Haley Olsten's birth was foretold by a beautiful woman looking down from the sky, counseling her father to take good care of this precious child and prepare her for her mission. And so Franklin Olsten did his best. When, at age twenty-two, in l932, Haley announced her intention to travel to India, he hid his fears and let her go into the adventure of her own life. Haley's open heart absorbs the ancient wisdom of India eagerly, and her beauty and goodness attract everyone to her. But her innocence of real evil puts her in terrible danger. Affection for her traveling companion, Ann, makes Haley unable to see that envy has poisoned Ann's feelings for her and made her an enemy. Confidence in the goodness of the world makes Haley unwisely brave in going alone to the palace of Maharaja Damor Saling. And here begins Haley's real learning: first, of the existence of true evil, and then, of her own predestined role in fighting for good. Don Bradley believes that all of us are called upon to play a part in the constant, invisible struggle between the forces of good and evil. In Angels in a Harsh World, Haley's courage in finding the best and highest self within her defeats an apparently indomitable evil power. She is one of the "angels." Are you? Is your life a story like this? Why not?
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Initially self-published, this New Age fable was originally targeted for the followers of California theosophist Bradley (The Significance of the One). In 1933, Boston socialite Haley Olsten travels to India for the wedding of a friend to a young British officer and, after a dockside misadventure in Ceylon, falls for the son of the British governor. Before the ill-starred sweethearts can avow their love, an evil maharajah enslaves Haley through opiate addiction. She escapes and is found near death by a wise old man named J., the first of two mysterious angels who lead Haley across the Himalayas, teach her to conjure food literally out of thin air and initiate her into the secrets of "Beingness": "The great mystery that we must all learn one day is that love is a great force." Armed with this profound twaddle (and the blessing of a bespectacled, loinclothed guru named Mohandas), she travels to Nazi Germany in 1936 to keep the evil maharaja from passing his dark secrets to Hitler's henchmen, then escapes across the Channel with her true love, "leaving Germany and its future in the capable hands of destiny." Although Haley writes that his "tales are factual," one must suspend both critical judgment and disbelief to swallow this hokey dose of "spiritual beingness." Author tour. (Feb.) FYI: Putnam reports that the first edition of Angels in a Harsh World sold 36,000 copies. Bradley is the great-grandson of Ben Hur author Lew Wallace.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
An eccentric theosophical novel that marries bloody-pulp plotting to sentimental theologizing la The Celestine Prophecy. There's an audience? It's just getting started. Bradley will embark on a national tour and now has a film option, while his company, Mountaintop Entertainment, already has its head in the clouds for a December 1998 release. Meantime, this is one virtual eggnog of a novel, sliding from a Capraesque It's a Wonderful Life opening into the gray dismals of Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky into a trough of Madame Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, Maugham's The Razor's Edge, and a climax not so distant from Indiana Jones versus Nazi occultists as white magic fights black magic. Back in 1932, Haley Olsten, 22, the daughter of a Freemason in Boston who reads Bishop Leadbeater's Invisible Helpers for serious information about nature's troublesome fundamentals and angelic guidance for her mortal life, decides to accompany her best friend Ann to India, where Ann's fianc Reginald, a British officer, has fallen ill and wants to marry quickly. Though a godsend in looks, with eyes that might melt steel, Haley is beset off and on by a seemingly genetic depression. In India, she loses her head over the extremely rich, philanthropic, high-born Britisher David Hampton. But when David must leave her for three months on business, Haley is caught off-guard by a maharajah--a ``black'' magician who walls her up, then forcibly, sadistically addicts her to heroin. A ``good'' Indian next helps her to escape, but he himself falls into a tiger trap while Ann--after weeks spent wandering without food in the jungle and the desert--is rescued by J., a Hindu of the Secret Brotherhood. Haley devotes three years of her life to the company of J. as they roam to various Tibetan monasteries, getting theosophized like crazy. She's then sent to Berlin to fight Hitler's occultists in a head-to-head blowout. Fantastic. Awesome. Strangely compelling as goofy moments interrupt flying brain matter and other battle horrors. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Esoteric Historey Comes Alive,
By A Customer
This review is from: Angels in a Harsh World (Hardcover)
The author has again succeeded in writing an epic novel that is at once both an exciting adventure story on a grand scale, as well as an unusually insightful teaching of high spiritual truths.The story is set in the early part of the 1900s and is simply engrossing. While reading, I found within the pages of this hard-to-put-down book many simple yet profound lessons on practical living, along with the examples of how others have dealt with their spiritual path. Esoteric history comes alive with vivid detail in this epic story, spanning countries and continents, and including secret teachers in India and magical espionage in Nazi Germany. In today's market of new-age authors clamoring for recognition, Bradley's books clearly stand above the many. I believe this book will become one of those long sought-after classics of metaphysical literature that are so rare, even in today's climate of increasing spiritual thought.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fun reading, Awful writing,
By A Customer
This review is from: Angels in a Harsh World (Paperback)
This book is a ride into New Age make believe that was enjoyable, however, it was horribly written. You are able to see how this author is good at STORY telling with an imagination to match by visiting his web site. I liked the parts about "Don't sleep with your students", as well as his paranoid delusions with the FBI, CIA, UFO's, and so on. I have never experienced so much hatred as he has posted on his sight yet he claims higher spirituality. Well... the book was interesting as well as the author (A typical "New Age" writer dealing with his own contradictions of spirituality and real life aplication). Someone should let him know the new age movement removed itself from any credible social ranking with the types of people it attracted and thier exhibition of genius. (Cults, Suicides, FRAUDS)......hey DB?. Thank Heavens you know where to go to find the mentally unbalanced, but who would really want to? Lets just keep them corralled up!!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nothing like this excellent book!,
By A Customer
This review is from: Angels in a Harsh World (Hardcover)
A young woman finds her true path to Enlightenment with special guidance from angels in both the spirtiual and physical world. Through many tribulations Haley Olsten is guided to India in the 1930s where she meets her beloved Teacher, learns how to properly look at life, death, and handle her metaphysical abilities toward the common good, to battle incredible evil rising in the world. A positive novel which proves women can be women yet accomplish great things. Though there are no accidents, everything is predestined to happen, also, that everyone chooses what family they will be born into, and that the being called God would enter the body of a woman in a trance. A fantastic story! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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