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Title: Feet Of Clay by Anthony Storr ISBN: 0-684-83495-2 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 19 August, 1997 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $16.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.38 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: An insightful book
Comment: I am a medical student and I have been reading some of Dr Storr's books. This one about Gurus. Obviously having all the great people and especially Jesus Christ criticized, in one book, wouldnt be easy. I think Dr Storr is trying to analyse each one of them from views on their personalities, psychodynamics and bahviours which is how exactly psychiatrists look at everyone in the world in order to be objective, and still in a humane way afterall. To me Dr Storr's writings are insightful and very humane, not only in this book of his.
Some readers may find it sad to have their own Guru being criticised. But one relieving point is that you can still appreciate and believe in any man's preachings even you find out that he is not perfect as a person. So yes, if you are not such an ultimate disciple of any of the gurus the author is describing, this book is recommanded.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Close Look at the Spiritual Gurus
Comment: I do not agree with the other reviewer's comments; I think Starr does quite a thorough analysis of the 'gurus', whom he has chosen from a large scope of times and nations. I agree that it is not very scholarly; and furthermore it has a 'conversating' atmosphere to it. But I personally like it that way. It's clear and intelligible. Why make it seem profound, for the sake of looking more important?
The book has eleven chapters. Anthony Starr describes a couple of gurus, whom he identifies as people who declare themselves the experts of life. Gurddjieff, Rajneeh, Rudolf Steiner, and the two leading psychologists Jung and Freud are among these. It becomes interesting when there's seemingly different people.
Starr has a degree in psychiatry, and he's been a professor at Oxford, a distinguished psychiatrist in the English society, as well as honor members of the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Psychiatrists. To deny his achievements and knowledge, would simply be not right.
His writing is flowing. The whole book is like a long story, but definitely not a long and boring story. His writing consists of his presentation of the gurus with references from other writers and his personal comments in between, which I find quite logical.
The book changed my view over prophets and beliefs. Now I know the reasons why we have major religions, and why some are the only figures in religion. I now recognise the other gurus.
It was also interesting to know about the secrets of Jung's psychological sickness at his late age, in addition to how Freud was driven to become the Freud we know of him.
This book is worth reading every single page. It's a good analysis, and a good story.
Rating: 1
Summary: Study? Cheap journalism in a cloak of florid prose.
Comment: This book is a typical example of what one of its subjects (Gurdjieff) would have described as armchair philosophy, i.e. someone with no practical experience of what they're writing about dreams up an idea in the comfort of their own home, creates an extremely shallow thesis and finds "victims" to fit into it, be they they Jesus Christ, Gurdjieff or Jim Jones.
The chapter on Gurdjieff in particular is utterly awful, using the cheap journalistic trick of taking things so wildly out of context that Storr presents a case for Gurdjieff being almost the opposite of what he was. An in-depth study of the wide range of literature about Gurdjieff would not only counter Storr's rather feeble arguments, but utterly decimate them. Storr simply does not understand Gurdjieff. This is not an opinion based on reading, but on practical experience of Gurdjieff's methods as taught by some of Gurdjieff's former pupils, now extremely elderly and still displaying a perspicacity, intelligence and understanding which, in no small part, has been developed as a result of their contact with Gurdjieff when young.
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Title: Under the Banner of Heaven : A Story of Violent Faith by JON KRAKAUER ISBN: 0385509510 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 15 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power by Joel Kramer, Diana Alstad ISBN: 1883319005 Publisher: Frog Ltd Pub. Date: May, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr ISBN: 0345358473 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 06 May, 1989 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: No Man Knows My History : The Life of Joseph Smith by Fawn M. Brodie ISBN: 0679730540 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 August, 1995 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Why I Am Not a Christian : And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell ISBN: 0671203231 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 30 October, 1967 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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