Holy Madness: The Shock Tactics and Radical Teachings of Crazy-Wise Adepts, Holy Fools, and Rascal Gurus (An Omega Book) - Hardcover

Feuerstein, Georg

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1557782504 ISBN 13: 9781557782502

Publisher: Universal Sales & Marketing, 1991

Synopsis

Discusses the "crazy wisdom" of adepts, spiritual teachers, and gurus from all of the world's ancient spiritual traditions and explores the relationship between radical teachers and their disciples

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Reviews

Russian spiritual teacher Georgei Gurdjieff force-fed vegetarians hefty meat dishes. Japanese Zen master Lin-chi thrashed his pupils. Indian guru Meher Baba remained silent for 43 years. All employed what Feuerstein, author of books on yoga and religion, calls "holy madness" or "crazy wisdom," using eccentric behavior or shock tactics to communicate an alternative vision. A former devotee of Da Free John (aka Da Love-Ananda, ne Franklin Jones), Feuerstein presents critical cameos of holy fools (Aleister Crowley, BhagwanRajneesh, etc.) as well as guidelines for choosing a wise, enlightened guru and avoiding the exploitative. Yet his gallery of spiritual eccentrics is so diverse--ranging from Christian mystics to Hindu holy men who live on garbage heaps--that it's hard to credit the author's generalizations about the value of holy folly as an authentic path to transcendence.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Here, Feuerstein (The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Yoga, 1990- -not reviewed) explores the arcane and dramatic world of ``crazy wisdom''--the purposefully outrageous, convention-destroying behavior of spiritual adepts in every great tradition--peppering his fascinating historical survey of gurus and tricksters with insights from modern psychology and his own experience in an unnamed contemporary cult. ``In their realization or experience, adepts may be above good and evil,'' Feuerstein writes. ``In their actions, however, they are not.'' Tracing the shadowy tradition of crazy wisdom from the self-abnegating ``Holy Fools'' of early Christianity and Sufism (the ``Way of Blame'') to the greatly accomplished teaching adepts of India and Tibet (including the legendary Milarepa), Feuerstein paints a richly suggestive picture of ``crazy wise'' spiritual experience--as solitary and superb as a saint pretending to be mad. His portraits of modern adepts, however, reveal how difficult it is to balance mysticism with common morality. G.I. Gurdjieff, Chogyam Trungpa, Bhagwan Rajneesh, Da Love Ananda (a.k.a. Da Free John): Feuerstein alleges that each (to greater or lesser degree) indulged in outrageous behavior to flex his spiritual muscle in the face of dourly submissive disciples. Particularly surprising are accounts of the alcohol-drenched debauches of Trungpa and Da Love Ananda (Rajneesh's weaknesses are too well known to surprise). Feuerstein speculates that neurosis survives enlightenment, and he labels these singular men ``relics from an archaic spirituality''--yet he apparently longs to infuse the personal-growth field with their wisdom. A provocative and personally charged attempt to reconcile an ancient spiritual form to the modern age. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Music mogul Lissauer has compiled an alphabetical list of over 19,000 songs, covering standards and hits that include minstrel tunes, war songs, operetta pieces, jazz, instrumentals, blues, pop, rock, rhythm and blues, and country and western. Each entry includes writer and lyricist, date of popularity, and usually a sentence or two describing its context and the performer(s) who popularized it. A year-by-year listing follows, and the volume closes with an index of the writers (but not performers). This is a good tool for basic information, but those libraries already owning the 13-volume series Popular Music , edited by Bruce Pollock and Nat Shapiro (Gale, 1975-88), and not concerned with the gay Nineties will find Lissauer unnecessary.
- Robert Aken, Univ. of Kentucky Libs., Lex ington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Universal Sales & Marketing
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1557782504
• ISBN 13: 9781557782502
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296