Life & Teaching of the Masters of the Far East

Has anyone else read this? Its one of my all time favorites. The story spans multiple volumes, and details a trip a group of scientists and spiritual seekers took in the early 20th century to India to visit a group of teachers identified as "the Masters." Its supposedly nonfiction, but there's a lot here that will challenge your concept of reality and truth.

Can you give more information? What is the exact title? Who is the author? Thanks.

It seems like Child_of_Light is speaking about this book:

Life and teaching of the masters of the Far East by Baird T. Spalding.

4.5 stars out of 82 reviews at Amazon. Looks interesting.

Hang on a minute.

These is actually a 6 volume set.


It's 850 pages in total, and, according to reviews, for the statistically inclined, it's been rated with 5 stars by 72 buyers, as seen here.

Definitely, it's looking good.

Yep, thats the one. Its on my personal list of greatest spiritual works of all time (given, not all the things on that list are single works). It was written way before the current New-Age movement, and is, IMHO, better than 90% of the schlock churned out by the New-Age celebrity writers since the 80's.

Recently picked up the hardback edition of this set, although it only has five volumes. Anyone know if the sixth is only part of the paperback or am I missing a volume? Either way, I have both sets, so it doesn't matter to much, but I'd still like to know whether or not I have to go hunt down a missing volume.

> 4

So these books had 72 reviews that were 5 stars? So what?

Christianity has over 2 billion adherents and Islam has about 1 billion. So, if majority vote determines truth, then I guess I should just find the biggest majority and go along with it. Why bother with my individual intuition?

There were 7 reviews of these books that were one star and I read them after reading several of the five star reviews.

The negative reviews seems more correct to me. It seems it is all a work of fiction and taking it as factual narrative would be a mistake.

Nevertheless, mythic narrative can contain insights or profundities. Is there some contained in this work of fiction that is not to be found somewhere else? If so, what?

6> I have read all 6 volumes and have older copies of the first five. The sixth volume was only published in the last quarter of the 20th Century, so it is not considered to be part of the original five published in Spalding's lifetime. My perception is that it was created to accompany the paperback reprint of the original books, to offer more history and background on the author - if I remember the material accurately.

When I was young, I was given an opportunity to read the series by a mentor and the books are still with me, and still the most important volumes in my library. I will say that I found them to be most profound and subsequent events in my life have led me to understand more about what was written. One need only follow the life of M'sieur Spalding to gain more insight into the texts.

ETA: Do you have a matched set (publication year) or a mixed set?

Haven't checked, will take a look and let you know.

The set is mixed. I rather suspected the sixth volume was added as part of the reprint, but thought I'd ask anyway. I imagine mixed sets are more common than complete sets by Devorss with a single copyright year?

Yes, I tend to agree. I have a mixed set, with some volumes separated by twenty years, although I purchased all five together. I purchased the sixth volume with a paperback edition, but I passed on the paperback set, without volume 6, when I found the hardbound set, which is a story in its own right.