Maybe you got a link to a YouTube video featuring the earnest pimping of Prince Ea? It IS what it IS.
A daily MEME. Or horoscope. Or a weekly YouTube affirmation. It reminds me of six words from Weird Al Yankovic:
STOP FORWARDING THAT CRAP TO ME.
Even the supposed intellectuals at PBS have given over an hour to some dire Wayne who will give a cocksure and confident lecture on why you should buy his books to get the FULL story.
How do you like YOUR fanatic? Wide-eyed new age babbler? Bible-thumper? Somebody who quakes or rolls on the floor, or just knocks on your door with pamhplets?
Someone I know keeps telling me about Abraham Hicks. I thought, ok, I'm open minded. Who IS this fucking charlatan asshole?
Turns out that he doesn't really exist. You know, like God.
(Oh, let's be open that. You never know when you might step into a foxhole.)
It's actually ABRAHAM-HICKS.
It's more of a business name, like Merrill-Lynch, Jacoby & Meyers, Trump-Pence.
Mmmmm, MONEY! Take a look at the best-seller list and you'll of course find THE BIBLE, and "The Secret" (also available on DVD) and coming up VERY fast, THE KORAN (check for alternate spellings). Check out who is making the most money via telemarketing on TV and you'll find a whole bunch of evangelists. Most stick to a well-worn script, but there was also Gene Scott, who was with the Assemblies of God, but became a lot hipper than Jerry Falwell or Jimmy Swaggart, and by the 80's was broadcasting sermons 24 hours a day on his University Network and via cable TV. The "shock jock of televangelism" married what some insist was "an adult entertainer" who worked under the name Barbie Bridges. She took over from Gene when he died, and prefers to be called Pastor Melissa Scott. But I digress...
The Abraham-Hicks website has a store. They will invite you aboard a cruise if you have the money.
According to the website, "Abraham is a name. A symbol. A feeling. Evocative-yet simple-like we want our names to be."
Now you know.
And what exactly is the philosophy here? Is it that some Jew got nailed to a cross and is now watching every move (and bowel movement) you make...and especially likes it when you do something anti-Semitic?
Is it that some child molester who never wanted anyone to draw a picture of him is ok with others killing people in his name because they don't believe in him? Is it some inventor of magic underpants? Some other religulous huckster? Or a non-sectarian Barnum? How about just some corrupt nasty bastard who tells the followers, "Kill for the love of KILLING!" (Isn't it a shame nobody screens "Gunga Din" anymore? But you know, we can't have people denigrating a fine, fine religion that believes in killing.)
Well, the synopsis of the Abraham-Hicks teachings is right there on the opening page of their commercial website:
THERE's yer 10 Commandments, Batman. What would you prefer? Surely not BREAKABLE rules like the ones Moses supposedly brought down from a mountain. (Not the Catskills).
Proceed at your own risk, knowing "Abraham Hicks" isn't a person, and Abraham-Hicks is more of a business name, like Merrill-Lynch or Smith-BaBarney.
It's a money-making concern that recycles concepts that were tired and boring when Rumi, Confucius and Kahlil Gibran wafted them onto vellum via magical ink. Jim Jones. Jim Bakker. L. Ron Hubbard. Joel Osteen and his "Ministry." We all need stable businessmen to believe in. Religious leaders? No, businessmen, because they expect you to INVEST in what they say. In some cases, they expect your whole life savings.
What do these religious leaders ever give back? Well, Rev. Moon had a chain of fried fish fast food places.
The important thing, as Zig Ziglar or Tony Robbins would tell you, is to make sure to have a lot of product. Oh, and when you recycle your platitudes, follow the lead of Prince Ea, and keep it simple, stupid. Remember, stupid people might throw down a ten dollar bill thinking it's only a one.
And if you're stupid, you're good enough and smart enough to believe in a very nicely gift-wrapped empty box. And Golly, if you do, that Minister, that Ph.D "doctor," that Reverend, that "Prince" will LIKE YOU. You might even get a personal BLESSING.
And now a commercial message:
More people have listened to "Desiderata" by Les Crane than "Deteriorata" by the National Lampoon.
Understandable. People who choose heroin, alcohol or meth aren't going to sit around watching Marx Brothers movies or the Three Stooges. A few people have written books about laughter being the best medicine, but not everyone would rather "laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints." But let's get more serious than Billy Joel:
"Krishnamurti said I'll set you free. Write a check make it out to me."
That's a line from Warren Zevon. Some follow his lyrics, or Dylan's, but generally without the solemn slavishness of daily affirmation-quotes.
Self-help and religious feverishness is quite different from mere practical advice. Norman Vincent Peale is not Dale Carnegie. The caves of ISIS are not the halls of Harvard.
As Lennon said, "Whatever gets you through the night is all right." That was practical advice more than a religious doctrine. He also said "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." Which may be akin to people who constantly talk about God are pains in the ass.
It is nice when people share what works for them and think it will work for others. Just take the price tag off, first.
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