The Magus of Strovolos by Kyriacos C. Markides. This book is about the authors exposure to a spiritual healer known in the book as Daskalos, who resides in Cyprus. It covers many different paranormal abilities, as well as tries to outline much of these supernatural realms that lie just outside of our perception. Delving into consciousness and it's inner workings, religion, and even touching on God himself. The book tries to answer as many questions as possible, as the author takes you through his experiences with this healer.
This book reminds me of the Magus of Java a great deal. I'm not sure which came out first, and frankly I don't care. The Magus of Java is a far better book then this one. Unless you are a devout Christian, you probably won't like this book much. If you are, and are interested in mysticism, you may very well love this book. But for me, it just rubbed me the wrong way.
The first few chapters aren't that bad. At first I thought the book was going to be very good. One of the earlier chapters even sounded spot on, with talk about elementals being formed in the mind, and having a tendency to wreak havoc on a person by becoming habits and obsessions. It makes more sense in the book. Everything was seeming well and good. In-fact, there was even a few times that I thought to myself, "This is a good book!". That all eventually changed.
It went from general spirituality, which to me is acceptable, because it doesn't pin truth to a specific religion. To very, very Christian. Very. So Christian, the healer said he met Jesus twice! During his crucifixion! In a past life! And to me, that was the final nail in the coffin. Although it might be the most unbelievable part of the story, it wasn't the only thing.
During his encounter with Jesus, while he was carrying his cross, a guard caught him, and out of spite, crushed his foot. When Jesus died, and some paranormal storm whipped through the area, proving that he was in fact the son of God, the then boy healer, had to crawl home. Jesus then came to him, I guess as a spirit, and took Daskalos to heaven with him, because of his injured foot.
Now, I honestly doubt a crushed foot would have been the end for him for many reasons, and before anyone tries to point out all the different illnesses you could've gotten back then from a crushed foot, just remember, Jesus was a healer. Why didn't he just heal the foot? Maybe it makes for a more interesting story.
Another thing that annoyed me was, Daskalos never had to train for his abilities. Although he has many disciples who all have to train diligently for their abilities, Daskalos gets to skip this part. He was just born this way. A natural healer in God's name. Even his friend who he mentions has been with him through several lifetimes, still has to train, while Daskalos doesn't. He just knows and can do pretty much whatever he wants.
He goes a little into Karma as well. But again, Daskalos doesn't have to endure Karma either. Near the end of the book, he illustrates very specifically, that accumulating Karma for him is a choice, where all others must endure. He even supposedly demonstrates how he can take on another person's Karma to endure it for them, or shrug it off instantly, at his discretion.
He also covers communication with the dead, and does communicate with the dead. But it's not real communication, oh no. You see, what happens is, people die, move on to be reincarnated, if they haven't progressed spiritually enough, and a copy of their personality, more or less, stains this universal consciousness-mind-god-thingy. So when you call on the dead, which probably isn't recommended, you are actually calling a copy of that persons personality, but not the actual person themselves.
Another interesting thing they discuss in the book are these guardians of our planet. They apparently are formless entities that live out in space, around our planet, watching over us from afar, unwilling to come down to earth. They are formless, but when grouped together, look like flying saucers. They are apparently alien-archangel-like guardians, that are formless with form, when grouped. I guess it's "Case Closed" for the UFO phenomena.
I could probably go on and on about some of the ridiculousness presented in this book, but I wont. I'll mention one last thing that I pretty much know to be either completely false, or just wrong. He mentions going out of body, and that to do so, you need to speed up your heart. This is either completely false in the sense that doing this will prevent it from happening outright, or if it is possible, he's doing it the very hard and improper way. The body rests, going almost completely still, with very little, or even no breath or heartbeat. Because you are detaching from the body. If you sped up your heart rate, it would involve the body more, making detachment all the more difficult.
In order to understand how it would be possible to go without breath or heartbeat for extended periods of time, you'll need to know more about the energy body and chi, as it's what supplies and sustains the physical body in this shift away from it. Some of the other books I review contain this information. Chances are, they are the books with the higher ratings.
It was small things like this, peppered throughout the book that made me question it's authenticity. When I read someone of Daskalos' claimed caliber, making mistakes in elementary subjects that a typical novice knows more about, it makes me wonder. Considering the vast amount of information at his disposal, as well as experience and lifetimes to refine it; how is he still doing things the hard way? It didn't feel like he was breaking new ground. It felt like a retreat into an assumption about how out of body experiences work, and their effects on the body.
I was going to save the last bit for positive things I found in the book, but honestly, I can't think of anything that didn't end up tainted at some point in the book. Pretty much everything that put a smile on my face, eventually got wiped off, often by the end of the same chapter. Some chapters would start off strong and promising. But often times as the chapter went on, it would get strange and outlandish. And it would sometimes end so far out of the ballpark, that it felt like it was pulled right out of someone's backside.
When I finished the book, I honestly couldn't take it seriously. It felt made up. I really felt like most of it was hogwash. I even tried looking the author up in some video to see if could provide even the faintest shred of evidence to back up the claims put forth in the book. I admittedly didn't look hard, but I still didn't find anything. The author would mention the book, but never talked about the book in detail, or his time with Daskalos, or any of the experiences he was witness to. Nothing. But, if anyone who happens to reads this, knows of a video where he does talk about anything that would lend to the credibility of the story, please share. I'd like to see it.
Anyways, I can't say that I wouldn't recommend this book, again unless you are a devout Christian open to mysticism. If you are, you may love this book. But than again, this is just me. The book rubbed me the wrong way repeatedly, and I just didn't like it, or agree with it. Someone else might, and probably does like it, based on the Amazon reviews.
Hope you enjoyed!
2/10
