The Three Dangerous Magi

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Back cover:
The Most Dangerous man since Jesus Christ, the Sex Guru, the Ambassador from Hell, the Black Devil of Ashkhabad, The King of Depravity and the Wickedest Man in the World. These were some of the labels given to three of the most notorious figures of 20th century spirituality: Osho, G.I. Gurdjieff, and Aleister Crowley.
Yet beneath the controversies and scandals that swirled around all three the author argues that these men, egocentric tendencies notwithstanding, were brilliant thinkers and extraordinary masters of their craft.
Author:
The Three Dangerous Magi: Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley, examines the lives, teachings, and influence of three of the most controversial, important, and interesting 'crazy wisdom' teachers of the 20th century.
Despite the consistent focus and research required to produce a work like this (230,000 words and 714 pages), ultimately it was not hard for me to write, because the subject matter is absorbing and juicy (in contrast to the repetitive dryness of so much of the written material concerning transformational inner work). Crazy-wisdom type teachers, at least those of an impactful and influential nature, are profoundly interesting, if only because they run counter to the mass doctrines of religious programming that in large part is concerned with dividing human beings inwardly via a morally simplistic dualism. This simple-mindedness shows up a great deal in so-called 'new age' teachings, with their tiresome 'warriors of the light' mentality and tendency to perpetuate standard Christian programming that ultimately reinforces the repression of the nastier, more hidden elements of the ego (what Jung called the 'shadow', essentially). The Great Work lies in the uniting of Opposites (a work that often is necessarily antinomian), and more subtly in the embracing of paradox, not in 'division for morality's sake'. I address some of these matters in my book Rude Awakening.
As to the matter of what exactly 'crazy wisdom' is, the term technically derives from the Tibetan yeshe cholwa, which means roughly 'wisdom gone wild'. The Indian equivalent of the Tibetan crazy wisdom teacher is the avadhuta, a term that refers to a wandering mystic who flaunts social conventions and whose concern with awakening transcends moral frameworks. The best two treatments of this difficult subject I am aware of are Chogyam Trungpa's Crazy Wisdom and Georg Feuerstein's more scholarly Holy Madness.
author
P.T. Mistlberger (Sw Prem Teertha)
language
English
notes

editions

The Three Dangerous Magi

Osho, Gurdjieff, Crowley

Year of publication : 2010
Publisher : O Books
ISBN 978 1 84694 435 2 (click ISBN to buy online)
Number of pages : 713
Hardcover / Paperback / Ebook : P
Edition notes : First published by 0-Books, 2010. Text copyright P.T. Mistlberger 2009.
O Books Is an Imprint of John Hunt Publishing Ltd.. The Bothy, Deershot Lodge, Park Lane, Ropley, Hants, SO24 OBE, UK
see also
The Three Dangerous Magi on the author's website, with TOC and reviews