You might also enjoy Seth (channeled by Jane Roberts) and Michael Teachings.

Ahem, the BS & inappropriative submissive social dynamics o-meter pinged to much with esther. (Didn’t watch most of it). But the first video was very insightful.

Jill Bolte Taylor just explained an experience that many try their whole lives to experience. I’m a Taoist, and I practice Taoist meditation. That was a very insightful video for me.

Hey guys,

I’ve trimmed out some drive-by anonymous trolling comments from this thread. I don’t want the quality of the discussion, on this or any other post, degraded by one-line jabs.

I enjoy these kinds of spiritual talks periodically, but for skeptics, I think you have to look at what they’re saying as being metaphorical.

You can induce any spiritual experience in the lab through overstimulating some regions and turning off other regions, which is what Jill Bolte Taylor’s experience is about, but that doesn’t mean these feelings aren’t great sometimes.

I really did not enjoy the second speech. I have a strong feeling that it is simply creating complexity around thought in order to create the pretence of an understanding. I do not deny that there may be people who would benefit from such things but I think that many humans would not.

There are a few talks I really like. One being Ben Dunlap’s TED talk and another being Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture.

I agree with Ken. Her description almost perfectly tallies other descriptions of what is sometimes called a mystical experience. Alan Watts has also connected this inability to feel connected to the world around us with our hostile attitude towards the world (the environment in particular). What made this truly interesting was that Taylor’s experiences comes from a totally different angle, and that she made an attempt at connecting this cosmic consciousness with neuroscience.

As for the second video, I simply do not get it. To me it sounds just like a six minute rant with as many inexplicable words and concepts as possible. I can agree with that it is powerful, but what makes it clarifying? I mean, what does it clarify for you?

Wow. Where do I begin. Hey, I’m all for personal development (I’m a marriage and family therapist), but if you value your blog and the credibility you might be developing (I found you through Stumbleupon), do yourself a favor and remove that second video FAST. Rockets of desire? Vibrational awareness? Motion toward my expansion and duality of me? That was six minutes of the emptiest gibberish I think I’ve ever witnessed. My B*llsh*t wire was tripped the second I realized that this man’s question edited out. I agree with your other visitors: how do you clarify anything when there is no true question?

All this “Law of Attraction” talk drives me nuts. It’s basically the same sh*t as with every single god = there is something powerful thing out there and if you fail it’s not really entirely your responsibility.
Or at least there is something out there that backs you up if you obey, just in case…
Why can’t people just accept that life is not fair and that you have to do your best to succeed and that even then you might fail?

Do people ever stop and think that the “Law of Attraction” is just one kind of perceiving the world in a way that encourages you to see opportunities that other more pessimistic people don’t because they just focus on the problems? This is the logical explanation why this world view is effective - you want something, you state your desire to some entity and then you watch out for opportunities to make things happen… and because this sometimes or maybe even somewhat regularly works that automatically means that theres something mysterious behind it?

I thought we’ve come past that childish habit of interpreting things in some esoterical way already.

I’ve been recommending Jill Bolte Taylor’s book “My Stroke of Insight” to everyone I know. It’s the best book I’ve read all year!
You can get the book for just $16.47 with free shipping from Amazon! Here is the Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0670020745/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210709205&sr=8-4

Rick,

I think the problem with Esther Hicks is her terminology and her absolute conviction that the laws of Abraham are absolute, and that they are as simple and irrevocable as the way she describes them.

Your intention governs your energy, emotions and your consciousness (and vice versa), which will bounce off of, pick up, repel, deter, assimilate or meld with all the other intention and energy out there. Everyone’s emotions and energy have an invisible effect on everyone else, and how they perceive things, in the biggest, and the smallest ways during every second of every day. Think about road rage for example - it’s like the domino effect..

So, it follows that your emotional state/intention/energy level will have a direct affect on the world you perceive around you, and the way you respond to those surroundings.

But, oversimplifying it as just a magical law of attraction that you can decide to believe in, which means that you can think happy thoughts and change your life into whatever you want - is pretty childish and premature. It’s the sort of thing that sounds nice and feels nice and sells lots of books and session tickets to lots of lost and impressionable people.

I don’t believe what she is saying is completely untrue, and i don’t think ‘the secret’ and the laws of attraction are completely false, I just think they have been oversimplified because:

A: The people involved and leading these movements have become so taken with all the spiritual and emotional implications , that they’ve opted out of any objective consideration or intellectual processing.

B: Such an easy to grasp, magical, free flowing, rewarding concept is universally appealing and makes their ethos very popular and accessible.

have had same experience as this women while on acid, mushrooms & ketamine. some people claim to have a ’spiritural’ experience taking those too. i don’t buy into that tho. its just an illusionary state you get into when outside stimuli from your senses aren’t being conveyed to your brain as normal.

The New York Times Sunday Newspaper on May 25 had a great two page article on Jill Bolte Taylor and her book, “MY STROKE OF INSIGHT”. Her book is a must read and this NY Times article - called “A Superhighway to bliss” is worth checking out too.

I read “My Stroke of Insight” in one sitting - I couldn’t put it down. I laughed. I cried. It was a fantastic book (I heard it’s a NYTimes Bestseller and I can see why!), but I also think it will be the start of a new, transformative Movement! No one wants to have a stroke as Jill Bolte Taylor did, but her experience can teach us all how to live better lives. Her TED.com speech was one of the most incredibly moving, stimulating, wonderful videos I’ve ever seen. Her Oprah Soul Series interviews were fascinating. They should make a movie of her life so everyone sees it. This is the Real Deal and gives me hope for humanity.

I, too, gained much more from the Jill Bolte Taylor lecture. It was very scientific and extremely genuine. I could not last through Esther Hicks. The commercialism of “Laws of Attraction” and “The Secret” has caused any validity of these schools of thought to be nothing more than extremely marketable psycho-babble. I’m sorry, Mr. Bollenbach. Ms. Hicks is just a bit too overwrought and New Age-y. I really do appreciate your efforts to share, though.

MY STROKE OF INSIGHT was ranked #5 in all books sold on Amazon today and #1 in Memoirs above even Barbara Walters’ memoir. Babs had been promoting her book for months in advance and Dr. Taylor’s book was self-published.

Then Oprah recommended it. There’s the Power of Now, and then there’s the Power of Oprah!!

“My Stroke of Insight” is out in Hardcover now for less than the old paperback edition. Amazon has it for 40% off.

Thank you very much for sharing Jill Bolte Taylor’s video.. it was incredibly interesting and moving.

Thank you for these, I can use them with my personal training clients.