| | Breaking off from the SHAM book review, I want to introduce a self-help book for discussion as an exercise: Self Help or Sham? I'll present the author's info, dust jacket description, and a few excerpts. Is there good intent? Is the advice helpful, practical? Is it based on mixes premises? Is it dreck? You decide.
I looked for a book at random from the self-help section today, this one caught my eye because it was faced out and had a New York Times Bestseller label on it. It is called EXCUSE ME, YOUR LIFE IS WAITING: THE ASTONISHING POWER OF FEELINGS by Lynn Grabhorn.
I checked the author's info on the jacket, to see who she was and how she was qualified to "help" people. From the book:
"Lynn Grabhorn is a long time student of the way in which thought and feelings format our lives. She began her working life in the advertising field, founded and ran an audio-visual educational publishing company, and owned and ran a mortgage brokerage firm."
Well, what about the book's contents? How is Lynn going to teach you to grab your waiting life by the horns? Let's see the description on the back:
"In an upbeat, humorous, and somewhat irreverant style, Lynn Grabhorn introduces us to the amazing [William Bardel, you will be AMAZED whether you like it or not!] law of Attraction, a new and rapidly unfolding realm of feelings that physicians, scientists, physicists, and theologians are coming to believe is very, very real.
The most unconscious thing we do all day long is what actually creates and molds every moment of every day of our lives. And what is this 'thing' that governs us so forcefully? Feelings. Grabhorn reveals how our feelings make our lives what they are-not positive thinking, or sweat or strain, of good or bad luck, or even smarts, but feelings: good ones, bad ones, up ones, down ones, and all the ones in between.
Until now , we have run our lives on a default setting, manifesting experiences by happenstance rather than intent. Now, with no effort other than paying attention to how we're feeling, the play becomes our own deliberate creation, and the world becomes our oyster.
Examples from book itself:
(on the nature of the mind)
Page 230
"These days, just about everybody knows that the state of one's physical health is connected to the state of one's mental health. The whole scientific/medical community knows all too well there's some kind of link between body and mind, they're just not sure that it is...yet. Won't they be surprised when they find out it's nothing but our own energy."
(on how to help children)
Page 258:
"What about the kids being raped, or being born unwhole, or starving in Africa, or being killed in regional wars? Sadly to say, they have usually picked up the negative vibrations from their folks well before being born.
"These vibrations stay with them and grow in direct relation to the vibrating of the adults who are raising them or until the youngsters are old enough to decide they no longer want unpleasant experiences in their lives.These children have become victims by default.
"How do you help? A little one starving half way around the world, or a little one at home who understands no words as of yet? Hold them-either physically or in your thoughts- with soothing vibrations such as 'Everything is really all
right, it's going to pass, you are so loved,' etc., taking care not to assign any blame to any one or any group, which only contributes more negative energy to the abuse...as well as to the abused."
(on illness and dying)
"Illness in any form is nothing more than our own negative energies choking off so much of our life flow-those high frequencies that are our natural state-that cellular damage results."
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