The Guru Papers
Masks of Authoritarian Power
1st Edition
Published on 19. June 2012
408 pages
978-1-58394-598-8 (ISBN)
Description
The Guru Papers demonstrates with uncompromising clarity that authoritarian control, which once held societies together, is now at the core of personal, social, and planetary problems, and thus a key factor in social disintegration. It illustrates how authoritarianism is embedded in the way people think, hiding in culture, values, daily life, and in the very morality people try to live by. The book unmasks authoritarianism in such areas as relationships, cults, 12-step groups, religion, and contemporary morality. Chapters on addiction and love show the insidious nature of authoritarian values and ideologies in the most intimate corners of life, offering new frameworks for understanding why people get addicted and why intimacy is laden with conflict. By exposing the inner authoritarian that people use to control themselves and others, the authors show why people give up their power, and how others get and maintain it.
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05/1993
North Atlantic Books,U.S.
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Persons
Joel Kramer and Diana Alstad are co-authors of The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power. They have written and taught together since 1974 on evolution, spirituality, relationships, values, awareness, yoga, and social issues. Their website is: www.joeldiana.com.
Joel Kramer, also the author of The Passionate Mind, did post-graduate work in philosophy and psychology and was a resident teacher at Esalen Institute (1968-1970). He is a pioneer and legend of modern American yoga whose evolutionary vision of yoga freed it from its authoritarian roots, re-visioning it for the West.
Diana Alstad, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, received a doctorate from Yale University in 1971. She taught in the humanities and initiated and taught the first Women's Studies courses at Yale and Duke. She envisioned the Yoga of Relationship and developed it with Kramer.
Joel Kramer, also the author of The Passionate Mind, did post-graduate work in philosophy and psychology and was a resident teacher at Esalen Institute (1968-1970). He is a pioneer and legend of modern American yoga whose evolutionary vision of yoga freed it from its authoritarian roots, re-visioning it for the West.
Diana Alstad, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, received a doctorate from Yale University in 1971. She taught in the humanities and initiated and taught the first Women's Studies courses at Yale and Duke. She envisioned the Yoga of Relationship and developed it with Kramer.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Other Books by the Authors
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface and Map of the Book
- Introduction: Why Focus on Authoritarianism
- Authority, Hierarchy, and Power
- Part 1: Personal Masks
- 1. Religion, Cults, and the Spiritual Vacuum
- Religion and Morality
- The Challenge of Science
- Who Defines Reality in Religions and Cults?
- Reexamining the Sacred
- 2. Gurus and Times of Upheaval
- 3. The Seductions of Surrender
- Control and Surrender
- Scandals, Saints, and Self-Centeredness
- Recognizing Authoritarian Control
- 4. Guru Ploys
- Inducing Surrender
- Maintaining Dominance
- 5. The Assault on Reason
- 6. Stages of Cults: Proselytizing to Paranoia
- Messianic Proselytizing
- Apocalyptic Paranoia
- 7. The Attractions of Cult Hierarchy
- 8. Gurus and Sexual Manipulation
- The Betrayal of Trust
- Spiritual Hedonism: Tantric
- 9. Gurus, Psychotherapy, and the Unconscious
- 10. The Traps of Being a Guru
- Narcissism and Adulation
- Deceit and Corruption
- 11. Jim Jones and the Jonestown Mass Suicide
- 12. On Channeling Disembodied Authorities
- Assumptions about Channeling
- An Example of Channeled Writing: A Course in Miracles
- What Are Channels Channeling?
- 13. Do You Create Your Own Reality?
- Karma Becomes Omnipotence
- 14. Healing Crippled Self-Trust
- Part 2: Ideological Masks
- Introduction: The Morals Wars
- 1. Fundamentalism and the Need for Certainty: Dogmatism vs. Modernization
- The Essence of Fundamentalism
- The Quandaries of Revisionism
- Revisionism and the Need for Identity
- What's at Stake?
- 2. Satanism and the Worship of the Forbidden: Why It Feels Good to Be Bad
- Good and Evil
- The Problem of Evil
- Satanism as an Avenue to Power
- The Divided Self: Good and Evil Internalized
- The Dark Side of Monotheism
- 3. Who Is in Control?: The Authoritarian Roots of Addiction
- What Is Addiction?
- The Divided Psyche: Symptom of a Dysfunctional Morality
- Taming the Beast: The Inner Battle for Control
- Addiction as Revolt against the Inner Authoritarian
- The Failings of Disease and Responsibility Models
- Twelve Steps to Where?
- Developing Wholeness and Self-Trust
- 4. Love and Control: The Conditions Underlying Unconditional Love
- What Is Unconditional Love?
- Love, Time, and Timelessness
- Self-Sacrifice, Power, and Passion
- Control and Boundaries
- "Love Addiction"
- Measuring and Roles
- Forgiving and Letting Go
- The Religious Foundation of Unconditional Love
- Timeless Love through Time
- 5. Oneness, Enlightenment, and the Mystical Experience
- The Mystical Experience
- Dualism and Renunciation
- The Function of Enlightenment
- The One-Sidedness of Oneness
- Holism and Interconnectedness
- Renunciation as Accumulation
- 6. The Power of Abstraction: The Sacred Word and the Evolution of Morality
- Abstractions and Power
- From Animism to Polytheism: The Concrete Abstractions of Idolatry
- Monotheism: A Universal Abstraction
- Oneness: The Culmination of Religious Abstraction
- Abstraction, Either/Or Thinking, and Dualism
- Symbol Systems and Power
- Transforming the Symbol System: A Dialectical Perspective
- Epilogue: Where to Go from Here?
- What Happened to Control
- About the Authors
