Holy Madness: Spirituality, Crazy-Wise Teachers, and Enlightenment

by Georg Feuerstein

This book traces the shadowy tradition of a holy madness/crazy wisdoma from the Holy Fools of early Christianity, through the great adepts of India and Tibet, up to the controversial gurus of today. In our day, when even the Dalai Lama has warned Western seekers to choose their teachers carefully, Feuerstein provides an intelligent and cautionary guidebook to the guru-disciple relationship, plus a comprehensive analysis of the principles of authentic spirituality.

Genres: Spirituality, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion, Psychology, Buddhism, Mysticism

100 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1991

About the author

Georg A. Feuerstein was an Indologist and, according to his associate Ken Wilber, among the foremost Westerns scholar-practitioners of yoga. After doing his postgraduate research at Durham University in England, he moved to the United States, eventually settling in Canada with his wife and sometime co-author Brenda.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author Feuerstein describes, analyzes and attempts to explain 'the shock tactics and radical teachings of crazy-wise adepts, holy fools and rascal gurus.' One of them, Da Free John, was apparently his guru for a time and figures prominently in the book.

'Enlightenment', for Feuerstein, is detachment from, annihilation of the ego. Reconciling this with the fact that the exemplary 'gurus' he describes still inhabit bodies, act and perceive through them, is no easy task. Personally, I have no problem with the notion that the 'ego' is a social fiction, a malleable one, associated primarily with individual bodies in our culture, but also sometimes obtaining in reference to larger (families, clans, nations) and smaller (some psychological complexes) sets which can be described as having personality or character. Thus, for me, Feuerstein's approach, which is almost entirely individual-body associated, wasn't very appropriate. His attempt to square the circle, to reconcile the person of individual gurus (his generic term for enlightened guides or teachers), their behaviors, often ethically dubious, with their supposed higher states of being, wasn't convincing--though, to his credit, he does try to deal with ethical concerns.

Of course, my criticism of this book and its arguments may well be taken as a just another egoic defense.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Occasionally Feuerstein gets lost in the tall grass or drifts into Lefty tree-hugger territory but taking the good with the bad this is a decent analysis of the mad guru thesis with some enjoyable mini-bios and a good chunk of analytical psycho-philosophy.

Definitely worth a read if you are looking for the future of spirituality/religion, and are heartily disappointed with scientism.

Feuerstein functioning as a latter-day psychopomp.

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

[Kaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a valuable read that I recommend to others simply for the fact that the author is discussing complicated and weird aspects of spiritual practices with teachers, which is still under-discussed. While I disagree with some of his perspectives, specifically in that I'm in a Platonic framework and this book affirmed that I'm in the right place, I docked two stars because I think he is way, way too sympathetic towards sexual misconduct towards students.

Feuerstein seems to think that finding such things wrong is related to being a "dualist," but sexual contact between a teacher and a student is a violation of spiritual care. He only gave examples of male teachers doing this, which to me says that there are similar dynamics happening there to what happens when female employees or social group members are coerced into sex in order to remain employed or in a group. It's not about dualism at all, or about transcending expectations, but about power and violation ... and he furthermore seems to confuse advanced Tantric practices that very occasionally involve sex with the misconduct of spiritual teachers who are not operating in that tradition and who thus have no guardrails.

Apart from that, while I didn't grow up Christian and think of many of the holy fools of Early Christianity as violent destroyers of sacred objects because their actions led directly to the massacres of people who refused to convert, maybe someone coming from a Christian background would find a lot of his "Western" examples relatable due to cultural exposure to the ideas of those people as holy. I found the historical examples and discussion interesting, and again, this book is valuable simply for laying out an admittedly incomplete picture of "holy madness" that one can use as mental reference in the future.

[Paul Byron]

Fantastically subversive, when and if applied to actual teaching...

[Allys Dierker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me a long time to slog through. Food for thought about “seekers” who are still marked by ego. Asserts as fact some things that aren’t so clear to me: guru techniques, madness v. enlightenment, abuse v. spiritual challenges. The press is devoted to spirituality and mysticism, so there’s built in bias. And clearly Feuerstein has some loyalties (albeit examined, according to him) of Da Love-Ananda. I think I was looking for something more from the book as a whole, but he has some keen observations about the psychology behind why people are vulnerable to cults. The trickier differentiation is between cults and gurus—I’d have like a little more critical inquiry about Western mindsets and Eastern beliefs.

[IAO131 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-written book by Feuerstein on the phenomenon of "holy madness" or "crazy wisdom" in both Western and Eastern traditions. There is a portion where he focuses on some of these characters "gone wrong," including Gurdjieff, Maharishi, and Crowley - all three of them seem to be a bit dismissive, although he makes legitimate points for each as well. The majority of the book examines ideas of enlightenment and its relation to things like ethics, the guru-disciple relationship, possible abuses, etc., all of which are treated in a fairly informed and balanced way. The only caveat is that the author really likes Adi Da (a.k.a. Da Love Ananda, and many other names), one of the 60's-ish guru-white-guys who, admittedly, I have heard almost nothing about prior to this book and I enjoyed most of the author's cited quotations from him. Generally, very good explorations of the nature of enlightenment (although it will seem basic to those who have been studying the idea/the field for a while), and very sensible cautions described, including with "crazy wisdom" gurus, gurus in general, and the Path as a whole.

[Elbe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I would dare to recommend to anyone interested in the subject of guru-disciple relationship, the principle of the teacher and the spiritual path. The story of non-mind matters made clear to the mind (as much as it is possible).