Anthony Storr - Feet of Clay

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 1996

Copyright © Anthony Storr 1996

Anthony Storr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780006384236

Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007382026

Version: 2017–01–05

For my friend and colleague Kay Redfield Jamison,

and in memory of our mutual friend and publisher Erwin Glikes.

The wisest men follow their own direction

And listen to no prophet guiding them.

None but the fools believe in oracles,

Forsaking their own judgement. Those who know,

Know that such men can only come to grief.

EURIPIDES, Iphigenia in Tauris

Cover

Title Page ANTHONY STORR FEET OF CLAY A STUDY OF GURUS

Copyright Copyright Copyright Dedication Epigraph Introduction I: Paranoid Enclosures II: Georgei Ivanovitch Gurdjieff III: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh IV: Rudolf Steiner V: Carl Gustav Jung VI: Sigmund Freud VII: The Jesuit and Jesus VIII: Sanity and Insanity IX: Chaos and Order X: Delusion and Faith XI: To Whom Shall We Turn? Keep Reading References Bibliography Index Acknowledgements About the Author Also by the Author About the Publisher HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 1996 Copyright © Anthony Storr 1996 Anthony Storr asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780006384236 Ebook Edition © NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780007382026 Version: 2017–01–05

Dedication Dedication Dedication Epigraph Introduction I: Paranoid Enclosures II: Georgei Ivanovitch Gurdjieff III: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh IV: Rudolf Steiner V: Carl Gustav Jung VI: Sigmund Freud VII: The Jesuit and Jesus VIII: Sanity and Insanity IX: Chaos and Order X: Delusion and Faith XI: To Whom Shall We Turn? Keep Reading References Bibliography Index Acknowledgements About the Author Also by the Author About the Publisher For my friend and colleague Kay Redfield Jamison, and in memory of our mutual friend and publisher Erwin Glikes.

Epigraph Epigraph Epigraph Introduction I: Paranoid Enclosures II: Georgei Ivanovitch Gurdjieff III: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh IV: Rudolf Steiner V: Carl Gustav Jung VI: Sigmund Freud VII: The Jesuit and Jesus VIII: Sanity and Insanity IX: Chaos and Order X: Delusion and Faith XI: To Whom Shall We Turn? Keep Reading References Bibliography Index Acknowledgements About the Author Also by the Author About the Publisher The wisest men follow their own direction And listen to no prophet guiding them. None but the fools believe in oracles, Forsaking their own judgement. Those who know, Know that such men can only come to grief. EURIPIDES, Iphigenia in Tauris

Introduction

I: Paranoid Enclosures

II: Georgei Ivanovitch Gurdjieff

III: Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

IV: Rudolf Steiner

V: Carl Gustav Jung

VI: Sigmund Freud

VII: The Jesuit and Jesus

VIII: Sanity and Insanity

IX: Chaos and Order

X: Delusion and Faith

XI: To Whom Shall We Turn?

Keep Reading

References

Bibliography

Index

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT GURUS. The Sanskrit word guru means ‘heavy’. When applied to people, it means someone who commands respect. Professor R. F. Gombrich informs me that, in Sanskrit, the word is ‘normally applied to one’s father, and most commonly of all to a teacher.’ He suggests that the closest English equivalent is ‘respected teacher’. Today, anyone regarded as an expert in any field, from football to economics, is liable to be deemed a guru. In this book, I am restricting the term to teachers who claim special knowledge of the meaning of life, and who therefore feel entitled to tell others how life should be lived. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary defines guru as ‘a spiritual teacher: a venerable person’. Not all gurus are venerable; but the definition ‘spiritual teacher’ is sufficiently accurate to indicate what is meant by the term in this book.