Conversations with God

(18/06/09 Note: I've sometimes felt uncomfortable remembering the spiteful tone of this post, but for honesty's sake I've decided to leave it as it is. It would be great to be all-loving and compassionate — or would it? — but I'm not. So, ladies and gentemen, this is me, pissed off.)

A few years ago I bought Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh, read the first few chapters and didn't find it particularly inspiring, so, as I often do, I literally shelved it. Some weeks ago I decided to give it another go — it is often regarded as a modern spiritual classic after all — but this time in audio-book format. I listened to the whole book and also to books two and three. My verdict? An outrageous pile of crap.

If you're not familiar with it, the book is written, as it name implies, as a conversation between the author and God. That is one of the first problems I have with it: the guy really thinks he was taking dictation from God. That in itself would be enough to chuck the book in the bin, but audio-books demand so little effort on the part of the listener that I carried on anyway. It really isn't worth going into in much detail, but let me just present some of the most pathetic highlights of the book.

On page 44 of the first book God says that believing in him produces "unlimited potential". After some discussion the author mentions "the question of the feeble, the infirm, the handicapped, those who are limited", to which God retorts:

Do you think they are limited, as you put it, not of their choice? Do you imagine that a human soul encounters life challenges -- whatever they may be -- by accident? Is this your imagining?

ibid, page 45

You think that is outrageous? You haven't heard anything yet. (The author's words are in red.)

All illness is created first in the mind.

How can that be? What of conditions contracted from another? Colds -- or, for that matter, AIDS?

Nothing occurs in your life — nothing — which is not first a thought. Thoughts are like magnets, drawing effects to you. The thought may not always be obvious, and thus clearly causative, as in, "I'm going to contract a terrible disease." The thought may be (and usually is) far more subtle that that. ("I am not worthy to live.") ("My life is always a mess.") ("I am a loser.") ("God is going to punish me.") ("I am sick and tired of my life!") [The repetitive use of parentheses is in the original.]

ibid, page 188

So now you know. People suffering from AIDS were infected because they thought they weren't worthy to live. Can you stomach some more of this crap?

And if you've ever taken alcohol into your body, you have very little will to live.

I drink very moderately.

The body was not meant to intake alcohol. It impairs the mind.

[...]

But even some medicines contain alcohol!

I have no control over what you call medicine. I'll stay with my statement.

ibid, pages 191-192

Driking implies having very little will to live. Thinking that you're tired of life is the sort of thing that makes you get AIDS. I suppose beer must, therefore, cause AIDS.

Your life work is a statement of Who You Are. If it is not, then why are you doing it?

Do you imagine that you have to?

You don't have to do anything.

[...]

If "woman who works at job [sic] she hates in order to meet responsibilities as she sees them" is Who You Are, then love, love, love your job, for it totally supports your Self image, your Self concept.

[...]

No one does anything he doesnt't want to do.

ibid, page 186

OK, you tell that to the millions of families for whom scavenging their local rubbish dump constitutes their only means of subsistence. What planet does this moron come from? But it can always get worse:

Hitler did nothing wrong. Hitler simply did what he did. [...] The mistakes Hitler made did no harm or damage to those whose deaths he caused. Those souls were released from their earthly bondage, like butterflies emerging from a cocoon.

Conversation with God, Book Two, page 42

Hitler was created by you. He arose out of your Collective Consciousness. [...] The consciousness of separation, segregation, superiority — of "we" versus "they," of "us" and "them" — is what creates the Hitler Experience.

ibid, page 55

Not to put too fine a point on it, what a fucking prick.

Less outrageous highlights include the revelation that "the US Constitution was God inspired. The same balance of powers should be built in to the new world constitution" (ibid, somewhere between pages 204 and 208) and the unqualified endorsement of psychics and healers of any kind.

Why is this kind of crap even published? How does it become a bestseller? This idiot really makes me angry. If I don't mend my ways I'm going to bring some fatal disease upon myself, and then, in a bout of insanity, I'll go and choke him for suggesting that it's all been the consequence of my having negative thoughts, but that won't be wrong anyway, because I will only have liberated him from his earthly bondage.