Self-Help Review 2: Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling.

Self-Help Review:
Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling
2006
By Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

This book was, for the span of a few months, the biggest joke in the library to me. Every time I would see it I would hold it up and show it to people and laugh my ass off. The picture on the cover of the book seemed to represent everything that turned me off about the Self-Help genre: The "enlightened guru," the blue waves in the background, that fucking butterfly. After the laughter I would ask myself, "How seriously do people take this shit?"

Apparently, the answer to that is: VERY. This man is exceedingly wealthy, and even though he encourages the reader to forget about money and get back in touch with our creator, he also frequently mentions his home in Maui, how money has somehow always found it's way to him, how he purchased a brand new car for someone who works for him, and he actually encourages the reader at one point to buy a horse as a way of feeling good about life. Throughout the book he hammers away at the idea that we need to destroy ego (which he constantly says is an acronym for "edging God out"), yet his own ego is so enormous that he throws in the reader's face what a great guy he is on practically every other page. There are pages and pages of his good deeds, and I can safely say that half of the book is dedicated to what a great guy Dr. Wayne W. Dyer is.

In addition to the annoying "edging God out" acronym, he also says that feeling good is akin to feeling "God," and there are several occasions of him mentioning something being or feeling "good" and then right next to it having "God" in parenthesis, as if we didn't get the point already.

To feel good (God), we need to eliminate harmful things from our lives, such as violent movies and music. In one chapter he rails against advertisers as being a negative influence on our lives, yet he recommends several books which are conveniently available through his publisher. These books aren't just the ones mentioned in ads at the back of the book...they are actually in the text itself, along with web addresses. If you're seeking enlightenment, you don't need someone trying to sell you something in the middle of a spiritual moment. Imagine floating up towards the heavens and some asshole screaming "DRINK SPRITE!!!!" in your ears right before you reach the clouds, and that's the feeling you get with these little ads interspersed in the text.

If it sounds like I read this book simply to bash it, you're half right. I will admit that there were some good points in the book, and interesting outlooks to take on life. For example, I really liked the idea of viewing your life and everything that has happened in it as a plan that you and God came up with before your birth. It gets you out of the victim mind set and thinking that no matter how shitty things have been, there has been a reason for all of it and it has been a necessary step toward your development. He also has good quotes sprinkled throughout the book, my favorite being this one by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." He also has several techniques for monitoring your thoughts for "negative energy," but I have seen these ideas elsewhere, and without the fruitiness that Wayne feels the need to inject into them. Nonetheless, thinking about thinking is always a great thing, and a necessary skill for anyone trying to better themselves.

One of the funniest things in this book are his suggestions for affirmations. I have actually read the book "What To Say When You Talk To Yourself," by Shad Helmstetter, which deals exclusively with affirmations, and I know how they work and how they don't work. The main idea is, in order for an affirmation to have any kind of effect whatsoever, it has to both be in the present tense, and also NOT CONTAIN A NEGATIVE. You can't say "I will not feel anxiety in the future" because the future is a vague concept and the brain automatically discounts negatives. So what you're actually telling your brain is "I will feel anxiety..." The correct way to do an affirmation is "I feel calm and relaxed all the time" or something to that extent. In the present and positive. With that in mind, check out Wayne's groovy affirmation for sickness:

"I won't attract any further illness to my life. I'll never allow myself to feel old, feeble, or frail; and I refuse to allow Alzheimer's, cancer, or any other infirmity into my life. I don't vibrate to frequencies that are designed to keep me from being in-Spirit."

With what I know about affirmations, what Wayne is telling you to tell your brain is the following:

"I...attract...illness to my life. I...allow myself to feel old, feeble, or frail; I...allow Alzheimer's, cancer, or any other infirmity into my life. I...vibrate to frequencies that are designed to keep me from being in-Spirit."

Thanks for the cancer, Dr. Dickhead. Hope you can sell off some of your dolphins to pay my medical bills.

But wait, Wayne doesn't work that way. Even though he bought a new car for someone who works for him, he won't chip in the cash to buy a home for his fucking mentor, who had a crippling stroke and desperately needs a home. Read the Chapter 9 story about Ram Dass, who was apparently an incredible, inspirational man. Wayne pours gallon after gallon of praise on this man, making sure that each and every one of us understands his importance in the world, then proceeds to solicit money from the reader to buy Ram Dass a home in Maui! So let me get this straight...Dr. Wayne W. Dyer makes millions upon millions of dollars, owns a home in Maui, makes it a point to tell the reader that he has never had an issue with money and that it always just seems to fall into his hands, mentions celebrities handing him thousand dollar checks for no reason, yet he has the audacity to beg the reader for cash to buy a home for his hero? Listen Wayne. People are buying your books because they can't afford real psychiatric care. They don't have the thousands of dollars to dump into someone to sit there and listen to their problems and help them along, so they come to people like you, and hope that maybe you can give them some advice to take the pain out of their lives. You may hobnob with scores of celebs, but your readership is made up primarily of ordinary, middle class folks...you know, the kinds of people who can't just up and buy a fucking horse so they can feel good. You have a lot of nerve asking these people for cash to buy YOUR mentor a home. You're scum, Wayne.

However, he did clean up the burger and fries that some kid accidentally dropped on the floor at McDonalds, so he's a good example for his kids. No, I'm not making that up and yes, that is one of his examples of how great and enlightened he is.

That said, I did send in a purchase for his lovely CD set, "How To Be A No-Limit Person." I hear that this, "Your Erroneous Zones," and "Pulling Your Own Strings" are practical, good books with advice that will help you immensely to get over your own shit. A contradiction? Maybe, but fuck it.

I would like to end this with a quote from an author who stands directly opposite Dyer, and who's philosophy I both agree and disagree with. It's from "Anthem," by Ayn Rand, an author who has written some of the most hate-filled works I have ever laid eyes on. Sometimes she's way off the mark in her assumptions, but other times, she hits them dead-on. Here's the quote:

"And here, over the portals of my fort, I shall cut in the stone the word which is to be my beacon and my banner. The word which will not die, should we all perish in battle. The word which can never die on this earth, for it is the heart of it and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: EGO."

As much as he rails against it in his book, as much as he points to it as being the one thing that we need to destroy in order to reach true inspiration, deep in his own heart, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer screams; "I concur."