The Face of Power

Author: Matt Guest
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 1401025390
Publisher: Matt Guest (October, 2001)
Sales Rank: 219,881
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Customer Reviews

Rating: 1 out of 5
The face of disappoinment!
The face of power tells the tale of a young man and his nonsensical and often anti-social behavior somehow leading him to a higher knowledge. Matt Guest clearly has a problem with the opposite sex and identifies with his female relationships as "energy draining". His account of romantically embracing a close male friend in a kiss is most certainly his moment of clarity. It would have been more honest of a read if he just accepted his homosexuality and moved on. Instead the reader is given uninspiring pieces of drivel such as, "where do all the birds go when they die"? This book came highly recommended and sadly it offered nothing useful or even mildly entertaining. However, if you like self-indulgent, sexually confused, new age ramblings, then you'll love this book.

Rating: 3 out of 5
The tumultuous journey of a modern shaman
The Face of Power is the moving and gripping account of how an hypersensitive and psychic child became a kind of modern shaman and faith healer.The book is however more than a spiritual autobiography since its core is a series of philosophical dialogues between the author and Court, his male mentor, with whom he has a kind of platonic love relationship. In these long conversations, the question of the ultimate nature of experience is explored in depth. People who have read Krishnamurti's works will struck by the numerous and sometimes baffling similarities.

The rest of the book deals with Matthew's spiritual experiences and encounters with spirits and above all with his tumultuous love affairs, which he increasingly comes to regard as a struggle between the powers of light and the powers of darkness as he laboriously but vainly attempts to "convert" his partners to the life of the Spirit. His candid but unoriginal conclusion is that sex is a waste of time and energy...

Lucid dreaming, though frequently mentioned, is NOT discussed in depth in the book. The Face of Power is primarily a philosophical discourse in the form of an autobiographical narrative, peppered with digressions on mysticism, archeology and of course sex. It is not an umpteenth guide to the astral realms or a how-to book about lucid dreaming. What little advice the reader will find scattered in the pages of the "Face of Power" is of an indirect nature and rather vague. Obviously, the author does not want you to know too much.

I sometimes suspected the book to be, in a subtle but nevertheless unmistakable way, an attempt to proselytize its readership, specially people who are ill, since Matthew is quite frank about his healing powers and frequently talks about them. But the tone of deep sincerity of the whole work has convinced me that petty commercialism is far from his mind.

This a very well-written book, both entertaining and profound. It is sometimes so dense that you may need to read and reread some passages, specially in the dialogues with Court. Clearly, the wisdom that Matthew imparts us is from another world.

The reason why I give it only three stars is because I found the mixture of philosophic dialogues with accounts of marital quarrels somewhat jarring. I also found Matthew's Manichean view of sex in general rather uninspiring. Finally, as I mentioned above, much of the wisdom found in the Face of Power sounds like a regurgitation of Krishnamurti's teachings.

People who are interested in a mystical autobiography of truly great caliber free from disturbing conjugal life digressions should read Krishnamurti's Journal.

Rating: 3 out of 5
The moving story of a modern shaman
The Face of Power is the moving and gripping account of how an hypersensitive and psychic child became a kind of modern shaman and faith healer.The book is however more than a spiritual autobiography since its core is a series of philosophical dialogues between the author and Court, his male mentor, with whom he has a kind of platonic love relationship. In these long conversations, the question of the ultimate nature of experience is explored in depth. People who have read Krishnamurti's works will struck by the numerous and sometimes baffling similarities.

The rest of the book deals with Matthew's spiritual experiences and encounters with spirits and above all with his tumultuous love affairs, which he increasingly comes to regard as a struggle between the powers of light and the powers of darkness as he laboriously but vainly attempts to "convert" his partners to the life of the Spirit. His candid but unoriginal conclusion is that sex is a waste of time and energy.

Lucid dreaming, though frequently mentioned, is NOT discussed in depth in the book. The Face of Power is above all a philosophical discourse in the form of an autobiographical narrative peppered with digressions on mysticism, archeology and of course sex. It is not an umpteenth guide to the astral realms or a how-to book about lucid dreaming. What little advice the reader will find scattered in the pages of the "Face of Power" is of an indirect nature and rather vague. Obviously, the author does not want you to know too much.

I sometimes suspected the book to be in a subtle but nevertheless unmistakable way an attempt to proselytize its readership, specially people who are ill, since Matthew is quite frank about his healing powers and frequently talks about them. But the tone of deep sincerity of the whole work has convinced me that petty commercialism is far from his mind.

This a very well-written book, both entertaining and profound. It is sometimes so dense that you may need to read and reread some passages, specially in the dialogues with Court. Clearly, the wisdom that Matthew imparts us is from another world.

The reason why I give it only three stars is because I found the mixture of philosophic dialogues with accounts of marital quarrels somewhat jarring. I also found Matthew's Manichean view of sex in general rather uninspiring. Finally, as I mentioned above, much of the wisdom found in the Face of Power sounds like a regurgitation of Krishnamurti's teachings.

People who are interested in a mystical autobiography of truly great caliber free from disturbing conjugal life digressions should read Krishnamurti's Journal.



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