One of the towering—and most controversial—figures in occult history, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-91) cofounded the Theosophical Society and profoundly influenced the spread of Eastern and (many would say) pseudo-Eastern spiritual doctrines in the West. Here, Cranston (coauthor, Reincarnation, 1984—not reviewed) offers an energetic but nearly hagiographic biography of this remarkable woman. Born to well-off Russian parents, HPB exhibited a willful personality early on—as evidenced by her marriage at age 17, to spite a governess who said she'd never attract a husband, to 40- year-old Nikofor Blavatsky: The marriage was never consummated, and HPB soon ran away to begin her world travels. These took her to the US (where she became the first Russian woman to gain citizenship), India, Tibet, and England. In London, HPB met her Hindu ``Master,'' whose guidance helped her to elaborate Theosophy, which teaches that all religions derive from a universal wisdom embodied throughout history by ``adepts'' such as Jesus. With her forceful character and alleged psychic powers, HPB won many followers, including Thomas Edison, and increased the number through books (The Secret Doctrine, etc.)—despite frequent charges of charlatanism—until her death. Cranston, apparently a true believer who attended ``Theosophy School'' in the 30's, draws on prodigious research—but it's all aimed at defending HPB and includes numerous reports of HPB teleporting objects, etc. Moreover, in her urge to tie HPB to traditional religion, Cranston displays a woeful ignorance of basic Buddhist doctrine, and, in trying to enhance HPB's stature, she argues unconvincingly that HPB prophesied future scientific advances. Cranston even expends about 500 words explaining HPB's influence on...Elvis. Well detailed—but the astonishing adventure of HPB's life too often gets lost beneath Cranston's piousness. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Jan. 6, 1993
ISBN: 0-87477-688-0
Page Count: 656
Publisher: TarcherPerigee
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1992
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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