious books of lasting value that . . . present what’s real and not the glitz.” Because of his unique vantage point on the popularization of esoteric spiritua
lity in America and his commitment to maintaining an unusual standard of authenticity in an arena increasingly subject to the demands of the market, we were eager to speak with Bercholz about some of the themes we explore in this issue of What Is Enlightenment? Bercholz, informed by his perspective as a publisher of titles on art, philosophy, psychology and culture, as well as Eastern religious traditions, has some fascinating things to say about the vicissitudes of spiritual publishing and the myths of the New Age.

interview

WIE: You founded Shambhala Publications twenty-eight years ago, when there was relatively little interest in America in Eastern or other esoteric spiritual teachings. The cultural landscape has changed quite a bit during that time. What was your vision for your publishing company when you began, and how has it changed with the changing times?

Sam Bercholz: In the beginning the quest was really quite personal, because I and the cofounder of Shambhala Publications, Michael Fagan, were pursuing our own interest in Eastern spiritual traditions, and then helping others discover the things that we had found. A lot of the publishing we did went along with our personal discoveries. Then it began to have its own life. In the beginning we used to publish mainly translations from Oriental languages. We were really plowing new ground with Buddhism, Taoism and Hinduism. We still publish translations, but now we also publish a lot of things by people who were just learning about Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism and so on back in that era—and who are now teaching it. So now we publish the classics as well as contemporary understandings of them. I think that’s the biggest change.

WIE: There seems to be a remarkable resurgence of interest in spirituality in America in recent years, as evidenced by the numerous spiritual themes on the covers of popular news magazines and the fact that books on New Age spirituality now regularly make it onto the bestseller lists. As a book publisher you are in a unique position to have your finger on the pulse of the times. What is your perspective on the apparent resurgence of interest in spirituality in America today?

SB: I wasn’t around in the late 1800s, but from the histories I’ve read, what is happening now is similar. There is a resurgence of interest in spirituality now, but there was a simi
lar resurgence a century ago with the founding of the Theosophical Society, the Vedanta Society, Christian Science, all those sorts of things in this country. So in a way it’s a repeat rather than unique. Books on all kinds of esoteric subjects were bestsellers a century ago as well. The difference is that the interest in the spiritual traditions of the East is greater nowadays. There have always been these waves of inspirational books with some sort of spiritual basis. But now the spiritual basis, instead of just being Christian, can have a Hindu or Buddhist flavor. It’s not all that different. I don’t see it as any big revolution. People have always been interested in spirituality from one point of view or another. Whether the spirituality is genuine or not, whether it’s “snake oil” or not . . . the reader has to determine. There have been genuine things published in the last thirty years, and a lot of crap. There have always been genuine things and crap. You see, the more genuine stuff that’s published, the more crap is also published. Because if something genuine sells, then—it’s just human nature—someone says, “Oh, that’s easy enough to do. I’ll just make something up like that and sell it the same way.” You know, the snake oil variety.

WIE: You have gained a reputation over the years of trying to
hold a
standard, to stick to the genuine article and stay clear of “the snake oil variety,” as you say.

SB: Right. It’s the relative standard of our editors. We do the best that we can so that, when our name is on the book, we can say that this is not b.s.

WIE: If you were to say what you want a Shambhala book to stand for—what would it be, what do you look for?

SB: Well, that it’s helpful; that at worst it’s not harmful, but at best that it’s helpful. And that it’s genuine. It’s pretty simple. Most of our books come from traditions, tried and true traditions. But we are also willing to publish revolutionaries, so it’s not always just about coming from a great tradition. The backbone of our company, in fact, are the classics translated from Chinese, Sanskrit, Japanese, Korean, ancient Persian, Arabic and so on. But we are always willing to add modern—not just interpretations—but modern versions.

WIE: What would you say about the current state of the dharma in the West?

SB: I think that it’s possible for Western practitioners of Buddha dharma, Taoist dharma, Hindu dharma—all the different Eastern dharmas—to actually attain enlightenment, or whatever the equivalent is in that tradition. But I don’t think it is possible for those traditions to have a huge effect on this country in any overt way. I think, from the Eastern point of view, it’s a dark age, a dark time. It’s a dark place. There is the right wing that views anything that isn’t fundamentalism as being the enemy. And then we have the problem of the liberals calling anything that is spiritual “New Age.” So it’s a real problem.

I think there is some hope that people can make their lives better. And if they can make their lives better, then that can extend to many other people. But there’s a lot of wishful thinking that there are huge changes happening, socially and so on. I think it’s exactly that: it’s wishful thinking. I think the things that people think change things are not the things that really change things. It’s subtler than that. It’s real individual actions that change things, rather than paying lip service to some sort of mass movement of consciousness. I think it’s too much to think that this country, or any big country, can really be fully actualized. I think that’s wishful thinking because then you forget about . . . what’s really involved.

WIE: You said earlier that you want a Shambhala book to be genuine. How do you determine that?

SB: There’s this big b.s. meter on
the wall here. We put the manuscript up to the b.s. meter. If it do
esn’t go over the line, then we publish it. That’s just a joke, obviously. But even though it’s a joke, it is like that. It does have to fit. There is a standard we try to keep. However, it’s an unstated standard because there’s no way to articulate it. It’s partly intuitive. Partly there’s some objective standard—it’s not exactly academic, though we don’t have anything against the academic standard. . . .We try to keep a good spiritual standard.

WIE: I would imagine this lends itself to lively discussions—you and your editors trying to clearly perceive and maintain this standard.

SB: Each book that is published has to go through an entire editorial committee. Standards come first, money comes second, or third even. There are many things that we have been offered that we haven’t published even though we could have made millions of dollars publishing them. Personally, I’ve turned away knowing I could have had millions of dollars in my pocket. But I feel no regret, never will feel any regret.

WIE: You’re trying to navigate your way through the New Age fads and the popular spiritual superstars.

SB: It’s just simply what we do. It’s not like we are doing it this week. We are a successful publishing house, which means many of our books have sold lots of copies. But not at the expense of quality. Even when we were in financial trouble, the way we chose to get out of it was to publish blank books, beautiful books with literally nothing in them. That was our response to financial problems: instead of publishing crap, we published the ultimate Zen books, books with no words in them. No words, no pictures. And actually it started a trend, but we were just doing it because we needed to survive.

WIE: Yet some of the books you’ve said “no” to, often in the New Age genre, have become great sellers that many publishing houses would have fought to get their hands on. And the New Age genre is becoming very big and very influential.

SB: We never classify any of our books “New Age.” We’ve been asked to, but we refuse. You know, the problem with the New Age is that it gets old quick.