Reviews for Mystic Living: The Principles of Vaastu for the 21st Century

The average rating for Mystic Living: The Principles of Vaastu for the 21st Century based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-03 00:00:00 Timothy Kraft As an admirer of Berger's early work, I've been reading everything by him until today, despite the increasingly acerbic conservatism of his work. The two other authors being colleagues, this was a must read. Despite the promising premise, the book is disappointing. The diatribe against secular social scientists who just can't seem to get anything right gets tiresome very quickly. The eagerness of some of the authors to bring back religion into the public sphere translates into implicit support for neoliberal policies for dismantling the welfare state and, consequently, welfare and social equality. For an author who never forgets to remind his readers that social science is neutral a la Weber, Berger (and Davie) have written a massively political text. The treatment of 'Eurabia'--the concept forged in racist and fascist forums--is hardly treated as the far-right construction it is, but with a worrying overtone about the birth rate of immigrant Muslims. The chapters by Effie Fokas offer the only respite. It's not that there aren't some good insights here, but they are hardly original, and have to be filtered from the political bias.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-06-19 00:00:00 Sean Woods A rather interesting book that tackles the notions of whether or not Europe is secular or America is religious. It delves into the histories, cultural traditions (and changes of culture), differences of religion in the social sphere, and policy implications of both in terms of foreign and domestic. Since it was written at the end of Bush's term, there are some elements of that time that still resonate today, as well as some indicators of a shift, both slowly and rapidly that have occurred today or possibly occur in the near future. I would hope that there is a sequel in the near future with the influential changes that have occurred domestically and internationally in both the U.S. and Europe.