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Customer Reviews of In the Dark Places of Wisdom

In the Dark Places of Wisdom
This book simply floors me. Along with his scholarly tour de force Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, Kingsley is proving himself to be the Wilamowitz, Rohde or Nietzsche of the start of the new millenium. The man knows his sources intimately and has a truly sympathetic and astonishingly wide-ranging grasp of all the relevant material. As a neo-pagan who is at home with greek religious traditions I am so pleased to find a writer who combines solid scholarship with a mystical appreciation of the material he writes about. This book is a steal at twice the price. Buy it! read it and keep it always handy in your library of necessary texts.

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Manual for soul travel
I've written thousands of reviews and all for pay, so this is a measure of my appreciation of Kingsley's book. Much of my reviewing was small press stuff, mystical or psychological preferred. I have shelves and boxes of books that I enjoyed and planned to re-read for a deeper understanding, but there they sit. Meanwhile I'm on my eighth re-reading of Wisdom and finding more each time. For me it compares to the challenging, roguish perplexities of Robert Graves' White Goddess. It opens a new room in my mind. And I agree with those who have the highest praise for Kingsley's writing style. I've made my living as a writer for 40 years and so studied popular styles - Kingsley is accessible yet intriguing. A clean, well-lighted room, yes, but with shape-shifters flitting through to tease you along. I can see why academics are shocked and appalled. Just great, can't recommend it enough. I found this book after 18 months of immersion in Idries Shah's brand of sufism, reading all of Shah and lots of related stuff, a hint at my attitude toward the academic. I'm not reading it for so-called facts but as a manual for real travel, as fuel, as a work that clicks with my intuition.

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Not Entirely Without Merit
This is a fairly short book, and can be read in one or two sittings. It is very easy to read, and sort of enjoyable. On the down side, this author spends too much time trying to vilify Plato and Aristotle, resorting to a very unlikely idea that they conspired to bury Parmenides' ideas, and/or make it look like Plato was his true heir, rather than Zeno. As other reviewers of this book have pointed out, they would have had no motive to do so. Since this book is so short and easy, what the author could have done is spend a lot more time supporting his ideas rather than just stating them as fact without convincing evidence. Or better yet, he could have chosen to just focus on the mystical importance of Parmenides' writings and just avoid the conspiracy theory and trying to rewrite history altogether. This is where the most sympathy for the author: I believe he may indeed understand Parmenides' writing from a mystical point of view, and in some ways this is why his writing style is passionate. For this reason I almost gave this book three stars; but I couldn't do this because this isn't the only book about the underworld initiation or "dying before you die"; and yet the author almost acts like it is or like he's discovered something nobody else has. If passionate and mystical, the author's style could also be described as lurid. He almost seems to act as if the discoveries are too amazing to be believed, narrating as if he's telling a children's story. He suggests on one hand that people of european descent who are interested in the east are neglecting their own heritage, and then claims that we are indebted to the east and there is a conspiracy trying to cover that up. Actually, every book I've ever read on Greek Philosophy states that the Greeks significant portions of their ideas from the east. At one point he mentions a memorial (constructed about 500 years after Parmenides was alive) of Parmenides which gives him a title that fits with his theory, yet when he points out that the face couldn't have been Parmenides' (on a statue of Parmenides) but it was a generic face, he overlooks that. In other words, he uses the evidence when it fits his theory, and excuses it when it doesn't. The people who constructed the memorial could have been mistaken about his title and it's implications since it was centuries after he lived. I think that if he focused on writing a book of mystical importance, rather than getting caught up trying to overthrow the establishment philosophers and rewrite history, he'd create something a lot better. He seems to forget that Plato also, was a mystic, and had received the underworld initiation. Even though universities focus mainly on Plato's secular writings, his mystical and esoteric writings are there. I still feel like I want to read this author's other books.