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Thoughts simmering on the back burner
May. 14th, 2018 01:57 pm I've been spending time with outside stuff this past week, in preparation for this week's continuous rain, which started sometime in the wee hours of the morning. I've also finished ten dishcloths, and am now making a few up to see if they sell at the farmers' market. I love LibriVox, and have downloaded all seven WWA audiobooks, plus Leland's The Mystic Will. That should do me at least part of the week ... and yes, we really are getting nonstop rain here today, which the goats just hate (cats in disguise, I tell people).
Full reviews will wait for a read-through, but here are some impressions from listening to the audiobooks while knitting:
Leland either needed a more ruthless and sharp penned editor, or there is another message in between the lines. He's more all-over-the-place than birdshot at 50 feet. He claims multiple times to not be an occultist, but casually refers to both theurgy and thamaturgy in the same breath as scientific research. Some of his examples don't seem to illustrate his points, and I don't think it is just a matter of not aging well. I'm going to leave Leland's book on the back burner and see if anything gels up or not.
Now, for our main focus, Atkinson. So far, I have listened to Memory, The Power of Concentration, and now Thought Vibrations, or The Law of Attraction. Yeah, that Law of Attraction ... and anyone tempted to think of Atkinson as some kind of guru will be disabused of such a notion with this book. The arrogance and sense of entitlement inherent in the philosophy take center stage with this work. That being said, there are still a few bits of wheat that may be winnowed out of the chaff upon read-through.
The Power of Concentration (written under the name Theron Q. Dumont) if very much straddling the line between useful (like Memory) and absurd (like Thought Vibrations). It could also be subtitled "containing many exercises pertaining to the development of the Will." It picks up threads from memory work, and adds in a good bit on the will, and right now is just behind Memory in my read-through list.
I mentioned Your Mind and How to Use It last time, and while the first section of the book is outdated science of physiology, the rest of it may be most useful as an overview of the various parts of mental training he advocates. I thought it bogged down* in the section on feelings and emotions, but I decided to slog through and found the sections on reason and will to be worth the previous trudge. I'll wait for a comparison to Mind Power, but right now I'd say it's a good introduction to the mental science (as it was called at the time) side of the New Thought I've encountered so far.
(* - When I say a books gets bogged down, keep in mind that I read the unabridged version of Melville's Moby Dick even though it wasn't assigned because I thought the abridgement we read jumped around too much.)
Full reviews will wait for a read-through, but here are some impressions from listening to the audiobooks while knitting:
Leland either needed a more ruthless and sharp penned editor, or there is another message in between the lines. He's more all-over-the-place than birdshot at 50 feet. He claims multiple times to not be an occultist, but casually refers to both theurgy and thamaturgy in the same breath as scientific research. Some of his examples don't seem to illustrate his points, and I don't think it is just a matter of not aging well. I'm going to leave Leland's book on the back burner and see if anything gels up or not.
Now, for our main focus, Atkinson. So far, I have listened to Memory, The Power of Concentration, and now Thought Vibrations, or The Law of Attraction. Yeah, that Law of Attraction ... and anyone tempted to think of Atkinson as some kind of guru will be disabused of such a notion with this book. The arrogance and sense of entitlement inherent in the philosophy take center stage with this work. That being said, there are still a few bits of wheat that may be winnowed out of the chaff upon read-through.
The Power of Concentration (written under the name Theron Q. Dumont) if very much straddling the line between useful (like Memory) and absurd (like Thought Vibrations). It could also be subtitled "containing many exercises pertaining to the development of the Will." It picks up threads from memory work, and adds in a good bit on the will, and right now is just behind Memory in my read-through list.
I mentioned Your Mind and How to Use It last time, and while the first section of the book is outdated science of physiology, the rest of it may be most useful as an overview of the various parts of mental training he advocates. I thought it bogged down* in the section on feelings and emotions, but I decided to slog through and found the sections on reason and will to be worth the previous trudge. I'll wait for a comparison to Mind Power, but right now I'd say it's a good introduction to the mental science (as it was called at the time) side of the New Thought I've encountered so far.
(* - When I say a books gets bogged down, keep in mind that I read the unabridged version of Melville's Moby Dick even though it wasn't assigned because I thought the abridgement we read jumped around too much.)