foxyproxy

I listen to these every night to help me sleep

Revisado: 10-18-20

they're weird, first iteration, and often unfinished stories of all manner of nonsense from talking animals, things frequently done three times, spoiled rotten people getting their just desserts through murder and magic, and then the exact opposite as well. I listen to these every night to help me sleep, but sometimes I will burst out laughing at the total absurdity of what I just listened to. the narrators are fine. this is classic!

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Strong premise, devolves into absolute nonsense

Revisado: 05-01-20

I read/listened to this book cover to cover no less than 3 times, and some early chapters probably a dozen times. I suffer from severe PTSD and crippling sleep problems that prevent me from working or living a halfway functional life. After reading the first few chapters, I thought this was going to be life changing. Chapters 1 - 3 lay out Tolle's premise: our brains have evolved to "think" too much. To such an extent that we no longer have control over our thinking, and it causes us great distress and harm. I think that's pretty much dead on accurate. His solution is to try to stop thinking. Use your mind as a tool when needed, but then put it away. He doesn't really lay out a lot of clear ways of accomplishing this in any realistic sense, but I think, for what it's worth, he makes a compelling argument.

But then he keeps going. He attempts to tie every religious teaching, any mythological or spiritual practice into this all encompassing theory of everything. He pretends that the Jesus of christianity makes claims about his pet theory that makes no sense in context. He tries to pretend that buddhism adopts his pet theory. He wrangles in ideas of...past lives, cosmic super-consciousness, karma, hypnosis... just about every nonsense theory you can imagine and merge them all together in some grand unified theory. It hurts me so much to write a review like this because I was a devotee of his until I read further (and then started watching his youtube videos). He states in chapter 1 that he was suicidal and came to this epiphany out of desperation. I think he tried to kill himself and suffered some kind of brain damage as a result (that's just my opinion). He IS CORRECT in some of the things he says, our brains have evolved to a point where they've almost become out of our control. I don't think many people would disagree with that. He likens our "mental chatter" to a homeless addict talking nonsense on a street corner. I agree with that. He says our brains literally torture us at times. That's a fact. But to try to add in all this quasi-religious spirit-science nonsense into the mix is unnecessary and just poisons the message.

I think it's clear that the guy had a mental breakdown back in the 90s, had a series of manic episodes, and became absolutely convinced of himself that he was some spiritual leader. Watching him (on youtube) give lectures where people from religions that contradict one another come up and ask how his teachings apply to their religion, and then hear him tell his audience that "oh yeah, Presence could relate to karma", or "oh yeah, being in the NOW is exactly what {your religious guru} really meant by {phrase}" is insulting to anyone with an ounce of skepticism. You have to be totally uncritical to think that his pet theory automatically ties together every world religion, every faith, every practice, every teaching... that secretly each of these entities (which are contradictory of one another) are all REALLY just confirming his pet theory. Absolutely the height of arrogance and lack of critical thinking. It poisons his message and has cast a lot of doubt on the claims he makes in the "good chapters" (1-3). Buy this book only if you regularly accept extraordinary claims without a shred of evidence.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

Excellent work!

Revisado: 06-30-18

In short, I've read all of ehrmans books and this, along with lost christianities, might just be his best. If you're a religious history nerd like me you're going to find many things to love here. I think his chapter on the evangelism of Paul might be my favorite here. Though the epic chronology of the rise of Christian persecution and ultimately pagan persecution within about 80 years, is something worth remembering.

If you enjoy this subject matter this is wrll written and well researched. Excellent work as always Bart. Lets do lunch sometime!

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