Given that you probably can’t find a copy anywhere (sigh… I pick up copies whenever I find them in the back of a used book store… you used to be able to find more of them, I tell you what), you can instead read his essay (that he turned into that book) here:

http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kaufmann.htm

Here’s the excerpt that your post reminded me of:

“But popular Buddhism with its profuse idolatry, its relics, and its superstitions repels me, and I have reservations even about the teachings of the Buddha. I admire much of his profound analysis of man’s condition: the world has no purpose; it is up to us to give our lives a purpose; and we cannot rely on any supernatural assistance. Life is full of suffering, suffering is rooted in desire and attachment, and much desire and attachment are rooted in ignorance. By knowledge, especially of the Buddha’s teachings, it is possible to develop a pervasive detachment, not incompatible with a mild, comprehensive compassion–and to cease to suffer. But consider the Old Testament and Sophocles, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, Shakespeare and Goethe: the price for the avoidance of all suffering is too high. Suffering and sacrifice can be experienced as worthwhile: one may find beauty in them and greatness through them.”

But what troubles me most about Buddhism is its implication that detachment from ordinary life is the surest route to salvation

Much rests on the interpretation of ‘ordinary’. Horgan’s example is Siddhartha’s exodus from his family, and that is indeed a dramatic step, but Buddhism has always recognized the distinction between the monastic and the lay-practitioner and the advice for the non-monk has always been very practical. ‘Ordinary’ in that case refers to all sorts of behaviors in a typical life that are terribly damaging to the individual and those around. This isn’t mysticism, it’s empiricism. Abandonment of those behaviors is absolutely a good idea.

Also,
‘All religions, including Buddhism, stem from our narcissistic wish to believe that the universe was created for our benefit, as a stage for our spiritual quests. In contrast, science tells us that we are incidental, accidental.’

I don’t want to be a jerk, but I question the depth of Horgan’s understanding of Buddhism. The fact that the universe isn’t here for your benefit is, more or less, the foundational belief.

I feel that a quote from the Law of One series is so completely appropriate here, that I find myself unable to resist it, despite some of the new-agey terms that some people find strange:

Questioner: Thank you. I have a question here that I will read: “Much of the mystic tradition of seeking on Earth holds the belief that the individual self must be erased or obliterated and the material world ignored for the individual to reach ‘nirvana,” as it is called, or enlightenment. What is the proper role of the individual self and its worldly activities to aid an individual to grow more into the Law of One?”

Ra: I am Ra. The proper role of the entity is in this density to experience all things desired, to then analyze, understand, and accept these experiences, distilling from them the love/light within them. Nothing shall be overcome. That which is not needed falls away.

The orientation develops due to analysis of desire. These desires become more and more distorted towards conscious application of love/light as the entity furnishes itself with distilled experience. We have found it to be inappropriate in the extreme to encourage the overcoming of any desires, except to suggest the imagination rather than the carrying out in the physical plane, as you call it, of those desires not consonant with the Law of One, thus preserving the primal distortion of free will.

The reason it is unwise to overcome is that overcoming is an unbalanced action creating difficulties in balancing in the time/space continuum. Overcoming, thus, creates the further environment for holding on to that which apparently has been overcome.

All things are acceptable in the proper time for each entity, and in experiencing, in understanding, in accepting, in then sharing with other-selves, the appropriate distortion shall be moving away from distortions of one kind to distortions of another which may be more consonant with the Law of One.

It is, shall we say, a shortcut to simply ignore or overcome any desire. It must instead be understood and accepted. This takes patience and experience which can be analyzed with care, with compassion for self and for other-self.