Not of Obama, in this case, of whom Karl treats, below, but of Oprah. Oso Famoso of the Catholic blog, “You Are Cephas,” describes Oprah’s endorsed spiritual practice “Gnosticism rehashed for the American housewife.”
Oprah’s XM radio show is promoting a year long study into the New Age Cult Book “A Course in Miracles.”
Each day for 365 days the listeners will receive one lesson from the book. For example, Lesson #61 tells each person to repeat the affirmation “I am the light of the world.” Lesson #70 teaches the student to say and believe “My salvation comes from me.”
A Course in Miracles teaches its students to rethink everything they believe about God and life. The Course Workbook bluntly states: “This is a course in mind training” and is dedicated to “thought reversal.” And which “thoughts” does the course seek to reverse?For starters:
1) There is no sin.
2) A “slain Christ” has no meaning.”
3) Christ is in our minds.
4) The name of Jesus Christ is but a symbol…a symbol that is used to describe all the gods to which we pray.
5) God is in everything I see.
6) The Atonement teaches the lesson that there is no sin.
7) The era of the “single savior” is over.
8) It is foolish to cling to the “rugged old cross.â€ÂIt is important to note that these teachings aren’t really new. They were dealt with firmly by the Catholic Church thousands of years ago. It is also important to realize that this book, “A Course In Miracles”, was written by Helen Schucman in 1975 and she claims that she received the revelation from the book from an inner voice in 1965 named, “Jesus.”
I recall that inner voice, too, from about 15 years later, but I called it “acid.”
Oprah can believe any kind of ridiculous trash she wants, and she can peddle it, too, as far as I’m concerned, though I am among those who will object to her calling it a form of Christianity, but this is of a piece with other creeds that she has peddled that are compatible with most celebrities’ self-understanding. To sum that up: their success is due to their cosmic value, which is in turn a function of their uniquely graced insight.
This is why Sharon Stone is capable of attributing a deadly Chinese earthquake to the cosmos’ karmic dissatisfaction with China’s Tibet policy. It is how Al Gore can straightfacedly attribute a rash of hurricane activity to AGW. It is no different from the idiocy of pastors stating that New Orleans flooding is due to God’s unhappiness with homosexual coddling and loose mores in general. In short, it is to make a religion of infantilism.
This isn’t the only craptacular newageyness being peddled by Oprah:
Lundgold states that with each shift, the needed tools are given. Two years before the shift into Galactic Consciousness, Eckhart Tolle published, The Power of Now. With a comprehensible approach to spiritual wisdom, Tolle described a simple way to relieve stress and drama. Focus within, follow the breath, feel the body, achieve detached observation and inner peace. He drew many readers and a large audience for workshop presentations but worldwide interest would take another book, 11 more years and the endorsement of a major, trusted celebrity.
Tolle says the idea of A New Earth arose from the stillness as a new way of presenting his message. The title, from the Book of Revelations (John 21, verse 1: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth…â€Â), contains the promise of better times. The book explains that the next evolutionary leap is a shift in human consciousness itself. Releasing the grip of the ego mind to allow a higher understanding paves the way to Conscious Co-creation. Tolle’s book is a powerful tool to prepare for the shift into a new heaven and earth in 2012. The overwhelming response to Oprah’s endorsement shows that human consciousness is ready.
Most kids understand that X-Men is fantasy. Then there’s Oprah, the millenarian.
Rehashed socialist dogma packaged anew for (another) new progressive generation. I’m sure this time it will work out just fine.
Isn’t she completely in the bag for Baracky as well? Shocka.
Bob’s been hammering that douche Tolle a bit too…
Squeaky wheels, maybe. He’s a windbag and ‘A course in Miracles’ fails even if it delivers ‘miracles’. Full of stuff and nonsense they get a bad case of soul rot and call the mold Penicillin. Big money there, maybe, but so big it lets you know it’s all about business and not about saving souls.
She’s had a gullible side that has gotten worse with aging. It’s sad to see her descend into flat-out crankery. When the crankery-bots come for me, I hope I don’t feel it.
Sarah: just don’t get rich. I’d say that’s probably what’s rotting her. All of that giving alms in public is enough to twist one’s soul into a pretzel.
Oprah saw the breadth of her domain and she wept for there were no more worlds to conquer!
Didn’t she pimp that “Secret” crap a few years back.
Honestly, anyone who turns to Oprah for anything other than … no, for ANYTHING, deserves whatever misinformation and crap they get. I haven’t watch her/her show since I was in college. I am, at times, embarrassed to be the gender that eats her crap up.
Oprah, the View … the female (mental) equivalent of WWF.
When you know what’s best for others, you end up unleashing people like, Dr. Phil, on the unsuspecting masses. Truly dread mon, truly dread!
The sad part is that Dr. Phil could easily make a good living being an honest doctor.
“I am, at times, embarrassed to be the gender that eats her crap up.”
I hear you, it is the Oprahfication of the Nation which compels me to run towards the sanctuary of Masculinism; I so much prefer the good company of men who are men not the Oprahfried Metro things who can’t stop whinning about their imperfections.
“My salvation comes from me.â€Â
Speaking only for myself, if the above statement bore any relation to truth, the best I could ever hope for was being permitted to have some input as to the color of the chains in hell.
I think that the woman has indeed run out of ideas. Fame. You can keep it.
Wealth and fame only ruin those who were nothing inside before they achieved wealth and fame. It is not Oprah’s salvation, but her downfall, that “comes from [her].”
I’ve concluded that when you boil them all down, all of the Ten Commandments basically are different ways of God reminding Man, “You’re not the Supreme Being around here.” Which means all sins ultimately boil down to some form or other of self-worship. Consider the seven deadlies.
That’s why Oprah’s losing it. Don’t blame it on the fame or the money; all they did was make her downfall more visible.
Eckhart Tolle… This shit about 2012 is getting tiresome.
Hannity is always going on about him. Seems odd but I guess persons of all political persuasions are susceptible to feelygoodiness.
It is human nature to wish for spiritual superiority without the irksome need for responsibility to fellow humans.
The new age fallacy is no worse (or not actually “newer”)than the equally self-congratulatory fundamentalism. Both would rather have the false self be God.
What bdoes it say about Obrah and her minions when this is considered deep, deep thoughts:
“the mind is its own kind of dance floor…” Riiiight! P.T. Barnum is laughing his ass off. So am I. Dan Brown, on the other hand, is probably pleasuring himself over this.
I seem to recall years back Armstrong Williams, who has had a bout of troubled judgement himself, issued the utterly devastating description of Oprah and her traveling mercies road crew–Maya Angelou, ALice Walker and that ilk– as “conjure women.”
Oprah is stronger than you beacuse she hasn’t been oppressed by offspring.
Yet anothert example of promoting the idea that the individual is transcendently powerful and not responsible for their actions.
“And … I can kill you with my BRAIN!!”
well..if the FLDS can say they are mormons, why can’t Oprah say she’s a christian?
free speech an all that.
maybe you could get some confederacy of christian churches to repudiate her.
or maybe the Pope….like copyright infringement or sumpin.
;)
She can say whatever she wants to say, and we are free to mock it.
shunning! that would be good, wouldn’t it? just until she renounces, of course.
She can say whatever she wants to say, and we are free to mock it.
kk, so that means im free to mock your quaint primitive religion too?
Just like we are free to mock you and your polygamist incestuous pedophilic homophobic religion, nishit.
Of course nishi. That is how free speech works.
Set your phraser for shun.
And you can say you’re a muslim. But I’d advise against that in more muslim/less free speechy parts of the planet. If you insist, please provide videotape.
hahaha, yah…..but ima south park muslim.
either it is all ok to make fun of, or none of it is.
;)
Set your phraser for shun.
haha, zomg dan that was awesome!
kk, you are partly redeemed from bein pithed by gerson and yuval.
you might be interested, Manzi is comin out with a 2parter at NRO on the republican war on science.
My religion is far more primitive than you can imagine, nishi. In fact, it is the one basic and primordial religion of man. Buncha punks had to come and invent some kinda idol/self worship to replace The Way.
Can’t you just see my jaw? It’s so very slack. Ga-ga-ga-ga.
On the positive side, I haven’t needed massage therapy in AGES.
Fear her, for nishi is precisely the result of an “Oprah-fied” population.
Content, context? Nothing really matters except how things make nishi feel.
Isn’t this pretty much what the Episcopal Church has been peddling as “Christianity” for a couple of decades now? That, and the sacramental nature of turgid, blood-gorged crank up the ass?
Emmett Fox wrote something like this ages ago. Emmett Fox proposed the same exact things in a book called “The Sermon on the Mount” where he deconstructed Christs teachings into super new agey non-judgement terms. Bill Wilson, the first member of Alcoholics Anonymous relied heavily upon Emmett Fox’s writings.
I think it is kind of cool.
Don’t get all Pope Pious.
One of my roomates used to talk to me about this shit – she was really really new agey.
Yeah, my hair stylist is doing this Oprah thing and she tells me about it. It means a lot to her, and I really like her so I listen. Plus, she’s got all that goo and foil stuck in my hair so I really can’t go anywhere.
That, and the sacramental nature of turgid, blood-gorged crank up the ass?
I have never been more happy to not be an Episcopalian.
Hee hee maybee. I had a Seven Day Adventist start in with me AFTER she had started wet-setting my hair. I was really sad. The Legions of Angry Demons residing in me were really pissed when she busted out her bible and started reading it to me while I was trapped under the dryer.
Confession: I considered buying that Tome of Crankery “The Secret” and figuring out how to “attract” lotto winnings to me…
well..if the FLDS can say they are mormons, why can’t Oprah say she’s a christian?
free speech an all that.
She can say whatever she wants. I do find it hard, though, when I find myself trapped with some she-bot who actually listens to her crap. They ought to do a Bell Curve of Oprah watchers.
Lisa:
Though it sounds like my haircuts take a lot less time and effort than yours, I have made it my life’s goal to find a barber, beautician, whatever who will:
1.) Ask me how I want my hair cut (answer: “Number one on the sides, number three on top.”)
2.) Cut my hair.
3.) Shut the hell up.
Maybe it’s a man thing, but I hate having to manufacture conversation when I’m getting my hair cut!
“They ought to do a Bell Curve of Oprah watchers.”
Make two dots about three inches apart on a piece of paper. Using a straightedge, draw a line between them. Label the first dot ‘43.2’, label the second dot ‘43.25’.
There you go.
Ten Commandments basically are different ways of God reminding Man, “You’re not the Supreme Being around here.â€Â
Bill Bennett, on his show this morning, quoted from a 2004 Obama interview where Barry defined “sin” as (paraphrasing) “when I do things that conflict with my values.”
Maybe it’s a man thing, but I hate having to manufacture conversation when I’m getting my hair cut!
I have cut my own hair for several years now, and will continue to do so until I can find a barber fluent in hunting, fishing, college football and/or auto racing.
That is how I define sin, Salt Lick. Well, okay I define it as when I do things that are boring.
“I have never been more happy to not be an Episcopalian.”
Seconded. Heartily.
That is how I define sin, Salt Lick.
I knew you were a goddess, Lisa. Even Venus didn’t have no sugartits.
Oprah’s Gnosticism bears little resemblance to real Gnosticism.
Originally, Gnosticism did not deny God, but was made up of people who felt that they had moved beyond the church and it’s symbolism. It was originally an off shoot of the Christian church, IIRC. It was based more on “I am not all of God, but God is all of me”, than either “there is no God” or “I am God”.
Oprah’s “Gnosticism” is little more than another mouthful of feel-good New Age pap.
“I have cut my own hair for several years now, and will continue to do so until I can find a barber fluent in hunting, fishing, college football and/or auto racing.”
Or you could do like I did, and find a “stylist” with absolutely gorgeous fun bags and dresses them to her best advantage. I think she knows how they affect her tips (no pun intended).
I don’t have to talk, and a good thing it is, too. Even though I am probably older than her father, I am completely tongue tied from the minute I sit in her chair.
I hope I never get too old to look, and that my hair doesn’t fall out at least until she moves on…
Set your phraser for shun
I know it’s 4 days later, but that’s some funny shit right there Dan. May I borrow it sometime?