Written by the late self-help author Peter McWilliams and couched in the tone of the author's Life 101 self-help books, Life 102 levels a series of allegations against John-Roger (Roger Delano Hinkins), a self-proclaimed spiritual messenger and founder of the incorporated Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness (MSIA) and Insight Seminars. McWilliams' book describes his struggle with depression, and shares that Hinkins promised him "spiritual healing" in exchange for crediting "John-Roger" as co-author of his many self-improvement manuals which later made the New York Times best-seller lists, alleging that J-R was not involved with their authorship. After a lengthy and expensive legal battle occurring during the last painful stages of McWilliams' fight with fatal illness, MSIA came to own the copyright and took the book out of production.