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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent guide to the way of the spiritual warrior, December 25, 2002
This review is from: The Craft of the Warrior (Paperback)
The path of spiritual knowledge and freedom has often been described by using the metaphor of "going to war"; hence the term "warrior." Make no mistake, though, this book has nothing to do with violence or military action. It is not a Green Beret handbook and has no photos on how to perform a proper takedown. Rather, it is a textbook and reference manual on the development of spiritual power. Many others have traversed this same territory, and the author is a student of various paths, and so he presents a synthesis of some of the threads he has encountered: Carlos Castaneda and the Toltecs, Dan Millman, Shambhala, G.I. Gurdjieff, the Feldenkrais method, A Course in Miracles, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming are his main sources, alongside his personal experience as a psychotherapist. The result is a very useful and well-organized distillation of the ways and means to personal power -- power over self, as opposed to power over others. People familiar with any of the above sources will find similar concepts here, but presented in a very straightforward format (as opposed to some of the storytelling styles of some of the sources). The seeking of personal power is, after all, a very practical pursuit, not something limited to stories about people who have had supernatural experiences or extraordinary teachers. The warrior's way represents simply the most effective and efficient way of living in the world: with minimization of energy waste and maximization of available resources, achieved through honing the self down to a fine point by relentless self-examination and action. It requires discipline, nonattachment, compassion, and surrender of self to be truly free, and these things are available to anyone. Spencer's book makes this all the more clear in his drawing from many sources, showing that, truly, truth and opportunities for gaining power can be found almost anywhere you look. All in all, a most lucid presentation and thorough description of what is expected of a person on the warrior's path. I would also recommend A Toltec Path, by Ken Eagle Feather.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
dubious warrior, January 23, 2008
I started with great curiosity The Craft of the Warrior and I was not disappointed! It is an excellent synthesis of all the above authors as well as some others I did not know. Not only a synthesis but more: Some of the practical suggestions and explanations it offers are especially rewarding, like for example what Castaneda meant exactly when Don Juan said "erase personal history". That according to Spencer it really means that one should free themselves of the slavery of one's past and not blame the past for the present. That I did not get in the first place from Castaneda. And one can find more of these explanations in the book. Also rewarding are the chapters about personal power, living with intent etc. that also throws more light on some of the questions and problems. They did to me, anyway! I would highly recommend this book to everyone interested in starting the path of the 'warrior'.
The book is easy to read and great fun! I could hardly put it down before I finished. What I missed are some references to Buddhism that I consider relevant to the subject.
After reading it I will want to read some of Millman's books and maybe study some NLP also.
There are two aspects in the book that in my view could be corrected in future editions:
1) She: the third person is always she; and after the 100th time it started to irritate me. Could not it rather be they?
2) The FELDENKRAIS description on pages 16 and 17 is not all accurate and could be a little more detailed:
a) His knee injuries and surgery problem did not happen in the 1930s, but in the 1940s in England.
c) Feldenkrais did not get his black belt in judo AFTER his knee problems, but long before when he was living in France indeed in the 1930s. He was one of the first European to earn a black belt in Judo, founded the Judo Club in Paris, and wrote two books on judo.
b) He did not 'immigrated to Palestine, France and England before arriving on Israel after WW II'.
In fact: He emigrated to Palestine at the age of 14 shortly after the end of WW I. He moved to Paris in 1928 to study physics, mathematics, and mechanical and electric engineering. He was Joliot-Curie's principal assistant when J-C won the Nobel prize in 1935. In 1940, when the Nazis took over Paris, Feldenkrais was on one of the last boats that escaped to England. He returned to Israel in 1950.
One afterthought: being less familiar with the rest of the topics in the book the above mistakes make me wonder how accurate they are.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tools for the Art of Conscious Living, September 20, 1998
By A Customer
This review is from: The Craft of the Warrior (Paperback)
Robert L. spencer delivers tools of the trade for personal empowerment based on examples from current foreward-thinking authors such as Dan Millman, Carlos Casteneda, Brooke Medicine Eagle, and others. The ideas of these authors are not brought forth to debate their reality, but rather what we might find useful from their ideas to break out of old comfortable habits and find new ways of looking at life and seeing ourselves. Spencer quotes Millman and Casteneda, "The happiness of the ordinary person is tied to the events of her day. Warriors generate their own happiness."
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