""A fascinating look at spiritual leaders, both past and present.""-Booklist
Crazy-wise adepts, cult leaders, and gurus challenge our common sense views of reality and norms of conduct. In their attempts to teach spiritual truths, they shock cognitive boundaries and jolt moral sensibilities with radical eccentricity, trickery, and excess.
Now for the first time, Holy Madness explores this universal dimension of spirituality in a readable and brilliant blend of history, philosophy, theology, and first-person accounts. Here are Fools for Christ, sitting naked on garbage heaps; eccentric Zen masters baffling their students with beatings and belly laughs; and enigmatic rascal gurus and spiritual clowns like Da-Ananda, Ch gyam Trungpa, G. I. Gurdjieff, and Aleister Crowley.
How can you tell if the antics of a Holy Fool are legitimate teaching tools or simply the acts of a self-indulgent lunatic? This fascinating study tackles this question and many others, providing an unbiased exploration of the mechanics of spiritual life.
""It makes good, stiff reading for folks who hanker for travel of the mind and heart.""-Boston Globe
""A totally absorbing and fascinating piece of work by an author of considerable intellectual caliber . . . a superb study in the further reaches of human nature.""-Colin Wilson, author of The Outsider
By:
Georg Feuerstein PhD
Foreword by:
Roger Walsh
Imprint: Arkana
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 196mm,
Width: 130mm,
Spine: 18mm
Weight: 237g
ISBN: 9780140193701
ISBN 10: 0140193707
Pages: 320
Publication Date: 01 October 1992
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
ELT Advanced
,
A / AS level
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
"Part 1 The phenomenon: holy madness, the moderate spiritual eccentrics in different religious traditions - the upside down world of tricksters and clowns, the fools for Christ's sake, the Sufi path of blame; crazy wisdom and radical spiritual eccentrics in different religious traditions - the Avadhutas, Masts and Bauls, the crazy adets of Tibet, the Zen master of China and Japan; the feats and foibles of contemporary crazy-wisdom adepts from rascal gurus to spiritual clowns - Gurdjieff, Aleister Crowley, Bhagwan Rajneesh (Osho), Chogyam Trungpa, Lee Lozowick; the many faces of Da Love-Ananda - the early years, crazy wisdom and the futility of experience, crazy-wise and the community of devotees. Part 2 The context: spiritual practice and th path beyond all paths - the long search, the snare of pop spirituality, the paradox of discipline, the ""heat"" of spiritual discipline; the guru a license to kill - false images of the guru, the guru function, Jesus and divinization, true gurus, false gurus and crazy gurus; discipleship - the time-honoured tradition of spiritual disciplineship, individuals and obedience, levels of conversion, cultism, guru-worship and freedom; God, enlightenment and ego-death - the loss of God and faith, enlightenment and the transcendence of attention, a new life through ego-death. Part 3 The significance: holy madness and the smoke screen of conscensus reality - a test case, conventional religion as counterfeit spirituality, the mystical ego, the humanistic way of self-actualization, the ego ""illusion"", the cult of scientism, religious provincialism, cultural veils over authentic spirituality; understanding holy madness - holy madness revisited, of holiness, wisdom and ignorance, holy madness, spontaneity and the chaos of existence, the playfulness and humor of enlightenment and crazy wisdom; holiness, madness and morality - madness and holy madness, the personality of adepts, holy folly and the transcendence of good and evil."
Roger Walsh, M.D., Ph.D.is professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology at the University of California at Irvine. He has published over a hundred articles and twelve books on science, philosophy, religion, and ecological issues, and his work has received over a dozen national and international awards.
