EoR Reviews The Power

From the blurb to The Power:

This is the handbook to the greatest power in the universe — The Power to have everything you want.

EoR doubts that there can be a clearer indication that this is simply about greed, reinforcing the Western pattern of constantly increasing consumption so beloved of marketers everywhere. According to Ms Byrne, everyone can have everything. And not in a communist, sharing, sense but in a totally selfish (and impossible) possessive manner.

From the author bio:

Rhonda Byrne's intention is: joy to billions.

Of course, that should read, 'Rhonda Byrne's intention is: billions to her'.

Byrne's book is the written equivalent of all those motivational speakers, urging you poor suffering fools to all be absolutely brilliant top achievers, and it's always so simple (as long as you pay the charlatans who push this stuff lots of money — there's a clue there about just who gets to benefit from such scams).

When you wake up each day, you should be filled with excitement because you know the day is going to be full of great things. You are meant to be laughing and full of joy.

It sounds rather tiresome, actually, though the constant joy and laughing probably comes from the thought of all those people buying your book because they actually think it works.

Apparently, 'You are a magnet':

You magnetize and receive the circumstances of wealth, health, relationships, your job, and every single event and experience in your life, based on the thoughts and feelings you're giving out. Give out positive thoughts and feelings about money, and you magnetize positive circumstances, people, and events that bring more money to you.

Ms Byrne isn't even pretending to be all newage and spiritual any more (even though the book is full of such waffle): it's simply about money. There's a whole chapter on 'The Power and Money'. You can all have more money. Because there's an unending supply of it. And you don't need to work hard, plan, or invest wisely, you can simply do nothing except think happy thoughts. And people actually believe this crap?

Ms Byrne keeps sprinkling reminders that it's all about loving thoughts, but her examples contradict her throughout: getting new shoes, increasing business profits, getting that one skirt you crave, a new car (or, as she writes at one point, 'Dollars want you').

One woman used props and her imagination to receive a horse. She had wanted a horse all her life, but she could not afford to buy one. She wanted a chestnut Morgan gelding and a Morgan would cost thousands and thousands of dollars. So she imagined seeing the exact horse she wanted each time she looked outside her kitchen window. She put a picture of a chestnut Morgan horse on the screen of her laptop computer. Whenever she had the opportunity, she doodled drawings of the horse. She began looking at horses for sale, even though she couldn't afford them. She took her children to a store and together they tried on riding boots. She looked at saddles. She bought the only things she could afford, a horse blanket, lead, and horse brushes, and she kept them on display so she could see them every day. Sometime later, the woman went to a horse expo in her town. A raffle was being held at the expo and the first prize was a chestnut Morgan gelding, the exact same horse she had been imagining! And of course she won the raffle and received her horse!

Of course. Just make sure you don't dream and desire and crave and wish for the wrong horse:

To lighten up about bad feelings, I have imagined bad feelings as wild horses. There's an angry horse, a resentful horse, blaming horse, sulky horse, cranky horse, grumpy horse, an irritable horse - you name it, there's a stable full of bad feeling horses. If I feel some disappointment over something that has happened, then I say to myself, "Why did you climb on the disappointment horse? Get off it now, because it's heading for more disappointment and you don't want to go where it's going."

In the new paradigm, greed and selfishness are the cardinal virtues:

There is a simple formula you can use for the law of attraction that will stand you in good stead with every person, situation, and circumstance. As far as the law of attraction is concerned, there is only one person in the world - you!

EoR pretty much skipped the rest of the book (though he did note that you must think happy thoughts when getting medical tests, otherwise the test results will be bad) since there's only so much relentless rambling positive thinking he can take at a time.

This book is just one more pointless addition to the groaning pile of self-help books that form a treadmill of failed dreams. Ms Byrne's book is the consumer dupe's indoctination manual par excellence. It's a fool's paradise without any goal (except increasing Ms Byrne's wealth), as the book itself demonstrates:



Ms Byrne does not mention how happy thoughts failed to work for millions of concentration camp prisoners, the thousands in the Twin Towers, or the millions in Pakistan's floods. If only they'd all paid $30 to Ms Byrne, just think how much better the world could be...

The book is sure to be a best seller.