Status
Available
Collection
Publication
Hay House Inc. (2004), 314 pages
Description
This book, which presents the teachings of the nonphysical entity Abraham, will help you learn how to manifest your desires so that you're living the joyous and fulfilling life you deserve. You'll come to understand how your relationships, health issues, finances, career concerns, and more are influenced by the Universal laws that govern your time-space-reality and you'll discover powerful processes that will help you go with the positive flow of life.--From publisher description.
User reviews
LibraryThing member kidrah
The problem with this book, like many others in this "The Secret" category is that it speaks to you like you're a child. It expects you to believe everything they say about the "law of attraction" as gospel without any real commentary about it. But, the book redeems itself with a cool
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22-point-scale of emotions and multiple meditation, visualization, and self-affirmation exercises that you can use based on which ones match your style - these exercises have already entered my subconscious. Show Less
LibraryThing member kyraspeaks
Esther Hicks writes for a "nonphysical intelligence" known as Abraham in this former New York Times Best Seller, Ask and It is Given. What I found most interesting in Ask were the deviations from Esther and Jerry (her husband) Hicks' 1989 book A New Beginning I, which predicted various "earth
As for the "biographical sketch" provided in Ask about Jerry and Esther's life pre-Abraham, it is incredibly vague. It tells us that Jerry was very successful before Abraham, but does not mention that Jerry Hicks was a Crown level distributor at Amway, who was giving seminars about positive thinking and motivation. Only instead of using the Abraham works, he was using those of Napoleon Hill. Dateline did a wonderful expose on Amway, revealing a major business within Amway that was not in selling various appliances/supplies, but in selling motivational courses and materials within the company. It is clear that Jerry was involved in this sort of motivational selling with Think and Grow Rich before his Abraham work. While the effect of Think and Grow Rich on Jerry's life is mentioned in Ask, the Amway link is never made, though it is touched on in various interviews with the Hickses. Of course, this seems to be irrelevant to most readers of the Abraham materials. To me, this was an important fact that made Jerry and Esther appear less like sincere messengers of positive thinking and more like pious frauds for Napoleon Hill.
The chapters in Ask offer an emotional guidance scale to let you know where you are and some 22 processes to help you reach a better feeling place to help you align with those things that you are wanting. The 22 processes include an interesting combination of cognitive therapy, visualization, and New Age woo. Though some of them seem very helpful, there does seem to be some undermining as the processes and rhetoric ask you to set aside critical thinking and replace it with emotional guidance. Also, for the entities that have claimed to not wish to alter our beliefs, these processes suggest otherwise, as they are designed to assist us in altering our beliefs. Various emotional appeals, combined with validation for whatever you want to believe in, make this book very appealing to anyone who wants approval or to believe that they can be, do, or have anything they want. This book operates under the claim that it will help you manifest your desires. But buyers beware, the authors take no responsibility for anything you are unable to manifest using their processes and there are no objective means for testing how well you are doing. And based on the logic presented within the book, even if you are unable to manifest something: All is well. I do not recommend this book to someone trying to manifest something, but rather to someone who wants to become a devotee of one of the most popular channels of our time. When you find yourself needing to listen to their CDs and watch their youtube videos more than anything else, that's when you know you've found a friend.
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changes" that were on the brink of occurring in 1989, including simultaneous volcanic eruptions that would cover the earth's air with ash. In Ask, these revelations of turbulence are not even touched upon. There are also various inconsistencies within Ask regarding Jerry and Esther's initial encounters with Abraham, including an altered-or cleverly tailored version-of Abraham's first words. As for the "biographical sketch" provided in Ask about Jerry and Esther's life pre-Abraham, it is incredibly vague. It tells us that Jerry was very successful before Abraham, but does not mention that Jerry Hicks was a Crown level distributor at Amway, who was giving seminars about positive thinking and motivation. Only instead of using the Abraham works, he was using those of Napoleon Hill. Dateline did a wonderful expose on Amway, revealing a major business within Amway that was not in selling various appliances/supplies, but in selling motivational courses and materials within the company. It is clear that Jerry was involved in this sort of motivational selling with Think and Grow Rich before his Abraham work. While the effect of Think and Grow Rich on Jerry's life is mentioned in Ask, the Amway link is never made, though it is touched on in various interviews with the Hickses. Of course, this seems to be irrelevant to most readers of the Abraham materials. To me, this was an important fact that made Jerry and Esther appear less like sincere messengers of positive thinking and more like pious frauds for Napoleon Hill.
The chapters in Ask offer an emotional guidance scale to let you know where you are and some 22 processes to help you reach a better feeling place to help you align with those things that you are wanting. The 22 processes include an interesting combination of cognitive therapy, visualization, and New Age woo. Though some of them seem very helpful, there does seem to be some undermining as the processes and rhetoric ask you to set aside critical thinking and replace it with emotional guidance. Also, for the entities that have claimed to not wish to alter our beliefs, these processes suggest otherwise, as they are designed to assist us in altering our beliefs. Various emotional appeals, combined with validation for whatever you want to believe in, make this book very appealing to anyone who wants approval or to believe that they can be, do, or have anything they want. This book operates under the claim that it will help you manifest your desires. But buyers beware, the authors take no responsibility for anything you are unable to manifest using their processes and there are no objective means for testing how well you are doing. And based on the logic presented within the book, even if you are unable to manifest something: All is well. I do not recommend this book to someone trying to manifest something, but rather to someone who wants to become a devotee of one of the most popular channels of our time. When you find yourself needing to listen to their CDs and watch their youtube videos more than anything else, that's when you know you've found a friend.
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LibraryThing member lovamabooks
You gotta read this. It has an excellent section on processes to elevate your mood. Don't get hung up on the metaphysical aspects of the book if that isn't your thing. Skip to the useful parts.
LibraryThing member mccin68
Teachs that your emotional state is what fuels the manifestation of your thoughts. your desire to have may be offset by your feelings of whether or not you deserve it. the emotional guidance scale is a wonderful tool for persons to begin to identify their emotional state. hicks gives some concrete
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steps in moving yourself up the emotional scale towards positive, joyful feelings. Show Less
LibraryThing member FahamaJua
Forget all the stuff and the movie about "the secret". If you really want to learn "the secret" in a detailed and comprehensive way, what it is and exactly how to apply it, then this is your book.
LibraryThing member INTPLibrarian
Like the concept, but this was a tad creepy. IMNSHO.
LibraryThing member kmstock
Well, this is an interesting book. It talks about how what you attract in your life is determined by the content of your thoughts, and how you can choose to attract certain things (money, jobs, relationships) if you focus your thoughts appropriately, as long as your vibration is right. Most of us
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concentrate our thoughts on the things that we don't want, which makes it less likely that we'll get the things we do want. I'm still testing the theory... Show Less
LibraryThing member van-vinos
Aboslutely life-changing (for me at least!) But it needs to be read numerous times, as each time you re-read it you obtain something more for it.
LibraryThing member mjscakes
Excellent book on the laws of the universe.
LibraryThing member PamelaFarley
This book is the first of several written by Esther Hicks and Abraham (The Teachings of Abraham) in which the Law of Attraction is explained. Most importantly, it reminds us who/what we are and why we are here on this earth. It clears up, for me at least, many of life's ambiguities, questions and
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fears concerning God, religion, death, purpose for living, karma, suffering, et cetera It helps one to connect all the dots. For anyone who is ready to hear it's message, this is an authentic life-changing book. Show Less
LibraryThing member tulstig
A great way to be reminded of the power of the 'Law of attraction' - with some useful tips on maintaining positivity.
LibraryThing member Lady_Lazarus
Very painful and irritating to read and thus I became not very responsive to the main message. The main problem was that the book promised too much: all the chapters begun with pages and pages on how this will improve your lifequality and how you will gain this and that and the feeling of love and
Ok, I admit, there was some wisdom behind the boring hype, but most of it seemed to be just common sense hidden behind lots of, well, hype, and dressed as some deeper spiritual knowledge. (It was a little while ago I read this book so I don't remember any examples that I could give here.)
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peace and whatnot. To be honest, yes, that's why I picked this book in the first place, but that is not helpful because, yes, that's why I'm reading this so please, get to the point. So I jumped almost directly to the 22 (or something) steps to change your attitude/ improve the quality of your life, but this section also had little to say and went on and on how great the method is and how it will change your life. Boring. Ok, I admit, there was some wisdom behind the boring hype, but most of it seemed to be just common sense hidden behind lots of, well, hype, and dressed as some deeper spiritual knowledge. (It was a little while ago I read this book so I don't remember any examples that I could give here.)
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LibraryThing member JennysBookBag.com
I saw somebody reading this on a plane and decided to look into it. I'm so glad that I did!
LibraryThing member MHanover10
This is a good book but I've read all this before in other books and already doing all this. If it the first time you read about Laws of Attraction then read this book.
LibraryThing member goosecap
There’s often a dispute about how money works in with the rest of life. If you’re into philosophy and psychology, and especially if you can kinda sell it and put it into meaningful words, you’re like, Never feel miserable about anything—ever! (Even if you’re dirt poor.) And if you’re a
…. Say you experience fear. (You might be a Six.) Sometimes you might be like an early 20th-century psychologist, trying to discern if the situation warrants that you should feel that way. “Some anxiety is rational, and some is not.” If you’re like me you might even ask God whether there’s something to be afraid of. But what I’ve found is that God’s advice is never going to be to paralyze yourself with fear, curl up into the fetal position, and withdraw from reality. Fear is never /really/ rational; it’s guck. Abraham says, “Notice how you feel.” Then, do something to feel better. Practical, right? The rationalist according to a certain definition would almost find it unsettling. “But I KNOW there’s something wrong…. Maybe if I change this, it’ll be Wrong….”
…. They do mention that it takes time to change your set-point in most instances. You have all the time you need. Life’s not a rush.
About the specific processes, I won’t go through each one, but I guess the basic point is to take time to consciously think of good things and make you feel good. Don’t take a PhD in misery: really go back to kindergarten and learn how to feel good.
Also, some of the points seem familiar from non-prosperity manuals, like meditation, but are conceived of differently to some extent in Abraham’s system, ie as a prelude to prosperity. That is, meditation as allowing, and so you can let it be good now and later, more than a more metaphysical (or religious, I guess) motivation.
It’s also probably a book to refer to again, at the very least. I mean, I mentioned I essentially wasted a whole reading once! “Ok, another one about money; whatever….”! But we grow in stages: now, I read, Remember to consciously visualize good things again; later, when I have more experience, the subtly different ways of doing that that they discern, might start to make more sense and come into focus more.
…. Two related things: Feeling powerful is better than feeling powerless, victimized. So try to look at the shining side of even the worst things, the petty tyrants who blossom into becoming the ensemble leads of my favorite war movie of all time, “The Triumph of Fear”. Really see them just needing to feel powerful instead of rejected, and smile.
And: people “should” I guess, since it’s their life, want to heal and not go around hating themselves and their world, right. I mean, I think that’s good advice. But the Universe is a ladder, and ladders have rungs. People are allowed—I mean, people are allowed to do whatever they want; in a movie, it’s like “Stop or we’ll shoot”, right: the person still has a choice—but people can take the ladder one rung at a time, people are allowed to take their time. If it takes them another forty years, well…. Does God ever run out of time? Does he ever say, I’m getting tired of waiting, Eternity starts in five minutes, missy, my infinite patience is Over!! You know. People ask for hell but they don’t want it; don’t tell them it’s in store for them. I mean, people waste big gulps of their life, their energy, or they try to improve and they fail or improve partially, with setbacks…. What’s the rush? Is eternity going to end? What’s the rush? Who says you have to go from a blubbering accusing victim to a miracle magnet in sixty seconds or less? Are you late for the last train to New York or something? Hell, f*ck New York. New Yorkers are rude. Spend time in New Jersey instead. Sure, we’re not Quite As Advanced—our watches run a little slower—but we get there. What’s the rush?
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business guy, and you’re in a famous movie, you’re like, Show me the money! The Abraham beings, as I understand them, connect the two. (Everything is connected.) How you feel matters—so feel good now, and then /that/ will make you prosperous. So you do have to master your emotions (although I think you have to go gingerly sometimes: if you always go back to the negative it’s because it’s not random; it’s your set-point…. You just have to change your set-point), but once you get good at playing the game of reality or whatever, you don’t always or even usually have to deal with “bad circumstances”, you know. …. Say you experience fear. (You might be a Six.) Sometimes you might be like an early 20th-century psychologist, trying to discern if the situation warrants that you should feel that way. “Some anxiety is rational, and some is not.” If you’re like me you might even ask God whether there’s something to be afraid of. But what I’ve found is that God’s advice is never going to be to paralyze yourself with fear, curl up into the fetal position, and withdraw from reality. Fear is never /really/ rational; it’s guck. Abraham says, “Notice how you feel.” Then, do something to feel better. Practical, right? The rationalist according to a certain definition would almost find it unsettling. “But I KNOW there’s something wrong…. Maybe if I change this, it’ll be Wrong….”
…. They do mention that it takes time to change your set-point in most instances. You have all the time you need. Life’s not a rush.
About the specific processes, I won’t go through each one, but I guess the basic point is to take time to consciously think of good things and make you feel good. Don’t take a PhD in misery: really go back to kindergarten and learn how to feel good.
Also, some of the points seem familiar from non-prosperity manuals, like meditation, but are conceived of differently to some extent in Abraham’s system, ie as a prelude to prosperity. That is, meditation as allowing, and so you can let it be good now and later, more than a more metaphysical (or religious, I guess) motivation.
It’s also probably a book to refer to again, at the very least. I mean, I mentioned I essentially wasted a whole reading once! “Ok, another one about money; whatever….”! But we grow in stages: now, I read, Remember to consciously visualize good things again; later, when I have more experience, the subtly different ways of doing that that they discern, might start to make more sense and come into focus more.
…. Two related things: Feeling powerful is better than feeling powerless, victimized. So try to look at the shining side of even the worst things, the petty tyrants who blossom into becoming the ensemble leads of my favorite war movie of all time, “The Triumph of Fear”. Really see them just needing to feel powerful instead of rejected, and smile.
And: people “should” I guess, since it’s their life, want to heal and not go around hating themselves and their world, right. I mean, I think that’s good advice. But the Universe is a ladder, and ladders have rungs. People are allowed—I mean, people are allowed to do whatever they want; in a movie, it’s like “Stop or we’ll shoot”, right: the person still has a choice—but people can take the ladder one rung at a time, people are allowed to take their time. If it takes them another forty years, well…. Does God ever run out of time? Does he ever say, I’m getting tired of waiting, Eternity starts in five minutes, missy, my infinite patience is Over!! You know. People ask for hell but they don’t want it; don’t tell them it’s in store for them. I mean, people waste big gulps of their life, their energy, or they try to improve and they fail or improve partially, with setbacks…. What’s the rush? Is eternity going to end? What’s the rush? Who says you have to go from a blubbering accusing victim to a miracle magnet in sixty seconds or less? Are you late for the last train to New York or something? Hell, f*ck New York. New Yorkers are rude. Spend time in New Jersey instead. Sure, we’re not Quite As Advanced—our watches run a little slower—but we get there. What’s the rush?
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Subjects
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2004
Physical description
9 inches
ISBN
1401904599 / 9781401904593
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