How to Be Ultra Spiritual: 13 1/2 Steps to Spiritual Superiority by Jp Sears

Anything can be a competition- even spirituality. JP Sears in How to Be Ultra Spiritual tackles everything from meditation to existing in the “soon” in a tongue-in-cheek effort to educate the reader on all spiritual matters.

Not for thin-skinned readers, this book uses humor to examine just how ridiculous the whole spiritual thing can be when taken to extremes. Though JP never breaks character, it is clear from the sheer amount of New Age material covered in these pages that if he hasn’t been on the retreats, met the gurus, done the shamanistic plant-fueled trips, then he’s talked to someone who has.

I found the whole thing incredibly funny, but it may not appeal to all seekers.

Photo by Eternal Happiness on Pexels.com

From the introduction: “… if there’s one thing for certain about consciousness, it’s that more is always better. There’s a lot more consciousness in the new level of consciousness that we’re now conscious of, but you’re unconscious to all of this if you’re still wasting your life in the old consciousness that is only spirituality.” loc 17, ebook. And so, the only choice we’re left with, is to become “ultra” spiritual.

What does this mean? “It’s not about being better than other people. It’s about being more spiritual than other people, which is exactly what makes you better than other people.” loc 72. Haha, JP, do go on.

When practicing veganism, he offers a few tips: “Thou shalt not acknowledge the illusionary nature of death in the presence of a thou who casts his stone at animal skulls.” loc 1079. The only vegans I’ve ever met are so not like that- and that’s what makes it so funny.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch on Pexels.com

I’ve thought about taking a guru when I read a couple of Ram Dass’ books: “In the best circumstances your guru should be dead. … Aside from your guru always being with you like a caring stalker, the other advantage of assigning guru status to someone who’s dead is that it’s much easier for you to idealize his idealized self when he’s not alive. The tragedy of a guru still being alive is that they have their faults too.” loc 1250-1260 ebook.

It may be that I’ve never met my guru or it may be that everyone is meant to find their own way- it seems to me that we’re all just people doing the best we can. Not to pass judgement on anyone who has a guru or wants to find a guru, I’m certainly not a guru.

My favorite part of this book is when JP takes on Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment with his ultra spiritual “power of soon”: “Conscious people never have hopes and dreams that are based on exactly what’s happening in this present moment of now in their life. Why? Because now isn’t a place- it’s an illusion of time that doesn’t exist. … The enlightened ones know that the only place where their hopes and dreams can live is in the present moment of their future.” loc 1578, ebook. Brilliant.

Recommended for folks who have followed a bunch of different spiritual trends and are ready for a hearty laugh about it all. Some further reading: Be Here Now, Awakening to Zero Point: The Collective Initiation, and Psychosomatic Wellness: Guided Meditations, Affirmations & Music to Heal Your Bodymind.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sounds True Publishing for a free digital copy of this book. And thanks for reading!

It Works: The Famous Little Red Book That Makes Your Dreams Come True! by RHJ

It Works by RHJ is a short book, pamphlet really, on the Law of Attraction. I was fortunate enough to pick up the deluxe version that not only had the text of the original work, but also a PDF of the way it appeared in its first printing.

A short chapter was also included that discussed the nearly-anonymous author.

I’ve read a lot of New Age/New Thought material, but I focused on this one because a certain loved one of mine is struggling. I won’t mention him by name because he says that I talk about him too much in my reviews, but suffice to say, I see him every day. Over a year and a half ago, he was laid off from a job that he enjoyed, had worked at for more than a decade, and he hasn’t found anything else yet to occupy his time. Part of the trouble, I think, is that he doesn’t know what he wants in a new occupation. It Works addresses that directly.

The mechanics of it are simple. Make a list of what you want, think about it every day, don’t tell anybody that you’re doing it. The assumption is that there is a force beyond our comprehension that responds to our thoughts and directs our lives based on what we choose to turn our thoughts towards.

The Abraham Hicks materials cover this in depth, but It Works was published in 1926, long before Abraham and The Secret burst into popular consciousness. This was, in fact, one of the first published books of its kind and even influenced the writings of that titan of new age thought, Napolean Hill.

To get what you want is no more mysterious or uncertain than the radio waves all around you. Tune in correctly and you get a perfect result…” pg 14.

“(Write down exactly what you want and the date you want it.) This may seem very foolish at first, but you can never realize your desires if you do not know positively and in detail what you want and when you want it. If you cannot decide this, you are not in earnest. You must be definite, and when you are, results will be surprising and almost unbelievable.” pg 20.

So, let’s cut to the chase. Does it really work?

The jury is still out. I made my list. 🙂 I guess we’ll see.

Recommended for fans of Abraham Hicks, Napoleon Hill and Pam Grout.

Thanks for reading!

Don’t Let Anything Dull Your Sparkle: How to Break Free of Negativity and Drama by Doreen Virtue

This book wasn’t for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sparkling.

But, what dulls my sparkle is considering all of the ways in which the world raises my histamine levels, which seems to be Doreen Virtue’s thesis for this book: “…the next day as I was walking along Post Street in Union Square, I heard the inner message that is the basis of this book. … “The reason why you and so many people are experiencing life drama is because you’re addicted to histamine.” loc 81, ebook.

She goes on to list various ways that one may lower this including: major dietary changes, laundry detergent, cleaning supplies, certain types of exercise, therapy, dry cleaning chemicals, what types of plastic bottles to drink from, what types of television programs to expose yourself to, what types of make up to wear and much, much more.

I hope that the readers who are looking for this type of information find Don’t Let Anything Dull Your Sparkle because it is one of the most complete types of books of this kind that I’ve ever read.

The thing is, I could make myself crazy if I tried to control all of that stuff.

I’ve discovered, through my own life, that if I do the inner work of feeling better then external circumstances sort of fall into place on their own without me dancing around trying to make it so.

Don’t get me wrong- I am all for self care. Regular massages, aromatherapy, professional therapy, organic foods, support groups, whatever you need to make yourself feel better, do it.

I just don’t need to adjust those things to sparkle. I feel innately sparkly. I am a veritable disco ball of sparkles.

Beyond the histamine issue, it is clear that Dr. Doreen Virtue had another career in psychotherapy. If you’ve experienced drama of any kind, trouble finding that special someone or encountered difficult personalities, she will help you get past that in this book.

There again, my significant other and friends are all quite normal and low drama- sparkling, if you will.

But, if you’ve had relationship troubles, this could be the book that you’re looking for. So, seriously, don’t let me deter you if you feel you need to read it.

“Remember, it’s not about how many friends you have; it’s the quality of the friendships that matter. Even one good friendship, built upon mutual respect and other healthy qualities, will help you sparkle throughout the day.” loc 2034, ebook.

Meditation and yoga, two of my favorite things, are highlighted in this book as ways to improve your life. I couldn’t agree more!

In this passage, Doreen is talking about dealing with potential drama in your family or with in-laws: “…any way you slice it, the situation will bring up stress hormones in your brain and body, and part of being responsible is taking care of yourself. So, go do yoga as soon as you can. Play gentle music, meditate, eat a low-histamine diet, and avoid chemicals.” loc 1961, ebook.

The trouble is: brownies are not low-histamine. That’s a deal breaker for me.

I recommend this book if you’re sick and fed up with the way life is going and you want to try something drastic to turn it all around. Otherwise, I’d have to suggest borrowing this one from the library.

I’ve heard that high library usage lowers histamine levels and makes you sparkle too. Kidding.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hay House publishing for a free digital copy of this book. And, thank you for reading!

The Age of Cosmic Consciousness: Discover Your True Identity & Accelerate Your Evolution by Transform Publishing

Time for the hippie librarian to get a little New Age-y!

The Age of Cosmic Consciousness is a bunch of different metaphysical concepts strung together sort of like Ram Dass’ Be Here Now but written on regular paper instead of- I don’t know what that stuff is- let’s say brown paper bags.

The first thing to know about this book is that it is written in a flow of consciousness style. I found it very difficult to get into, but then hypnotic once I got reading, and thus it became difficult to put dow

. I found it similar to Kelly Howell’s Secret of the Universal Mind Meditation in that one idea leads to the next idea in a very natural and linear fashion.

A lot of the concepts in here have been covered by The Secret and various other authors. There’s a good bit about the Law of Attraction, but there’s so much more than that.

What I loved about this book can be summed up in this quote: “Do not overly focus on the inaccessible gurus and unapproachable enlightened people. Recognize and accept that a higher consciousness can be attained by anyone who proactively pursues its realization.” pg 136 I truly believe that enlightenment is for everyone and possible for everyone. This book really puts that idea forward.

That being said, I don’t know that I was prepared for the “other beings of light consciousness” mentioned in this book or the section that purports to have information directly from them but not “channeled”. Or the other section about aliens tampering with human DNA in the dawn of time. My inner self doesn’t necessarily “resonate” with those ideas yet, but some readers out there may feel it and understand it.

In conclusion, The Age of Cosmic Consciousness is worth the read for anyone interested in improving themselves and the world through inner transformation. Remember to keep an open heart and mind because some of the ideas presented are fairly “evolved”. Some similar books are: Be Here Now and Gateway to the Heavens: How Simple Shapes Mould Reality and the Fabric of Your Being.

I received a free copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads program. Thanks for reading!

The Mourning After by Edward Fahey

A New Age romance that takes place in the modern era. This is a story about reincarnation, missed chances, and the eternalness of love.

The Mourning After is very dark- so much so that at first I wasn’t sure that I was going to make it through the book. I eventually did, but I was depressed the rest of the day after I finished it. Reader, you have been warned. This book reminded me of Wuthering Heights in that the main characters just can’t seem to get their act together, romantically, but with some metaphysical twists like reincarnation thrown into the plot.

Take this bit, when Denis is about to have a psychotic break/break through to remembering his past lives: “Waters; I…” I looked up. The world was filled with his eyes. So dark, so piercing; and yet so tender. He was only trying to help. “You’re right, Buddy, I’m sorry. It’s just, my brain’s fried and I can’t do this tonight. I should, and I’d like to, but I can’t. I’m so awfully tired.” “Which is exactly when a spirit can break through.” pg 66 The scene builds from there. It’s very intense but true to how, at least how I’ve experienced, those types of things go in real life.

I also liked this part- where the main character is practicing channeled writing: “I began writing bits and pieces of a fictional story around Emma and Squire… Then something else kicked in that seemed joyful and sure of itself. I wrote faster and faster, scribbling down notes, piling them up in boxes, binders, and pocket scraps… Ideas and images kept popping out of nowhere; I had to get them down before they vanished for another hundred years. Or maybe forever.” pg 100

Very accurate and lovely. That is definitely one of Fahey’s strengths- a descriptive narrative. One last part that I thought was beautiful: “I still remember things M told me when we were small… Like the time she said, “Adults don’t know some things kids know. They don’t remember, I guess. They don’t listen inside each other anymore. Maybe they’ve just forgotten how; they’re just too busy doing big people stuff; I don’t know.” pg 115

Childhood is like that, yes?

If you enjoyed The Mourning After, I’d suggest reading Angels on Overtime by Ann Crawford. It is also a romance with metaphysical/New Age overtones, but its overall feel is a lot more playful than this read. I received a free copy of this book through the GoodReads First Reads program. Thanks for reading!

The Call of Spiritual Emergency: From Personal Crisis To Personal Transformation by Emma Bragdon

Though a bit dated (written in 1990), Emma Bragdon presents information about “spiritual emergencies,” what they are and how to help your loved ones or yourself through it.

To begin, what is a “spiritual emergency”? : “Spiritual emergence is a natural process of human development in which an individual goes beyond normal personal feelings and desires-ego- into the transpersonal, increasing relatedness to Higher Power, or God. … When spiritual emergence is punctuated by profound emotions, visions, psychosomatic illness, and compelling desires to behave in unusual ways, including suicidal thoughts, the spiritual emergence becomes a crisis, a spiritual emergency.” pg 1.

This process can be absolutely terrifying if the person has no idea what is going on and is surrounded by professionals who are also clueless.

I think that the main problem with integrating such experiences is that modern society neither supports or recognizes them as valid: “People in our culture are afraid of speaking openly about spiritual experiences, because psychic phenomena… have been considered symptomatic of psychosis. Most psychiatrists, psychologists, and even clergy have believed that most spiritual experiences are indicative of either retarded development or emotional disease.” pg 12.

The clergy part of that passage is particularly interesting to me. These are the so-called experts on the spiritual realm, yet, when something breaks through into reality, they’ve got nothing.

And humanity is the poorer for it.

Bragdon then relates numerous instances of men and women from all over the world who have gone through this process and reminds us: “In all the major religions of the world can be found examples of people … who have been through intense and sometimes physically and emotionally debilitating periods of spiritual experiences and ultimately attained transpersonal levels of consciousness.” pgs 81.

It makes one wonder, if Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, or pick-your-prophet had been born in the modern era, would his/her vision just been medicated into oblivion?

Bragdon points out that the problem is in the attitudes of the religious and medical establishments- the places that should be the most educated and accepting of these sorts of troubles: “The administrators of (religious) institutions are inconsistent in their view of spiritual experience as part of spiritual growth. The conventional religious establishment is similar to the conventional medical establishment, which is so ambivalent about the reality of spiritual experiences that it doubts their validity altogether.” pg 101.

When did we completely separate the health of the body from that of the soul? After all, one won’t work without the other.

Then, she goes on to talk about all of the different ways that these sorts of experiences emerge from drug use, sex, stress, and just life.

It is so pervasive that it seems that it must be a part of the human experience, but it is hard to study and come to grips with in scientific terms because the phenomena can’t be forced or replicated.

Despite these difficulties to categorize and treat it, Bragdon suggests that being present for the person going through it is enough: “What these people do want is acknowledgement, recognition that they aren’t crazy, and the companionship of others who know what they have experienced is real.” pg 113

So, even though this book was written 26 years ago, I don’t think that we’ve really made that much progress in that time- at least not in the arena of holistic medicine or transpersonal psychology.

Some further reading: Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart, Dreambody: The Body’s Role In Revealing the Self, or The Power of Myth.

Thanks for reading!

Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor’s Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back by Rajiv Parti

Rajiv Parti was living a materialistic dream with the house, car, and beautiful wife to prove it. But, the many things in his life didn’t bring him comfort when he developed prostate cancer and a bunch of unfortunate side effects from the surgery to remove it.

Addicted to pain pills and disconnected from the people around him, Dr. Parti underwent emergency surgery and experienced something so incredible, that when he woke up, he completely changed his life, developed a new form of holistic health treatment, and gave up many of the possessions that were weighing him down.

This is the memoir about that experience and Dr. Parti shares it in the hopes that it will change the reader’s life or at least bring comfort to those who are struggling in their current life experience.

Like many of the other memoirs I’ve read by medical professionals, Dr. Parti talks about the completely scientific view he had of the soul, which is to say, if you couldn’t see it and measure it, then it doesn’t exist.

Also, working on the technological edge of medical breakthroughs in the treatment of various diseases, had given him an invincible feeling.

This experience blew that attitude away: “Feeling like a master of the universe is easy in the world of modern medicine. … Maybe it’s a sense of cheating death for others that gives us cardiac surgical teams the vague feeling that we can overcome our own death. Of course that isn’t true. … Reality popped that myth for me.” pg 10

In his near death experience, Dr. Parti not only encountered his father, but also a huge crowd of his ancestors.

They shared messages of forgiveness and love: “Love is the most important thing there is, my grandfather communicated to me. I am glad to let you know that simple truth while you can still make change in your earthly life.” pg 44

But his time on the other side wasn’t all light and love, Dr. Parti also had the (fairly rare) experience of seeing hell and the suffering souls within it.

This is entirely my opinion, but I think that the detached manner in which Dr. Parti was living his life brought forth a major wake-up call from the spirit world. He saw hell first and then heaven and, in a way, that could be a metaphor for his life experience.

I don’t believe in “hell” myself other than the nightmare that people can create in their own minds and lives, but, I didn’t experience it like Dr. Parti did. This memoir does not focus on the hell portion of the narrative, but, with the rarity of that experience, it could have. That, in itself, says something.

When Dr. Parti “comes back”, he knows that he wants to start a new life and a new focus, but he doesn’t know how.

The information for developing a new type of medicine comes to him slowly during meditation: “What is (the new mode of healing) anyway?” “…It is how nonpharmacological treatments in combination with drugs can heal things like depression and addiction and other diseases. It’s about searching one’s own soul to fight back against the hollowness that pharmaceuticals alone or alcohol and illegal drugs create or don’t really fill.”pg 91.

He eventually develops meditations and lifestyle changes as well as a manifesto for treatment.

To me, the most fascinating part of this memoir was the communication between himself and the spirit world once he was back.

For readers who are unfamiliar with near death experiences, Dr. Parti provides a broad background with some of the major historical figures who went through it.

Like Jung: “(Carl) Jung’s NDE led to a split with Sigmund Freud, who believed that spiritual experiences were fantasies. Jung, however, considered spirituality an important part of our well-being saying that life has purpose beyond material goals and that our main task, the path we should all be on, is the one that leads to our own connection with the universe.” pg 124

Ultimately uplifting and empowering, Dying to Wake Up is another excellent entry into the literature about near death experiences.

Recommended for anyone who questions why we are here or what comes after. Some further reading: Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart, Dying to Be Me: My Journey from Cancer, to Near Death, to True Healing, or Wisdom of Near-Death Experiences

Thanks for reading!

The Space Within: Finding Your Way Back Home by Michael Neill

No matter how many books I read on meditation, I always seem to learn something new when I pick another one up.

The Space Within is one of the more excellent books that I’ve discovered- not pushing any particular way of being, just quietly encouraging the reader to go within and embrace what’s there.

On separating our consciousness from the universal energy that surrounds it, Neill compares the mind to a book and I’m sure most Goodreads users, like me, could easily connect with the metaphor:“Think of ‘quiet’ not as an absence of thought but as the space inside which the noise of your thinking arises. What makes this tricky, at least to begin with, is that at first glimpse the noise is more interesting than the quiet …look at the white background of this page. Chances are you can still see the words, and even read them, but without noticing it, at some point you will once again become absorbed in the words and stop seeing the white of the page.” loc 192, ebook.

Why bother to meditate? : “There is a space within you where you are already perfect, whole, and complete. It is a space of pure Consciousness- the space inside which all thoughts come and go. When you rest in the feeling of this space, the warmth of it heals your mind and body. When you operate from the infinite creative potential of this space, you produce high levels of performance and creative flow.” loc 207

And more, promises Neill. I’ve meditated for many years and I’ve experienced some extraordinary things. It wasn’t always easy and it didn’t happen all at once, but I can say, from personal experience, that this particular claim is absolutely true.

Photo by Samuel Theo Manat Silitonga on Pexels.com

Thoughts are incredibly powerful things. I think we forget just how life changing your personal perspective can be: “… we live in a world of unrecognized thought. Thought is the architect of both hope and despair, the source of every color in the emotional rainbow. … But unrecognized thought demands our attention and fills our consciousness. And when we get caught up in thought, we lose our way.” loc 324, ebook.

And also: “We live in a world of thought, but we think we live in a world of external experience. The mind is not a camera, it’s a projector. We can’t tell the difference between an imagined experience ‘in here’ and what’s going on ‘out there’- and that confusion creates a lot of confusion.” loc 375, ebook.

You create your own reality- but it’s easy to forget that and blame other people for your circumstances.

When I read this next passage, I thought of How The Secret Changed My Life and the incredible importance that people placed on feeling good.

Neill points out that it isn’t anything to get wound up about: “There’s no such thing as a solution to a feeling. Because we don’t recognize this fact, we spend huge chunks of our time and energy trying to ‘solve’ our feelings by changing them to ‘better’ ones or eliminating them altogether. … When it’s okay to feel good when you feel good and bad when you feel bad, recognizing that as thoughts change, the feelings change with them, there’s no need to prefer one feeling over another, let alone attempt to fix it. And when you really see that for yourself, you being to experience more of the deeper feelings that make life worth living.” loc 457, ebook.

This is a great place to start if you’re just learning about meditation/mindfulness but it’s also appropriate for more experienced practitioners- if you breathe or think, you could probably learn something from this book. Some suggestions for further reading: Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom, Meditations for Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, or Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hay House Publishing for a digital copy of this book! And, thank you for reading.

How The Secret Changed My Life: Real People. Real Stories. by Rhonda Byrne

How the Secret Changed My Life adds nothing new to the Secret franchise, but it’s still fun to read if you enjoy hearing success stories about people who utilized the Law of Attraction.

The criticisms of it have been voiced elsewhere and more eloquently: that it is predominantly focused on material things and that it stresses being happy at any cost.

That being said, I liked the stories.

I liked hearing about how people hit rock bottom and then changed their lives for the better. I really liked hearing that you can do or have or be anything that you want. Who wouldn’t?

Here’s Rhonda in the introduction: “I want you to know how easily you can change your life, and it’s not by running around trying to force it into the shape you want. You change your life in the only way you can ever change it: change your mind, and then your life will change.” loc 47, ebook.

All true change comes from within, I do believe that. Until I typed this out, I didn’t realize just how many times she used the word “change” in those two sentences. Counting back I see… five times? That’s a lot of change, people.

I feel like this book warns the reader away from negative emotions, but they serve a purpose too. It gives you a starting point- if you know what you don’t want, then you know what you do.

I’m not suggesting that you wallow in negative emotion, but feeling it, acknowledging it, then moving on isn’t as bad as this book makes it out to be.

In this passage, Rhonda is suggesting the use of “Secret Shifters” to control your mood: “The Secret Shifters… are things you can focus on whenever you find yourself feeling angry, frustrated, or any other negative emotion, in order to change those negative feelings in an instant. They might be beautiful memories, future events, funny moments, nature, a person you love, or your favorite music.” loc 409, ebook.

I say: feel whatever you’re feeling and trust that your emotions will eventually rise again like a cork in water. Helping yourself along with “Secret Shifters” or gratitude lists or whatever is fine, but for goodness sake, don’t force it. “What you resist, persists.”

I really agreed with this next passage: “Most of us have the wrong idea about happiness. We believe that if we get everything we want, and if life continually goes our way, we will be happy. And from that belief, we create all the excuses in the world for why we can’t be happy right now. … It’s those very excuses that are preventing you from being happy now.” loc 457, ebook.

I used to do that- looking forward to circumstances or events and ignoring where I was. The journey really is the point, so why not be happy now?

Recommended for readers who are looking for a quick, uplifting read about the Law of Attraction or for those who are interested in getting started but don’t necessarily believe or know how it works. The latter, in particular, may find a great deal of worth in these pages.

As I said, I liked it, but I’d also recommend reading Abraham Hick’s books too: to learn the value of negative emotion, not be afraid of feeling your full emotions, and to learn not to practice affirmations unless you’re feeling “in the zone” so to speak.

Additional reading: The Vortex: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships and Co-creating at Its Best: A Conversation Between Master Teachers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books publishing for a free copy of this book! And, thank you for reading.

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Tag: New Age

How to Be Ultra Spiritual: 13 1/2 Steps to Spiritual Superiority by Jp Sears

It Works: The Famous Little Red Book That Makes Your Dreams Come True! by RHJ

Don’t Let Anything Dull Your Sparkle: How to Break Free of Negativity and Drama by Doreen Virtue

The Age of Cosmic Consciousness: Discover Your True Identity & Accelerate Your Evolution by Transform Publishing

The Mourning After by Edward Fahey

The Call of Spiritual Emergency: From Personal Crisis To Personal Transformation by Emma Bragdon

Dying to Wake Up: A Doctor’s Voyage into the Afterlife and the Wisdom He Brought Back by Rajiv Parti

The Space Within: Finding Your Way Back Home by Michael Neill

How The Secret Changed My Life: Real People. Real Stories. by Rhonda Byrne

Menu

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Share this Blog:

Menu