Customer Reviews (2)

Applied spiritual aspirations to practical living
I found myself admiring Mr. Bennett more and more, as I approached the end of the book. Granted, I had only read the book at all because of its connection to Mr. Gurdjieff, but Mr. Bennett seems even more interesting to me than Gurdjieff. I have known, and I know, people who have this hunger for spiritual guidance, and don't have the self-confidence or ability to gain super-consciousness without hand-holding. As to the question of changing spiritual paths and teachers along the way, well, that is how it works for some people. There are lone wolves, such as I believe was the case with John G. Bennett, who want their teachers to work for them, rather than the converse. At least Bennett was wise enough to insist on validating his own plans and purpose, without establishing a survival dependancy on his teachers. Remarkably, Mr. Bennett actually had a life and significance which stood on its own. I don't think he needed Gurdjieff, Pak Subuh, or Ouspensky, except that they served him as imperfect tools to arrive at a certain intellectual mastery. I once used a sledge hammer to remove a wheel bearing on my car. It wasn't the right tool, but it is what I had available to me at the time, and it worked pretty well. Also, you can't underestimate the value of friendship and peer cohesion, just because. It's irrelevant where we spend our time, after all. The military, the Peace Corp, a religious order... what does it matter? Who can fault Mr. Bennett for making his life ever more interesting and colorful? He was certainly well traveled, and put his socialization skills to good use.

For such an intelligent guy, he did come off as pandering to this or that guru, and spends far too much time apologizing for, and overstating the importance of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. I think Witness could have been more interesting, had Mr. Bennett used 50% less Gurdjieff, and 50% more of himself. The problem is that Witness focuses on Bennett's involvement with the popular occult movements of his time, rather than his own life as a basis for the story. The cinch pin of my ascertainment is on the black and white cover of the paperback, where Gurdjieff's photo is prominently displayed. You may think that I'm spending too much time taking about G.I. Gurdjieff, but look- let's say you write your autobiography: would you want another guy's face on the cover of your autobiography to dominate your own? If this isn't riding on the coattails of another's fame, then what is? For my part, as reader, I bought Witness to learn more about Gurdjieff, and not Bennett. Along the way, though, it occured to me that Bennett had more going for him than Gurdjieff. His business dealings with high profile government and corporate entities; his spiritual school enterprises; his love life; and his several gurus.

There's a nagging part of me that has to wonder about a guy who marries a woman old enough to be his mother. I couldn't quite get over that part. I'm not supposed to judge, yet I do draw infererence, that John G. Bennett was a little quirky. Never vulgar or condescending, he was a likeable social butterfly. Also, Mr. Bennett recounts so honestly, and perhaps because of a childish naivete. He would have made an exemplary American: full of initiative, innovation, tireless work ethic, and risk taker- entrepreneur! I can see John Bennett becoming the basis for a modern "model" of eclectic spiritualism, more easily digestible by gnosticians such as myself. I wouldn't form a personality cult around him, of course. I would attend a couple of lectures, workshops, write a paper, and then evolve beyond him.

Unusual search for Absolute Liberation
In his spiritual life, J.G. Bennett seems to have moved from one teacher to another: Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Madame Ouspensky, Gurdjieff again, Mohammad "Pak" Subuh, the Shivapuri Baba, in a way which some colleagues and friends viewed as anything from frivolity to betrayal. Beneath these changes however, was an unusual continuity of purpose: JGB's search for Absolute Liberation, which he talks of-and then merely in hints-only in the final pages of this book. Witness is the life story of a man who was-as scientist, linguist, traveler, philosopher, writer, husband and father-completely devoted to a personal search for truth. Combining science and oriental studies, Bennett developed a personal philosophy that he expounded in his four-volume work, The Dramatic Universe. Witness traces the development of this philosophy and relates it to his own mystical experiences which have been varied and profound. A foreword by his sons, George and Ben Bennett sheds new light on the private life of the author. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Better Bennett Book
The bane of students of restoration history is that while there is an abundance of primary source material in specialized libraries, there is little straight forward history or biography available.This very readable straight forward bio on Dr. Bennett is an excellent starting place for students of the time and place and events of early Mormonism. I recommend it to those who are interested in taking the measure of Bennett.It remained refreshingly focused on Dr. Bennett and leaves to others the challenge of writing about the other players in these colorful and dramatic events.

The Saintly Scoundrel fits right in
Andrew F. Smith's fascinating peek into the wild and crazy life of the 1840's Western Frontier is a valuable piece of historical work. This work is neither pro-Mormon or anti-Mormon and the authors unbiased stance addscredibility to his work.

The author set the story in the greater contextof the era which helped this reader conclude that "The SaintlyScoundrel"- John C. Bennett fitted right in with all the other"scoundrels" of the time, including Joseph Smith, Brigham Young,James Jesse Strang, Sidney Rigdon, et. al.

Interesting book about a shady character
Dr. Bennett was indeed a person of questionable morals and ideas, perfect for Mormonism in its Nauvoo, Ill. period. Not well-known in the present Mormon church, he presented quite a thorn in its side after leaving it. First book I've come across that gives a detailed account of his life. His book "History of the Saints" has been torn apart as a book full of lies, but history has proven at least some of it's contents as being factual. Clint Lauricella ... Read more

Product Description
For generations, visitors, journalists, and social scientists alike have asserted that Chicago is the quintessentially American city. Indeed, the introduction to "The New Chicago" reminds us that 'to know America, you must know Chicago'. The authors boldly announce the demise of the city of broad shoulders and the transformation of its physical, social, cultural, and economic institutions into a new Chicago. In this wide-ranging book, twenty scholars, journalists, and activists, relying on data from the 2000 census and many years of direct experience with the city, identify five converging forces in American urbanization which are reshaping this storied metropolis. The twenty-six essays included here analyze Chicago by way of globalization and its impact on the contemporary city; economic restructuring; the evolution of machine-style politics into managerial politics; physical transformations of the central city and its suburbs; and, race relations in a multicultural era.In elaborating on the effects of these broad forces, contributors detail the role of eight significant racial, ethnic, and immigrant communities in shaping the character of the new Chicago and present ten case studies of innovative governmental, grassroots, and civic action. Multi-faceted and authoritative, "The New Chicago" offers an important and unique portrait of an emergent and new 'Windy City'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Masterpiece in spiritual education
One of J.G.Bennetts very best books, he shows us, how to work on
important 7 lines. We tend to work and study on one or a few lines, but usually we forget the "whole", and we become lazy in the sense, that we work where it is comfortable or easy for us.

Bennett is very direct in his work, so his books help utmost, to understand Gurdjieffs work from a different, and a very practical angle.

A must for anybody, who really is interested in any spiritual work, as long as it is serious. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
The future for Nagios in the enterprise is certainly bright! Nagios 3 Enterprise Network Monitoring can help you harness the full power of Nagios in your organization. Nagios 3 contains many significant new features and updates, and this book details them all for you. Once up and running, you'll see how a number of useful add-ons and enhancements for Nagios can extend the functionality of Nagios throughout your organization. And, if you want to learn how to write your own plugins...this is the book for you! In these pages you'll find a cookbook-style chapter full of useful plugins that monitor a variety of devices, from HTTP-based applications to CPU utilization to LDAP servers and more.

* Complete Case Study Demonstrates how to Deploy Nagios Globally in an Enterprise Network
* Monitor Third Party Hardware Devices with Nagios ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

How to Contact Authors, Get E-Book and Unzip _vm-nagios-download.zip
What is going on here?What does it take to contact the authors or publisher and get some assistance?I want to download the E-Book but I can't find the instructions.When I try to and unzip _vm-nagios-download.zip using Microsoft Vista or Sun's "jar -xf" they fail and say that the zip file is corrupted.Why should I have to get a SYNGRESS Solutions membership to download updates to the print book?

E-books from Syngress
Soooo....this is how you get those pesky e-book downloads from Syngress. You have to go to [..], click on the Info on Syngress button, and get the info there. That link takes you here: [..]. So you can just paste that in.

You have to download some proprietary stuff but the e-book works fine once you get it.

Horribly written and no support
This is one of the worst technical books I have ever read.I still have not managed to get my "free ebook", the zip file on the web site for the VM was corrupted.(Downloaded it on 2 different machines, with the same result).I sent the publisher an email, and got an automated response back.
I have extracted a minimal amount of information from the drivel that is inside, but I recommend anything but this book.

Enterprise Grade Nagios Reference
This book is just what I've been looking for to better understand Nagios v.3.0+ from an Enterprise perspective and it does an excellent job of explaining the new techniques.

This book is full of examples for every sized organization with lots of good ideas and general practices to follow.I found chapters 5 & 6 especially helpful in covering topics that can't be found anywhere else (let's face it, not too many other Nagios books out there to choose from).

This is an advanced enterprise geared book, so if you're looking for the basics like "retry_check_interval is blah" or "what does SNMP stand for?", then look no further than the Nagios website, it's all thoroughly documented there.

Finally, there is a electronic copy of this book included and even the Linux users out there should be able to access it via a Windows VM guest with a minimal amount of effort.

I have used Nagios 24x7x365 for a few years now, so I keep a copy of this book on my desk for reference, tips, techniques and guidance for the future.

If you want an E-book copy of this book, move on
I purchased this book under the impression that it came with a free digital version of the book. WRONG! You have to register on Elsevier and download a proprietary reader that is only compatible with Windows and Mac OS X. So, if you read the cover as I did: "Free E-book download" and assumed you would be able to have a book to read on your phone or Linux OS, move along.

As for the content of the book itself, I haven't even opened it past Pg.3 due to this issue and plan on returning it for a more user-friendly publication. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Volume About Love
BOOK REVIEW
HALO OF THE SUN
REVIEW BY SUSAN G. STERN

Written for Oriental Rug Review, Vol 8 #6.

Noël Bennett's book, Halo of the Sun, is really a volume about love-- cultural love. Yet the reader feels Bennett's awkwardness and fearfulness as she encounters the ancient Navajo customs foreign to her experience. Although this is Bennett's fourth book about the Navajo, a culture she embraced more than 20 years ago, it is the first volume of stories to take us inside the Indian culture. Through the author's Anglo eyes we intimately view Navajo life, seeing it as humanely as she did, and feeling profound respect and love.

Photographs by John Running picture the Navajo people in their homes, surrounded by the material and spiritual landscape of their lives. Made possible by two grants, one from the L.J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation and the other from the Weatherhead Foundation, this work is born out of many years of love between Bennett and the Navajo People.

Bennett, a well known New Mexican author, weaver, and artist, successfully presents insights gained from her devotion to weaving, and through this technical relationship offers patterns of understanding between the traditional Navajo culture and the predominate and surrounding Anglo civilization. The enduring values of traditional Navajo life, so elusive to the Anglo mind, are made accessible through every day stories that illustrate simple but eloquent truths. Through her words we see the Navajo with a clearer focus and a deeper vision.

Noël Bennett is blessed with an unusually beautiful voice. It sings with rhythmic warmth; humor, and mellifluent but penetrating clarity. Its soothing lilt caresses the ear and bears a mesmerizing quality as it imparts the stories and legends she learned as an apprentice weaver on the Navajo Reservation.

For eight years Bennett worked on the Reservation, mastering the technical aspects of Navajo weavers art. She performed every activity associated with the craft - from shearing the sheep to the carding, spinning, and dyeing of the wool. While following the weaver's way and working with the women, Noë1 Bennett heard and learned the philosophical values of traditional Navajo thought. Listening to the weaving legends as she sat patiently at her vertical loom, she came to understand the subtle psychological modes by which Navajo culture has survived and coped in its thousand years on the North American continent.

Halo of the Sun addresses some of the techniques used by the Navajo to handle the human condition. The stories reveal a road map to psychological well being. The legends seem a prescription for coping with life's adversities. The wisdom provided in these oral legends are pertinent to human society anywhere.

One story depicts the potential evil of a snake. It is resolved successfully and in such a way as to be a lesson in how to deal creatively with panic and fear. Another story describes friendship, generosity and the Anglo concept of "thank you." The most fascinating legends deal with the power in a name, names by contrast being carelessly tossed about in Anglo culture.

For the Navajo, saying a name aloud calls that thing into being. Therefore, a name is a sacred thing and the Navajo do not use a name lightly. In fact, a Navajo child is given its true name only after Grandfather has observed the baby for a year or two, considering the child's most distinguishable attribute. This trait, in the form of a symbolic Navajo name, like "Never-sleeps" or "Running-Woman," stays with a person for life, to be drawn on as a permanent source of strength and as a connection to one's unchanging essence and ancestry. After all, Grandfather chose the appellation.

"Time is nothing,"' Bennett writes. "But a story is a source of power." To illuminate the significance of the storytelling tradition to the Navajo, Bennett offers a personal and insightful quote by Indian author Leslie Marmon Silko. "I will tell you something about stories," Silko says. "They aren't just entertainment. Don't be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death. You don't have anything if you don't have stories."

Noël Bennett grew up in California, receiving a B.A. in Art in 1961 and an M.A. in Education in 1962 from Stanford University. With her former physician-husband, she joined the Public Health Service in 1968 and shortly thereafter moved to the Navajo Reservation in Tuba City, Arizona. Noël, equipped with a cross-cultural heritage (her father was Lebanese and her mother is of diverse multi-ethnic background) and her artistic gifts, found herself in the center of the ancient Navajo Nation. She was determined to learn weaving, but not just "how to" but to understand, in the Navajo way, the entire thinking and feeling of weaving as well.

On reservation Noël found it difficult to find a Navajo weaver willing to teach an Anglo woman. Yet she went about the business of her life - going to the post office for mail, visiting the hospital where her husband worked, hauling clothes to the laundromat, always searching for a weaving teacher. Through her words we feel the rebuffs and resistance she met. We admire her courage.

"No one pitied my clumsiness with the weaving cards. No matter how much difficulty I encountered, no one offered help. No advice. No words at all. Just a soft easy giggle occasionally rippling around the growing circle. There was nothing to do but continue. Intently. Completely. With singleness of mind."

Noël persisted. She studied the Navajo language. She picked up hitchhikers on reservation in an attempt to learn more. Finally, there was a breakthrough. She found and befriended Tiana Bighorse, a Navajo weaver of great skill and, furthermore, a patient teacher.

From then on Noël Bennett immersed herself in the Navajo way of life. She made her own corn pollen pouch out of deer skin. tanning the leather herself. She sat at healing ceremonies. She cooked and ate in the Navajo tradition. Lamb, prepared in the Lebanese way, was a favorite dish in her childhood home.

"I loved the food," Noël said. "Some of the doctors and their wives were appalled by it. They wouldn't eat the mutton or fry-bread. If it was cooked, I ate it," Noël said. "I thought it was nice they even offered me any."

She participated in traditional,Navajo ceremonies, sitting long hours on the dirt floor of hogans. But by weaving she entered Navajo life. She learned when to be silent. She learned how to ask questions without giving offense. She came to understand the Navajo sense of time. The skeins of plant-dyed yarn yielded much more than artful weavings. The woolen fibers carried her into the spiritual fabric of the Navajo way.

"It would be easy to misinterpret the Navajo form of body language," Noël said. "They say, if you don't know what to do, do nothing. Put your feet together, stand up straight and cross your arms. That is the position of not breaking any taboos. We, as Anglos, can interpret that as hostility, but they are just being quiet, patient and even shy. You cannot apply from our culture what you think is true to the Navajo."

As Noël Bennett learned the ways and people came to trust her, they knew she was not simply taking their knowledge; they felt her love and respect for their culture. And then, through her writings, she was to share understanding between her adopted culture and the American one.

Halo of the Sun is about the love of a people, art, weavings, customs, food, and ceremonies. Each story illuminates a specific value of classical Navajo culture. They are rendered for Anglo understanding because Noël Bennett is an Anglo who adopted Navajo culture with her heart. And now she presents these stories for readers outside the Navajo culture. Ultimately, these legends are a gift from the Navajo people. Just as the Wampanoag tribe taught the Pilgrims how to survive the physical hardships of 1620 - by planting maize and beans, by capturing turkeys, and harvesting cranberries - so the Navajo teach ageless wisdom in a time of shifting values, family upheavals, and psychological crisis. The life of the Navajo has never drifted from the land. Consequently, their values have remained constant and tied to the natural world of the elements.

Noël Bennett renders the Navajo legends in an honest, straightforward style while retaining the poetry of the mystical Navajo voice. Halo of the Sun is a joyous book, written well, replete with sadness and humor, but rich in rare sagacity.

"Return to your loom. Resume your work. Spin your web of wool. And as you weave and as you work, Life's Truths will come to you." So say the Navajo Holy Ones in Halo of the Sun.

An introduction to the "Beautyway" of weaving
This book offers an especially sensitive and sympathetic introduction to rug weaving, a major element of Navajo culture, and is typical of the quality books published by Northland Press.

Noel Bennett accomplished something which few outsiders even try on the Navajo Nation.Based on her background and experience, she set out to understand and learn one of the traditional crafts--weaving a rug from raw wool to finished product.It looks easy.After all, lots of Anglos weave.Some even spin yarn.The whole process, from raw wool to a finished rug that is work of art, sounds simple in the telling;but, reality is different.

Let me give you an example.Fry bread is a traditional Navajo food, which almost every woman can make without thinking.It's as natural as walking.Maybe one of the simplest of traditional Navajo skills.I've tried to learn one element of it, taking a small ball of dough and patting and kneading it out to a circle about a foot in diameter that is then dropped into hot oil to be cooked to a golden brown.

It was a lot of fun.The Navajos got a lot of amusement out of watching me try and mostly fail, day after day.I had fun trying.My "teacher" was kind, helpful, patient and amused;she'd show me again and again, but I inevitably ended up with a lumpy disc of dough that she'd patiently pat into a proper circle before laying it in the frying pan.

In other words, it ain't as easy as it looks.

Bennett undertook a similar but far more complicated learning experience in the 1960s.Unlike me, she stayed with it and became skilled.One result is this book, a sensitive semi-insider's look at a traditional craft that exemplifies one of the few genuine American art forms.Her desire to learn was appreciated by her Navajo friends;one reward is she becomes a target of their good natured humor, a friend of the family.

Many outsiders "study" and patronize Native American cultures;Bennett became part of it.There is a genuine "Us vs. Them" attitude among the Navajo, with very good reason based on the constant Bordertown (Gallup, Winslow, Holbrook, Flagstaff, Farmington, etc.) prejudice and exploitation.The Navajos came to regard Bennett as one of "the People," so when it came to entering a rug in an off-reservation exhibition her Navajo friends helped her evade some pretentious Anglo rules.

It's always fun to poke fun at the bilagaana (Anglos).Their pretensions are too good not to laugh at.

Americans like to think, "Underneath, everyone is basically the same."Bennett appreciates there are fundamental differences between Navajo and Anglo cultures.She touches on it, such as the importance of "four" in Navajo culture.Anglo culture is based on "three," such as the Trinity in religion and three examples if you want to prove something;Navajo culture has "four" as typified by the four cardinal directions, four sacred mountains, four basic colors, four precious materials for jewelry.

Bennett cites these examples, but she never really delves into the meaning of these cultural differences.For example, Anglos live in a confrontational culture of guilt or innocence;Navajos live in a consensus culture in which K'e, the spirit of harmony, is more important.

But, she lived in the western Navajo Nation where the more traditional people live;the eastern side, where I lived, is more accustomed to pushy Anglos.She feigns shock at some Anglo ways;my experience is that most Navajos fully understand the aggressive Anglo world and its rude contrast with their patience.She is more of a nizhoni (beautiful) person;I'm more of the Ma'ii tso (which has far more meanings than simply "fox").

In general, though, she offers a sympathetic, intelligent insight into rug weaving-- one of the integral elements of Navajo culture.Her book is the epitome of Anglo culture--an "insider's" view of a different culture, one that most people will never see and even fewer will ever have a chance to begin to understand.

It's well worth buying, reading, keeping and sharing with friends. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (10)

A Great American Icon!
I had the honor and opportunity to not only meet, but to work for John H. Johnson. He was truly an astute human being and businessperson, great humanitarian and a methodical thinker! "Succeeding Against the Odds" is a must read book and a required resource for your personal library. This book reflects Mr. Johnson's struggles, sorrows, adversities and his tenacity to turn a "no" into a "yes!" His memory is one that cannot die, and his legacy is one that should be an inspiration to all of us, no matter what your race, creed or color is.

Our current and future generations must know their history and John H. Johnson along with the support of his wife Mrs. Eunice W. Johnson, built an empire that reveals to all of us, that you can dream an impossible dream, but with faith and hard work your dreams can become a reality! Thank you Mr. John H. Johnson for your inspiration and communicating to us that "the only failure is failing to try!" "Succeeding Against the Odds" definitely reminds us that the "American Dream" is your "Individual Dream," and it still lives as long as you do not assassinate it!

Insights well worth internalizing
After reading Earl G. Graves's biting autobiography, I fully expected John H. Johnson's manuscript for success to be riddled with distain. I was pleasantly surprised however to find that Johnson; through such works as, Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, and How to Win Friends..., by Dale Carnegie, made a fortune turning social negatives into profitable and professional positives. Having met eight U. S. Presidents along the way, Johnson's autobiography is a refreshing treatise on determination. It should be noted that much of Johnson's success came about before integration, when the African American community lived by the, "it takes a village," mentality. The nurturing he was given during the early years provided for a favorable turn of events ultimately guiding him; not without the requisite obstacles, toward a life of success. John H. Johnson's, Succeeding Against the Odds, is a testament to the spoils of desire, determination, delayed gratification and a strong belief in ones self.

a Great Book:RIP to Mr.Johnson
I bought this Book way back in 1992.I always Admired Mr.John H.Johnson for all that He overcame&also for providing Ebony&Jet into my early childhood all the to the present. what He overcame&what He Accomplsihed is truly incredible. He created magazines that spoke&gave Black America a Fair shake at the Newsstand&also showed our world in a up-lifting light. John H.Johnson is a true Pioneer who trail-blazed so much for the better.RIP&this is a Must have Book.

Inspiring true story of African American success
This book uplifted the self esteem of me and many other African Americans. It was the story of a black man raised in rural Arkansas who had a dream. He figured out at an early age that African Americans wanted to know about what was happening in their community. There where only so many if any stories about us in Life Magazine. And if they did publish something about us it was negative. Why couldn't African Americans have a magazine of their own? One that told stories, positive stories about our lives, our heroes, and our history. This book gave me hope to know that even a lower middle class, African American boy from the Bronx like myself could grow up and strive for greatness amongst our people and the rest of society. John H. Johnson's publications are over 50 years old now and are still giving us stories that uplift our minds, bodies and spirits. Reading this book is not only a joy and a honor but it should be required reading for all African Americans and focal point of reading for all others.

The advantage of the disadvantage
In his book, Johnson states "There is an advantage in every disadvantage, and a gift in every problem"and "I believe that the greater the handicap the greater the triumph." By this he meansto say that disadvantage creates opportunities and forces one to do morewith less.He believed that disadvantages were "...challenges to beovercome and not facts to be accepted." A disadvantage provides achallenge that, with the proper motivation and mindset, forces one to try alittle harder and work a little smarter.

Two distinct disadvantages thatJohnson cites are early in his life: 1) Arkansas City (his birthplace) didnot provide a high school education for African Americans, and 2) Theeconomic depression stemming from the Great Depression.These twodisadvantages, when taken together, provided a sort of "criticalmass" that propelled Johnson on the trajectory that is his story --his move to Chicago and subsequent business endeavors.

The fact that thedisadvantages cited above were realized so early in life is worth note. There is a scientific discipline known as "Chaos Theory" that,among other precepts, states that the time evolution of a series ofinterrelated complex events is extremely sensitive to the system's initialcondition.The analogy that may be drawn to Johnson's life is this: had henot moved to Chicago due to his ambition and his Mother's tremendoussacrifices for her son's education, it would have become increasinglydifficult for Johnson to have succeeded to the extent he did, as chronicledin his autobiography.

This statement is supported by the many referenceshe makes in the book about the seemingly random events that led to hissuccess as a businessman; Johnson states, "I'm scared someone withpinch me and wake me up." Thus, it seems that the many disadvantagesthe author faced throughout life, most notably (in his words) early inlife, created an advantage, which led him to great wealth and notoriety. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Mapping Human Nature
Bennett's pioneering attempts to flesh out a structural map of human nature with the shared experience of his summer school class at Coombe Springs is persuasive in terms of the sheer clarity and handling of data alone -- psychology as an empirical discipline is harmonized with spirituality, Christian theology, Gurdjieff's study of man, Jungian thought, the child and developmental psychology of Piaget, and the largely ineffable experience of Subud.Still this is no grand theory so much as a work-in-progress exploration, which gives an open-ended sense to the reader's involvement as well.Some of the best insights here are mentioned seemingly quite casually, and each reading of this book seems somehow more surprising than the first.I should think this would be valuable research, not only to those involved in Gurdjieff studies or Subud, but also to students of psychology or spirituality in general.Somehow, I doubt that will ever be. ... Read more

Product Description

InNeuroscience and Philosophy three prominent philosophers and a leading neuroscientist clash over the conceptual presuppositions of cognitive neuroscience. The book begins with an excerpt from Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker'sPhilosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, 2003), which questions the conceptual commitments of cognitive neuroscientists. Their position is then criticized by Daniel Dennett and John Searle, two philosophers who have written extensively on the subject, and Bennett and Hacker in turn respond.

Their impassioned debate encompasses a wide range of central themes: the nature of consciousness, the bearer and location of psychological attributes, the intelligibility of so-called brain maps and representations, the notion of qualia, the coherence of the notion of an intentional stance, and the relationships between mind, brain, and body. Clearly argued and thoroughly engaging, the authors present fundamentally different conceptions of philosophical method, cognitive-neuroscientific explanation, and human nature, and their exchange will appeal to anyone interested in the relation of mind to brain, of psychology to neuroscience, of causal to rational explanation, and of consciousness to self-consciousness.

In his conclusion Daniel Robinson (member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University) explains why this confrontation is so crucial to the understanding of neuroscientific research. The project of cognitive neuroscience, he asserts, depends on the incorporation of human nature into the framework of science itself. In Robinson's estimation, Dennett and Searle fail to support this undertaking; Bennett and Hacker suggest that the project itself might be based on a conceptual mistake. Exciting and challenging,Neuroscience and Philosophy is an exceptional introduction to the philosophical problems raised by cognitive neuroscience.

Customer Reviews (3)

Not long enough!
What happens when you put a neuroscientist, a Wittgenstein scholar, a self-described teleofuctionalist and a qualiaphile in the same ring? Well, for one thing, there's barely enough space for neutral corners but the arguments, rebuttals and discourse among these four erudite persons couldn't be more entertaining. Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker, arguing for the existence of a human consciousness residing in the whole person, are taken on by Daniel Dennett and John Searle, who argue that the locus and milieu of consciousness lies solely in the brain. With an introduction and arguably biased conclusion by Daniel Robinson, this concise but informative book must be admired for its detail and descriptive character. Debates between weak and strong emergence abound: are we reducible to our component parts, or is there a complex confluence at work that produces consciousness? What causes it all: firing neurons and chemical combinations, or a mysterious alliance of constituent parts, brain/mind/body/environment? Are qualia simply qualities of objects or interpersonal properties of phenomenological experience?

All this and more, it's confrontational, it's accessible and it's neuroscience, cognition, philosophy, psychology, and linguistics all rolled together for the sake of consideration and understanding. This book, more than anything, serves as the impetus to further explore themes in neuroscience and consciousness. All four contributors offer their own insights in a wide range of independent publications.

Not impartial enough
Granted, Bennett and Hacker were the impetus behind this book's creation, but I feel they could have allowed more back-and-forth with Dennett and Searle, their two primary interlocutors.Instead, they republish sections of their own original arguments to give some context to Dennett and Searles' responses, which don't differ except in tone from their positions at the conference from which the book came.Then the book grants Bennett and Hacker another answer (composed, so far as I could tell, of almost willful misreadings of Searle's and Dennetts' criticisms), then a conclusion from a "referee" who, naturally, mostly judges them to have come out ahead in the argument.I expected more interlocution, but instead it seems to be a vehicle for Hacker and Bennett's position.

Conceptual confusions
That philosophy should unravel conceptual confusions in neuroscience or other sciences is a principal theme of the authors of Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, which book is in the presently reviewed one discussed by those authors, Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker, and defended by them in response to criticisms by Daniel Dennett and John Searle.

However, major conceptual confusion characterizes the arguments of authors Bennett and Hacker themselves.

Let me begin by noting that all of these authors appear to subscribe to physicalism, describable as holding that all reality is reducible to physical phenomena. Consequently it is understandable that they will aim to fit their arguments into that straightjacket. A well-known expression of this attitude is the intense opposition to Cartesian dualism, the view by Descartes that mind and body, or mind and matter, are two distinct substances.

How derided this view is by the authors can be seen from the manner in which they speak of it: "crippling Cartesianism" (p.75, Dennett), "find themselves in bed with Descartes" (p.100, Searle), "the long, dark shadow of Descartes" (p.159, Bennett and Hacker). Only the commentator in the book, Daniel Robinson, expresses (pp.192-3) reservations about "how many kinds of different sorts of 'stuff' might be constitutive of all reality", but he considers such questions "best to leave unanswered".

They need not be left unanswered in philosophy, which with the aid of logic is here to try to resolve them. I may immodestly note that I deal with such questions in my On Proof for Existence of God, and Other Reflective Inquiries, but now I wish to point out confusions by the principal reviewed authors, whose object is to prevent confusion.

In their arguments they contend (p.208, note 6) that "the idea that the mind is a SUBSTANCE [I capitalized italics] of any kind is not coherent", i.e. that it makes no "sense" to speak of mind as contrasted with the body. But the authors are confused by words. "Substance" is usually defined by the likes of "essential nature", and the main issue, regardless of words used, is whether there is an entity customarily termed "mind" which is distinct from the body. The entity in question is obviously, in Descartes' and other discussions of interaction between mind and body, consciousness--leaving aside particulars like recent propounding of an unconscious. And it certainly makes sense to inquire about the relation between conscious and bodily occurrences.

But the most prominent area of confusion by the authors is in their primary contention of a "mereological fallacy" (e.g. p.22), regarding "the logic of part/whole relations". The authors repeatedly contend such as: "psychological predicates are ascribable to the whole animal, not to its constituent parts". The underlying dispute is with neuroscientists who ascribe "psychological predicates" to the brain, and the presently discussed authors insist: "Human beings, but not their brains, can be said to be thoughtful or to be thoughtless; animals, but not their brains..., can be said to see, hear, smell and taste things..." And the authors repeat: "psychological predicates apply paradigmatically to the HUMAN BEING (OR ANIMAL) AS A WHOLE, and NOT to the body or its parts".

It should be noted that the shift to the brain by neuroscientists is done from the traditional "mind" or consciousness, since the latter does not lend itself to their physical scrutiny. And the turn by the discussed authors to the "whole" of the animal is evidently born of the like physicalist presupposition that one cannot speak of a mind separate from the body. Ironically, their phrase "psychological predicates" itself relies on the word "psyche" for "soul", and it is easy to see that their arguments correspondingly confuse the concepts involved.

It is not the "whole" of the human or animal that thinks, sees, hears, smells and tastes things. The arm does not take part in thinking, or the leg in seeing. It is indeed a truism that it is the conscious part in us that performs those tasks, enlisting in cases some of the body. Try as they may, thinkers cannot dismiss the role of consciousness in our lives.
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Customer Reviews (1)

eh, it's not bad.
It was little bit ripped and was highlighted on the pages(a lot).

but so far i'm having no troubles, and it is nice.

my front cover was ripped..but.. it's alright.

And the highlighted portion annoys me when i'm highlighting MY PORTION. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A good Catholic Boy
I read this book almost a decade ago and remember being rather alarmed by it. I liked Bennet ,he was what we in england would call a good lad, Honest wholesome and despite the charlatans he liked to keep company with totally sincere. So it It is thus devastating to find that at the journeys end Bennet is left (seemingly) empty handed. Whilst Bennett didn't die cynical or bitter, there is an unmistakable sadness in these memoirs.

In this book we accompany Bennet as he travels through the jungle of 20th century spirituality in search of meaning of life..Like a spiritual james bond Bennett embarks on one adventure after another,. Blessed with limitless enthusiasm and unshakable faith in God Bennet always thinks that that the truth is just around the corner.
After all the various gurus have been exhausted, after all the running back and forth, Bennett even entertains the idea that he himself is the master whom he had been searching for. However even that doesn't work.

He ends up where he started and dies a good catholic boy, admitting a kind of defeat?

I walked away from the book, feeling defeated too. If this man's efforts are anything to go by(and he was brave enough and sincere enough to try anything and anybody)there is no spiritual truth worth striving for. You can't help feeling its all a sham.
I feel very differently about this book now. I believe Bennett is an important roadmap for what not to do and anyone who has an interest in twentieth century spirituality should read this book. Bennet was a spiritual guinea pig for the modern world. In his experiences we find the totality of twentieth century spiritual experiment one that encompasses all the various forms it took, from the traditional to the occult. The old age to the new age, the east and west, science and faith, technology and agriculture,esoterism and exotericm, innocence and experience. At the end was the realisation that perhaps the main traditional religions are already complete and cannot be improved upon,

Bennet was actually the lucky one. He went through it all, but he never lost faith, he never became broken and he never lost his optimism, he never lost his soul. I imagine he's in a good place now and in death will have found what he sought so elusively for in life.

Not to be missed
John G. Bennett's autobiography Witness: The Story of a Search was the first book connected with "The Work" that I encountered: an intense, self-searching, often self-accusing account of a remarkable life.Reading it again twenty years later it is not difficult to fathom why I was so drawn in: the tales of a young British army captain stationed in foreign intelligence in Istanbul shortly after the post-WWI armistice reads more compellingly than a spy novel, and the frequent interspersal of mystical experiences and mind-bending displacements of consciousness, whether under Gurdjieff's inscrutable eye at his Fountainbleau institute, in a dervish tekke in the twilight of the Ottoman empire or in the drinking den of Ouspensky's flat in London, painted a picture of a quite successful man of affairs whose wordly life nevertheless paled in the flashes of a supra-normal light.The book rivals Montaigne in its honesty, as Bennett recriminates over a lifetime of obsessively driven, self-willed behavior and cold-blooded intellectualism.But what an intellect: he clearly was a creative intellectual, and one who could see things on a grand scale as well.He was free, to an alarming degree it seems, of the conservatism that confines the rigor of academic minds to the mere service of another man's ideas.

An amazing life
there are many personal anecdotes of Bennett's encounters with Gurdjieff and Subud here, but I personally found them less interesting than his accounts of his encounters with Sufism and dervishes.Anyone interested in the Mevlevi ceremonies should not miss his account of witnessing the ceremonies in Konya in the 1920s. Throughout the book he is running into dervishes of one sort or another, who reveal much personal spiritual experience to him, of a way of life that is now no more. alas. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A complete waste of time
If you are searching after metaphysical and spiritual truth, you will not find it here. Bennett essentially fabricates concepts/entities such as the Demiurge and reevaluates past events in the light of his own fictitious belief systems. If you find his writing enjoyable, fine, but you will find no facts and no truth here. Rather than evaluate life and spirituality in the light of reality, Bennett excels in fabrication. Bennett reminds me of Sigmund Freud, who fabricated an entire framework of psychological thought that had no basis in reality. Bennett and Freud were at the least kindred spirits, withdrawing from reality and burying themselves in their own fantasy worlds.

John G. Bennett, Silver Sage
I felt so blessed to learn about "The Masters of Wisdom", John G. Bennett's last book.Imagine the power of reading the last book of a man long on the wisdom journey who knew so many other wise ones.

Imagine having the opportunity to read a complete history of wisdom through the ages from the beginning of time.I feel like I got a master's degree in wisdom (no pun intended, but it sure did get in there).

The best excitement from the book came from tying up so many loose ends about the Essenes, Chaldeans, the Sarmon (I think Bennett's spelling is the third I've seen) Brotherhood, who they really were and how they came to be and why they were formed.Dozens of books later, I understand more from Bennett than all the others.Still, the others served to let me know about them.

I can't imagine any wisdom seeker, college, university, or parent who would fail to make this amazing book's wisdom available widely.

Iraq knew the Masters... plus shocker about Jesus vs. Judas!
This book is a rare look at the heroes of esoteric history as they influenced national destinies with mind-boggling adventures. This region is rich and central to world history but so little known. You'll love exploring it thru the appearances of the Masters!

That said, this book offers two aspects of particular significance today that make it worth reviving and considering anew:

1.) It offers unique insight to the history of Persia and related territories. Civilization has been challenged here several times in the most dramatic ways. (The *Khans* play a big role.) With each epoch-shattering crisis a hidden, secretive Master appeared to both save lives and play a special role in saving the world's treasure of esoteric knowledge so it could be passed on. Outwardly they had a lot of variety but really they were all Sufis, men of no power who influenced the rulers of their day. Some were even shapeshifters, incarnations of the infamous Green Man, for instance. The religious evolution of the region is also clearly described. This is all vital to understanding what is happening in the Iran/Iraq region today.

2.) For those who are buzzing about the Mel Gibson movie and the "DaVinci Code" Gnostics book, or just plain interested in Gospel studies, this book will add to your flame: the author announces what he calls the biggest contribution to esoteric knowledge of his life: he presents Judas in a whole new light in terms of Judas being the best and strongest disciple who as a result is asked to take on the most demanding role: that of bearing the guilt of the world. Radical! But you have to read it to see what he means, of course.

Again a masterpiece
J.G. Bennett at his best. Rare insight into the history of "the work". ... Read more

Product Description
In this profound look at the academy, John Bennett reminds us that our leadership decisions always presuppose our philosophies of life and that understanding precedes practice. How we understand the communities we lead informs the many practical judgments we make about directions to take, structures to create, processes to initiate, and values to uphold.

Bennett argues that faculty may understand their departments or institutions in one of two ways: as simply aggregations of individuals or as communities of intertwined persons. From these views, two different leadership values and positions emerge.

The first disposes us toward seeing academic conflict as inevitable and elevates heroic leadership styles where power is understood in terms of advancing one agenda over competitors. The second underwrites leadership as supporting openness to others and emphasizes the vital contributions that can follow.

By providing specific illustrations of the two modes of leadership and the nature of hospitality and openness, Academic Life presents a strong platform from which to build a rich and rewarding academic community.

Contents include:
• The nature of insistent individualism
• Why the prevalence of insistent individualism?
• Hospitality as an essential virtue
• Self, others, institutions, and the common good
• Conversation as an essential metaphor
• The uses of conversation
• Community and covenant
• Engaged, but not heroic, leadership ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A Better Path
At last a book that tells it like it is in the world of academe, a world described by John Bennett as characterized by "persistent and possessive individualism in which self-promotion and protection become central values."Quite the opposite, in fact of the values suggested by the word "collegium," values such as connectedness, reciprocity, mutual purpose,and community.But, says Bennett, there is an alternative scenario what woul result in enhanced teaching and learning and in greater personal satisfaction for students, faculty, and administrators alike.

For Bennett the better path is grounded in the practice of hospitality.Ub the broadest sense, hospitality connotes welcoming, civility, sensitivity, and communication.Deemed an esssentail virtue, hospitality demands the cultivation of reciprocal relationships between groups and between individuals.We learn in this fine book how institutions and their constituents can become more hopsitable through, for example, altruism, philosophic inquiry into the self and into our professional calling, and establishing a balance among "...rights, responsibilities, and prvileges."Conversation, we learn, promotes listening and sharing and leadss to connectedness, empathy, and participation.Conversation and debate with students and colleagues foster mutual inquiry and break down the barrierss that exclude, thereby reducing "persistent individualism" and building community founded upon a covenant of mutual purpose and responsibility.

Bennett, it must be stressed, is neither an idealist nor a dreamer.He acknowledges the campus realities that make change so difficult - finances, reward structures, institutional size and complexity, protectionism.Nevertheless, under strong leadership, change can occur and a better path adopted, leading to the esstablishment if a true collegiumThis is a beautifully written, thoughtful, and important book.It should be read by all who care about the future of higher education in the United States.

Janice S. Green
Independent consultant to higher education

An Encouraging Read
This book has rekindled my faith in the humanizing potential of academic life.Bennett seeks to move beyond the "insistent individualism" that so permeates faculty and administrative life in colleges and universities, with its competitive, performance oriented, and self-protective focus.He offers instead a vision of hospitality.Grounded in covenantal relationships of mutuality, respect, open conversation, and genuine support, hospitality is a virtue that can foster communities of trust rather than fear.At first, this kind of vision might seem "soft" and ineffective, but the research Bennett marshals suggests otherwise--teaching can be enriched, scholarship empowered, curriculums enhanced, leadership energized.

The use of the word "spirituality" in the title, however, might be misleading to some readers.While religiously affiliated colleges and universities will find much in Bennett's argument that resonates with their own mission statements, the basic argument of the book does not rest on "faith claims" of one sort or another.The discussion of spirituality mainly stresses personal life-philosophy, a way of seeing one's self in meaningful relation to others and the cosmos.This is a strength that makes the book relevant to all readers, "religious" or not.

Perhaps more might have been said about problems of gender and racial equity, freedom of expression, and power structures in academia.For, as the author knows, hospitality is not merely an easy cover to "leave things as they are."It can and should be a vehicle for critique and resistance, for transforming distorted systems of communication (pp. 101, 110-12).And yet there are real socio-economic pressures that run counter to this ideal.

Overall, I highly recommend the book.The writing is clear and the argument balanced.It will provoke many fruitful discussion in the academy.

A captivating book
Academic Life:Hospitality, Ethics, and Spirituality is a page-turner, a description I most often reserve for fast-moving books of fiction.However,even before I turned the first page, I knew this was a book I was not going to be able to put down.Bennett's conceptual framework of academic life is as captivating as it is sound.

While reading Academic Life, I remembered how excited I was during my early career as a professor, actually believing that I - along with other scholars - could help solve some of the pressing needs of humankind.My enthusiasm was short lived.I quickly discovered the obstacles that Bennett describes, particularly the "significant proclivities toward individualism."And I soon saw how "healthy academic ethics and spiritualities struggle for breath."As Bennett writes,"Insistent individualism promotes the isolated self - it advances disconnection among faculty and staff as well as between faculty, staff, students, and institutions.It works against internal integration and separates personal from professional lives.It encourages exclusiveness rather than relationality, self-protection rather than openness to the other.It celebrates instrumental rather than relational knowledge.Insistent individualism encourages disciplinary and specialty boundaries, isolated departments, and fragmented institutions."

Bennett is a gifted writer and a profound thinker who engages and challenges all of us who care about higher education.He makes a strong case for relational individualism where leaders "model the importance of conversation by practicing hospitality and honoring covenant." Bennett explains: "Being a hospitable leader means recognizing that colleagues and students have different contributions to make to each other and to the classes and groups of which they are members.Practicing this kind of leadership means modeling and enabling contributions that are thoughtful and sensitive to the humanity of the other - that are respectful of individual dignity, even though that respect may not be initially returned."

"Only when education leaders and all who participate in higher education allow themselves to be truly formed as well as informed by conversation and hospitable teaching, scholarship, and service, can the academy remain true to itself. Only when we see ourselves as members of a covenantal collegium can higher education stand against the elements of anti-intellectualism that threaten our work as educators - reducing education to the transmission of information and credentialing.When pursued with genuine openness, learning makes a difference in who we are," Bennett advises.

If I were to recommend only one book on higher education this year, it would be Bennett's thoughtful and profound book, which examines hospitality, ethics, and spirituality as a part of academic life.It is indeed a page-turner.


... Read more

Product Description

The Educated Child defines a good education and offers parents a plan of action for ensuring that their children achieve it. Combining the goals that William Bennett enumerated as Secretary of Education, key excerpts from E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, and the latest research, it sets forth clear curricula and specific objectives for children from kindergarten through the eighth grade, including:

Product Description
Complexities of Higher Education Administration

Based on extensive experience in administration, in teaching, and in running workshops for administrators, the authors have assembled a collection of cases focused on topics common to academic administration. This book:
* offers sixteen generalized cases based on real situations
* combines higher education administration and communication theory
* includes indices for selecting cases by institution type, level and constituency, issues and tasks, and communication skills
* is a valuable resource for practicing administrators
* is an ideal text for graduate courses in educational administration, organizational communication, and management. ... Read more

Product Description
Intended for a survey-type, college-level history course, this volume covers the main themes and developments in world history, emphasizing the experiences of ordinary people and integrating coverage of women's history and the non-Western world. Includes learning aids such as focus questions, summa ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Horrible Study Guide, don't waste your money.
I had to buy this extremely overpriced book for my world civilizations class.It is a horrible text book, it's impossible to follow for someone who isn't already well versed on world history because it jumps around to a ridiculous extent.One page it will discuss one county in 1780, the next page its talking about another country 200 years later, and the following page its somewhere else, all without any indication to the reader that it is changing topics.The "key words" are in bold, but there is no concrete definition following it, the definition is spread out over many pages, making it extremely difficult to know what is truly important about the topic and what to memorize.Maybe this text book is the perfect thing for a history teacher who wants to buff up their knowledge, but as a student who's background is not world history, opening up this book leads to a mass of frustration, and I can only imagine there are many students who feel the same.

Also, if you're going to put keywords into a book, generally a glossary would also help.

it's a history book, what do you expect?
Upon receiving this text, I was flipping through the pages and impressed with the layout and accessibility of the book.However, reading it has proven to be a nightmare.There are so many factual errors that I'm afraid that the things I may be learning other things incorrectly.Yet this seems to be a common problem in history books.And, like the history books I had throughout high school, this book has some kind of agenda.It seems like every people group that American society tends to view as having "morality" deficiencies, this book works hard to defend.It is a little bizarre to behold at times.

I wish that, just once, I could find a history book that is only a little biased (since nothing can be unbiased - people have views, and no matter how hard they try, they will reflect in their writing), but instead I just get textbook after textbook that will go as far as making incorrect conjectures just to get a certain point across.That isn't right.

So I must give this book a mediocre score because it is the epitome of mediocrity.Just what we love to find in textbooks!

HORRIBLE HORRIBLE BOOK
This book is not even worth a penny. Even wikipedia is better than this book. My school uses this book and guess what. It sucks. The author obviously have no clue about what he is talking about. He skips from ancient egypt to Pharoah and not in chronological order. WTF don't waste ur money. go online if u want this freakin book.
PISSED OFF....

Units of measurement...
I was interested in a previous post that questioned the ability of a runner to cover "50 leagues or 175 miles per day," and discovered that an Ancient Roman league is equivalent to 2.22 km; therefore, 50 leagues would approximate 111 km or 68.93 miles - presumably a distance entirely possible for a top athlete of the day. Fascinating, huh?

This book is an excellent resource for students.

On time like said
The book came in good cond.and on time!... Do business anytime..referred them to other classmates ... Read more