Customer Reviews

True Stories of Spiritual Power

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As far as content goes this is an excellent book. Namadeva presents a number of his experiences with people of power and shows that everyday people have power or the potential of power; it is not just the holy men or gurus that can have this. He also presents his ideas for both personal spiritual growth and larger planetary growth. He has a chapter that includes some mantras and their explanation which is enough to get one started (his CDs and books on mantra are highly recommended).

The reason I can't give this 5 stars are the numerous typos. I don't know if the physical book is as bad, but the Kindle version is riddled with mis-spellings, mis-hyphenations, words repeated, words deleted, weird line-breaks. The table of contenets is a mess and is non-functional; you can't navigate easily to it and once you get there you can't use it to navigate to the chapters as you can on most Kindle books. It really needs to be gone over by a proofreader.

I would certainly NOT want to dissuade anyone from buying this, I found the flaws annoying but not impossible. I would like to see the physical book someday, perhaps it is better.

Edit 9/3/08 It has come to my attention that my complaints about the book typos have now been fixed. In that case, I would give this 5 stars and recommend it unreservedly.

I have to say, this is one incredibly inspirational book for showing some of the amazing possibilities that can lie in store for a person who sets out fully on the spiritual path. I've been trying to get earlier nights for a while, and getting this book ended up being rather counter-productive in this respect as I found myself *totally* addicted to reading the wonderful stories til all hours of the night! And this is from a person who doesn't end up reading many of the books he orders.

As Dr Laura's review says, it mainly covers all the energetic experiences that TAF has had, which I must emphasize are many, varied and quite incredible. While having done only a single 40-day shakti mantra discipline myself, I can attest to the fact that there *is* an amazing power that lies hidden in everyone and it can even be somewhat terrifying for the neophyte like myself when it starts to be aroused from its slumber! Some of the stories had me laughing out loud and others were so toching because they were obviously of a deeply personal nature. For me it was very reassuring to see that the author has overcome some of the problems which plague ordinary people to get to where he is.

Thomas Ashley-Farrand is for me a unique and wonderful story-teller and I found this book totally inspirational and uplifting. Also, it reinforced the importance of meditation (something I have rarely given much regular time to over the years) as he states that the energy transmissions in many of the stories may have only been perceptible to him because he had become so energetically sensitive from having meditated and performed mantras for long periods daily for many years.

With regards to the binding mentioned by another reviewer, none of the pages of my edition (early 2007) fell out and it seemed very firmly bound indeed. While I do believe that it could be a slightly better quality printing (the cover print has already worn off a little on the back and on the inside the text is printed just a little close to the binding), it doesn't matter in the end as the contents of the book are so impressive. And if Mr Ashley-Farrand has found a way to publish the book so he gets a better deal out of it than the pittance I imagine most authors get, more power to him.

(........)

Lastly there are a few typos in the book which don't really matter - apart from the typo in the "Apadamapa Mantra" pronunciation guide which is a little surprising! It should read "Om Ah-pah-dah-mah-PAH..." not "Om Ah-pah-dah-mah-HAH...". Having said that, this mantra is infinitely easier to learn from CD than from a book.

This book is perfect bound. We have NEVER had a complaint about the binding other than this review. It is an amazing book about Thomas' personal experiences with people with extraordinary spiritual power. All books are available on his website, [...] It is now also available as an Amazon Kindle book.True Stories of Spiritual Power

I gave this book five stars because it provides a selection of interesting stories about people who have developed spiritual power and there are not many such books available around - therein the value of these stories.

The binding of the book is terrible - no matter how gently you may attempt to turn the pages, all of them get unglued the moment you turn a page.

I also didn't see the point of a certain apologetic tone at the beginning of the book for the stories that follow, lest the readers may start to wonder about the credibility of the author. People will anyway accept or reject these stories based upon the worldview they have vested interest in upholding - those without any personal reference points and understanding of the principles behind these extraordinary abilities will reject them and those who have invested time in spiritual practices and have experienced the emergence of different powers in themselves do not need any apologies. They will find these stories entertaining and valuable.

Some stories are about experiences with people who have become wellknown in spiritual circles in the west, some stories are about people who are not well-known and prefer to remain anonymous. A lot of stories involved different ways of being "zapped" with energy through an assortment of initiation ceremonies in which some form of transmission of energy is involved, and if you've ever participated at such event, you may already have an idea of what such experiences may entail.
You will also find some interesting stories with experiences you might have never heard of before.

The Kindle version is good. I find the stories rather riveting. I am familiar with Namadeva's written works as I have read two of his books and will read Volume I of his mantra teaching book. I can feel him in this book as I am familiar with his voice. He was such a kind teacher. The stories are very fascinating. I would definitely recommend them.
They remind me to some extent of yogananda. I wanted to get this book for some time. I highly recommend it.