Despite his lifelong ill health and short life, Allen was a writer of extraordinary productivity and range. A mysterious marriage while he was an Oxford undergraduate wrecked his academic career and radicalized his views on sexual and marital questions, as did a three-year teaching stint in Jamaica. Born in Kingston, Ontario, into a cultured and affluent family, Allen was educated in France and England. The book ends with reflections upon why human beings need gurus at all, and indicates how those in need of guidance can distinguish the false and dangerous from the genuine and good.This book is a critical biography of Grant Allen, (1848-1899), the first for a century, based on all the surviving primary sources. Maturity requires us to be able to tolerate doubt. No-one knows, in the sense that gurus claim that they know. It demonstrates that most of us harbour irrational beliefs, and discusses how the human wish for certainty in an insecure world leads to confusing delusion with truth. 'Feet of Clay' is one of Anthony Storr’s most original and illuminating books. It includes both Freud and Jung because, as Storr demonstrates, what ostensibly began as a scientific investigation became, in each case, a secular path to salvation. A guru convinces others that he knows – a persuasive capacity which can bring illumination but which may also and in disaster.Īnthony Storr’s book is a study of some of the best-known gurus, ranging from monsters such as Jim Jones or David Koresh, to saints such as Ignatius of Loyola. Gurus are extraordinary individuals who cast doubt upon current psychiatric distinctions between sanity and madness. Less has been written about the gurus who institute and lead such movements. Since cults have a special appeal to the young, anxious parents have prompted a good deal of research into who joins cults and why. They range from benign, charitable organisations to corrupt, dangerous cults which may end in murder or mass suicide.

There are said to be at least six hundred New Religious Movements in Britain, and many more in other parts of the world. Invariably led by gurus, or 'spiritual leaders', the fruit of these cults are mass suicides in the South American jungle or the self-immolation of hundreds in besieged fortresses. There are many reports of strange cults which enthral their followers and cut themselves off from the world.

Feet of clay anthony storr pdf