by Robert S. de Ropp, Delacorte Press, 1979 (397 pgs)

Subtitled, The Challenging Life Games, this is Mister de Ropp’s autobiography. I disagree with Mister de Ropp on several important points (particularly his dismissal of the concept of loyalty as "mere sentimentalism"), and only found this book mildly interesting; however, there is no doubt that he has seen, experienced, and learned a great deal more than the average human. Furthermore, he’s had opportunity to meet with many of the legendary (and semi-legendary) philosophers of his day (among them: Ouspensky, Gurdjieff, Aldous Huxley, Charles Lindbergh, Timothy Leary, and Carlos Castaneda) and provides us with a rare glimpse of these deeply flawed geniuses. Anyone who is seriously considering looking for a "guru" to provide him with the answers to life’s questions can potentially gain a great deal by reading this book. Furthermore, his analysis of the hidden causes of WWII will be valuable to historians.

There were a few quotes that I regarded as particularly noteworthy, and they have been transcribed below:

"It is our privilege as human beings to live either as Warriors or slaves. A Warrior is the master of his fate. No matter what fate throws at him, fame or infamy, health or sickness, poverty or riches, he uses the situation for his own inner development. He takes his motto from Nietzsche: That which does not destroy me strengthens me.

The slave, on the other hand, is completely at the mercy of external events. If fortune smiles upon him, he struts and boasts and attributes her favors to his own power and wisdom — which, as often as not, had nothing to do with it. If fortune frowns, he whines and weeps and grovels, putting the blame for his sufferings on everything and everybody except himself." (p. 2)

"I stood there and gasped. The sheer size of the place created in my soul a feeling of awe, as if I had found myself standing in the midst of a great cathedral. A monument to Mammon? Yes. But what a monument! What courage, what power, what know-how had been needed to raise those enormous slabs of steel and concrete. And yet it was soulless, a gigantic termitary, where thousands of telephones and typewriters chattered and rattled in a frenzy of activity to accomplish — what? I did not know. An uneasy thought crossed my mind. Was this enormous, beautiful, awe-inspiring, soulless structure a symbol of America?" (p. 167, speaking of Rockefeller Center more than half a century ago)

"More than any other man I have met, he lived by self-imposed rules and pursued intentional aims. In the fullest sense of the word he was inner-directed and lived strategically, knowing what he was doing and why he was doing it. He cared nothing for the artificial laws that confine weaker people to narrow patterns of behavior. He made his own laws and played the game by his own rules. Because these laws and rules were very different from those that ordinarily govern human behavior he seemed like an enigma to some and like a madman to others." (p. 204, speaking of Gurdjieff)

"A fool could follow that way simply to show off, to shock the "squares," to attract attention, to stir up trouble. A fool would confront, out of sheer bravado, challenges with which he was unable to cope. A Warrior, living strategically, would avoid if possible embarking on a battle he could not win. The difference between a Warrior and a fool was simply this: a Warrior knew his limitations, a fool did not." (p. 283, speaking of Leary)

"Despite such amiable slogans as "Make love not war," the whole hippie movement was heavily loaded with hostility. It was Freaksville versus Squaresville, the counter-culture versus the establishment." (p. 287)

"The huge populations of the industrial countries were living in a fool’s paradise, refusing to face facts though the facts were obvious to anyone. A crash was inevitable. We were running out of everything: fossil fuels, metals, forests, arable land. . . Our huge extravagant American agriculture was nothing but a factory for turning oill into food. Stop the oil and you stop the tractors. Stop the tractors and you stop the food production. Stop the food production and people starve. They will not starve quietly. The chaos could be as bad as that created by the Mongol invasions. We were facing a period of destruction and grave danger. It made sense to prepare." (p. 323)

"Castaneda’s basic teachings concerning the Warrior’s way could be summarized as follows:

A Warrior accepts everything as a challenge. He cannot indulge in self-pity, curse his fate, his god, his mate, his boss, his luck. He accepts responsibility for everything. If he puts the blame for his predicament on others, he is not a Warrior.

A Warrior lives strategically. He knows which life game he is playing and why he plays it. His battles are for power and for knowledge. His enemies are weakness and ignorance. He struggles to live by his own self-made rules and to avoid being pushed about by outside forces.

A Warrior uses death as his advisor. He is aware of the fact that his time is limited, so he cannot afford to waste time on useless fantasies or meaningless activities.

A Warrior has unbending intent. His trained will is his only weapon against the random and chaotic forces that distract, weaken, and can finally destroy him. . . . (However) one wonders why Castaneda has this queer need to obscure and twist out of shape the concepts he describes, cheapening and vulgarizing the Warrior’s Way, turning his characters into clowns and the Way itself into a circus." (pp. 360 - 362)

"Never will I abandon the scientific spirit to take refuge in some smelly little rabbit warren of fixed belief or behind some flimsy facade of dogma and ritual. My contempt for faith is as great now as it ever was. How sickly is the human appetite for a fixed belief, for a God, a savior, a redeemer, a heavenly father. I thank the force that created me for installing in the depths of my psyche the old Diogenes, the mocking Cynic, who laughs at all fixed beliefs and refuses to take refuge from ugly realities in any system of comforting illusions." (p. 368)