The Secret of the Mantras Richard Blakely 9780615740263 Books
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Fleeing the country in its headlong rush to war in Vietnam, a young American drops out of school and goes to Paris to write. After a year and a half, he realizes that if you have to work to live there, Paris is a lot like any other city, except that it’s full of Americans who came there to write. One night he and a friend go to the Paris Hilton to attend a lecture on a “great new movement that is sweeping the world.” A month later the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi invites him to India to attend a three-month teacher-training course on Transcendental Meditation. Based on journals Blakely kept at the time, the second half of this book is an eye-witness account of that gathering on the banks of the Ganges in the spring of 1968, which Blakely describes as “a lot like Woodstock but without all the people and the noise, and lasting a lot longer.” While this book is primarily a personal journey, coming to terms with a crucial period in the author’s life, it also provides a close-up portrait of the Maharishi, from someone who caught a glimpse of the wizard behind the curtain. In addition, it contains vignettes of other people who also happened to attend that course in Rishikesh---including George Harrison, John Lennon, Mia Farrow, and Mike Love---that readers will find entertaining and informative.
The Secret of the Mantras Richard Blakely 9780615740263 Books
Nicholas LongThe Secret of the Mantras is a wonderful book! I’ve never liked the Beatles, thought the Beach Boys were awful, never understood the fuss about Mia Farrow and assumed that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation was largely a fraud. That this memoir is concerned with all of them doesn’t matter because Blakely has written a delightful page-turner which reads more like a picaresque novel than a memoir.
The characters, including the narrator, in The Secret of the Mantras could just as well be fictional as real. Blakely succeeds in making one interested in all of them and the reader is always anxious to know what happens next.
Blakely is keenly aware of how lucky he was to have lived in Paris as a young man, poor but happy, to paraphrase Hemingway. His explication of how much fun he had there, and on his serendipitous sojourn to the Maharishi’s Indian headquarters, is a complete delight.
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The Secret of the Mantras Richard Blakely 9780615740263 Books Reviews
For those of us who lived through the 60s, this is a wonderful memoir which takes you right back to many facets of life then the quest outward inspired by Kennedy, the experimentation with everything, the search for self which people in the West now had time for...part of the great long postwar period. I could not put this book down. Richard has a way with detail which takes you in and makes you part of the story. The tale of moving from one belief system to another ( Christian Science to TM) is fascinating. This book reminds you of all of the chaotic times of the 60s and interweaves history and personal growth in a way that is very satisfying and compelling. I was sorry when I finished reading it and that is my real test of a book....missing the reading experience after you finish.
Blakely's book was an incredible spiritual journey which was even more real knowing that the he had lived it. I felt, although vicariously, that I was on the journey with him and could internalize the journey and achieve a degree of inner peace while reading the book. Although the section about the Beatles was enticing, the true value was in the movement into self.
Drew Rodgers
Blakely's minute and colorful description of his years in California, Paris, and India is so rich in details and inner perceptions that, for weeks afterwards, I remained with the impression that *I* had been there and lived through his experience. If I closed my eyes I could actually see the bridge over the river, the main meeting-space, the students little cells under the trees. I found some old videos (on You Tube) of the Maharishi preaching or walking through the ashram (with or without the Beatles;-)), and it was just as I had envisioned it through Blakely's descriptions.
Truly amazing. We are very lucky that the author kept a diary of those years and was able to recreate the whole experience in this wondrous book.
I loved it. Sure, reading about Mia Farrow and the Beatles was fascinating in and of itself, but what really drew me in was the narrator's personal story, particularly the early evocation of eking out a life in Paris. Blakely shows remarkable skill in evoking a world--and he does equally well with voice and characterization. This writer shows mastery of the word-to-word level, too. I have a bad habit of always reading with an editor's pencil in hand, but nowhere in The Secrets of the Mantras did I have the urge--the need--to use it. On the contrary, I was impressed with Blakely's skillful prose. The story itself is fascinating, and no one does a better job of invoking the heady days of the early-to-middle 1960s.
Imagine it's 1968 and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has personally invited you to attend a Transcendental Meditation training course in India. On the dime of this world-famous spiritual leader, you attend a three month camp at beautiful Rishikesh with the intention of becoming a teacher in this up and coming movement. One morning you arise early for breakfast and find John Lennon sitting at the end of your table. The other Beatles join you. Mia Farrow, Mike Love, and other celebrities at the ashram instantly become your peers. Trouble unfolds in paradise and what you and the others experience is so bizarre it inspires songs on the White Album. You find love with a very pretty fellow student only to find more drama - more extreme than ever.
It truly happened.
Richard Blakely was not a celebrity, rather an intelligent, sensitive, and adventurous young student from California. Disenchanted with a Vietnam-consumed America and his Christian Science-based home, he grabbed his portable typewriter and headed for Paris. Out of curiosity, he attended a lecture on TM and discovered something special to him. Eventually he discovered this was a very ambitious effort lead by a very ambitious man.
Blakely's insightful writing takes us through his troubled suburban youth, his attempts to acclimate to adulthood, and his inevitable retreat to a far off land. Most of the book focuses on his time at the Rishikesh ashram and his engaging personal interactions with iconic musicians and actors along with other students. We are treated with an abundance of humor (his mother found out where he'd gone when her friend saw his photo in Life magazine standing with Mia Farrow). The story becomes a real page-turner as we discover the true motives behind the Maharishi, his shocking behavior, and the ripple effect along the Ganges that spring.
Nicholas Long
The Secret of the Mantras is a wonderful book! I’ve never liked the Beatles, thought the Beach Boys were awful, never understood the fuss about Mia Farrow and assumed that the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and his Transcendental Meditation was largely a fraud. That this memoir is concerned with all of them doesn’t matter because Blakely has written a delightful page-turner which reads more like a picaresque novel than a memoir.
The characters, including the narrator, in The Secret of the Mantras could just as well be fictional as real. Blakely succeeds in making one interested in all of them and the reader is always anxious to know what happens next.
Blakely is keenly aware of how lucky he was to have lived in Paris as a young man, poor but happy, to paraphrase Hemingway. His explication of how much fun he had there, and on his serendipitous sojourn to the Maharishi’s Indian headquarters, is a complete delight.
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