Neale Donald Walsch will show you the way, i.e. how to chase a chimera!
On the 26th of February 2008, when I opened my e-mail inbox I found a message from N. D. Walsch announcing his newest book with the sacrilegious and provocative title, “Happier than God”.
On the subject line it read: “My New Book Just Released. Buy Now with Free Gifts”.
I confess to you that the very title stirred up negative feelings in me.
“Oh, no!” I thought. “Not another Godmongering title by the same author!”
He had better recommend his book to someone who is suffering from a terminal disease,...
or to a mother who has just lost her child, or to the multitudes of children who die from hunger and malaria in Africa, or to a mutilated young person in Iraq… Would he dare tell them that they, too, could be happier than God?
Four days later, on the 1st of March, I received a second e-mail from N. D. Walsch, asking me a favor: “NOW I WANT TO ASK YOU MY ONCE-A-YEAR FAVOR.
Every year at book release time (I usually write one book every 12 months)
I ask all of you in the CwG community, if you think that you are going to want to add this book to your shelf, to buy it Now.
This helps us in bringing the book to national attention, because a whole bunch of sales in a short period of 24 hours tends to move the book up the bestseller lists of online bookstores and major newspapers, which, in turn, brings the new title to the consciousness of the average person.
I am so excited about this book! This is a TOOL BOX for all of those who have read Conversations with God. It takes the inspiring messages of CwG and renders them functional in our every day lives. (…)”
This time I simply I felt pity for him… The man was desperate to artificially make another bestseller of a book made out of recycled material!
Apparently, N.D. Walsch’s “Conversations with God” (1, 2, 3), the books that brought him a pile of money and made him famous worldwide, were not intelligible enough on their own! They needed another “TOOL” in order to be understood! In other words, God had not spoken so clearly in those “conversations” and it would take several more books by Neale in order to clarify his messages to humanity!
However, common sense tells us that “truth” which needs so many books to be clarified is no truth at all. Out of curiosity I visited Neale’s website to read some more. I found the same aggressive shrewd marketing, so unlike the practices of a genuine and humble spiritual Master:
“Let’s begin with words about the new book. It is called ‘Happier Than God’, and it is a Master’s Manual for Spiritual Awakening. It is the most detailed applications book I have written on the ‘Conversations with God’ material, and I’ve been waiting for years to do it. (...)
If it feels like this is a book you would like to read, here’s what I would love for you to do:
On FEBRUARY 27th – not a day before and not a day after – please go to www.Amazon.com and order your copy of ‘Happier Than God’. (…) So MARK YOUR CALENDAR and GIVE YOURSELF A REMINDER to order your copy of ‘Happier Than God’ from www.Amazon.com on FEBRUARY 27TH.”
By reading all this, I became angry and started looking deeper into the phenomenon called Neale Donald Walsch.
Should I trust my negative feelings about his messages and especially his mixed up motives? Or could this man be a modern giant prophet, so desperately needed by our bewildered and at the brink of its self-destruction world?
Could, peradventure, the thousands of people that adore him, claiming to be greatly benefited from his writings, have been deceived? The answer isn’t easy, and it certainly could not be given in terms of black or white. It is apparent, however, that no matter how Neale had started off his journey with God, he is now more of a businessman than a spiritual messenger.
Success, money and fame must have done their ugly job on his otherwise sympathetic and charismatic personality, and, in my opinion, he is now heading down the same greasy way Christmongering televangelists and all Godmongers before him have gone. A new cult is being forged by Neale, incorporating some great old truths and quite a few subtle lies in its teachings, exposing its members to hidden perils like every other religious cult.
As you might have already guessed, I did not jump into ordering the “Happier than God” book of Neale. Instead, I opened the Wikipedia and found out that ever since 1996 when his first “Conversations with God” had been released, the author had written several explanatory books on those and even versions for children and teenagers!
Here are some: “Meditations from Conversations With God, Book 2”, “Questions and Answers on Conversations With God”, “Conversations With God for Teens”, “The New Revelations: A Conversation with God”, “The Complete Conversations with God”, and so on.
I became almost allergic to those titles, all containing the word “God”! This man must be either obsessed with God or he is an irreverent, cool and shrewd businessman.
Similar titles verify this: “Friendship with God: An Uncommon Dialogue”, “Communion With God”, “What God Wants”, etc. (On the last book, which I had received from a friend as a gift, I have written a review, posted on GoArticles.com)
But this article is not about advertising Neale’s old and new (recycled) books, whereby he is supposedly conversing directly and casually with God. It is to express my skepticism on his modern “theology” and the new “God” he is propagating through his books, CDs, lectures, retreats, workshops, free E-courses, book signings, downloads, etc.
An entire god-industry of international influence has been set up and nothing is going to stop it, since Neale’s messages are caressing people’s ears. With a bit of luck and marketing talents, when you offer people what they want to hear, your success is guaranteed.
“Who does not want to be happier than God? Nobody!” reckoned Neale, and jumped into his new title. And because he obviously has run out of new “revelations” from “God”, he devised this “Tool Box” that “takes the inspiring messages of CwG and renders them functional…”
You see, as he admitted, to keep the “holy” business going and flourishing, he must produce one book every year, whether he has something new to tell or not. Money is sweet, even for God’s elect, and Mammon must be served at any spiritual cost.
Poor, ‘happier than God’, Neale! Apparently, he has never taken notice of Jesus’ words that no one can serve two masters. Nor did it occur to him that even God himself – who is not separate from us for “in Him we live and move and have our being” – might be affected and hence unhappy with what is going on in this planet, i.e. the wars, terrorism, crime, poverty, diseases, injustice, environmental catastrophe, and, last but not least, the exploitation of his name and distortion of truth by those, like Neale, who profess to be his special messengers.
I happen to believe that the Truth is simple and does not need so many books in order for it to be revealed. On the contrary, too many books on the same subject by the same author produce confusion and bewilderment to the reader, who is desperately trying through a forest of words to make some sense, encountering endless repetitions, contradictions, and evasive stuff.
Besides, if a devout man or woman had been entrusted by God himself with a unique message for mankind, he would be extremely humbled and would offer this message free of charge to all. As one freely receives one should promptly and freely give.
Moreover, nowadays through the Internet, God’s message could be spread instantaneously across the globe, and there is no excuse for Godmongering. But Neale Donald Walsch sells his holy messages at good prices. One could even join Neale’s Messenger Circle by paying $79.95/year…
I also read that his “Conversations with God” Foundation operates on a $1.3 million annual budget! Of course, I have no means to verify this, but I guess the number could be even higher.
By the way, could you imagine Moses making copies of the “Ten Commandments” and selling them to the Israelites? Or Jesus charging a fee for his teaching? Remember, here we don’t deal with books that someone wrote by putting down his own thoughts on a subject, or even by making public his ‘conversations’ with his inner Self, in which case it would be legitimate for the writer to make a profit by selling them.
But Neale boldly claims that he delivers a very special message for humanity, words received directly from the mouth of God, as the Almighty was answering his questions! What a cheek! Undoubtedly it takes either a full-scale self-deception or a full-scale demagoguery and aggressive Godmongering for anyone to publicly claim that God has spoken directly to him.
Of course, by listening to our inner Self in moments of inspiration and sense of oneness with the impersonal Divinity, each one of us could grasp great truths, and this is something that Neale himself does not deny in his writings. But, in my opinion, to claim that all one “hears” from within is God’s voice and the absolute Truth is arrogant, presumptuous, and very risky. Another possibility is that here we might have to do with automatic writing given to Neale by some entity that entered him. This is not unusual.
Remember, the “holy” book of one of the world’s biggest religions is likely to have been given by automatic writing, and the results have not always been beneficial for the world throughout history, if only for the simple reason that religious people have taken every word of it as God’s word, just as Christian fundamentalists do with their Bible, to their own detriment.
Please don’t take me wrong! I do not want to be mean with a best-selling author. However, all this “god” industry grieves my soul, as it is blatantly unspiritual. You may consider me as old fashioned, but I do not believe that even a holy purpose justifies all means. It might not be late for Neale to stop all this aggressive Godmongering business he has been entangled in. He should better stop bombarding people with e-mails urging them to buy his books and audiotapes, which, beside the edifying stuff, contain some confusing and often incomprehensible and contradictory messages on life’s most important issues.
Instead, he should do something more practical: he should collect and simplify in one book, a kind of manual, every thought that he considers important – indeed there are some spiritual gems in his writings – and offer it for free download through the Web. This way he, too, will find peace in his heart – peace that I am sure he has lost by trying to produce a book per year, whether he has something new to give or not. And he will find rest in his soul by abandoning the aggressive pursue of money, fame and power. This I wish him with all my heart.
Believe it or not, I have loving feelings and great admiration for talented Neale, although it might not have shown in this article. No doubt he is a special man. Yet, I confess to you that I found it impossible to go through and finish reading some of his disintegrated writings that I downloaded from the Internet.
You might say that I had no patience. But my spirit was vexed and this is a clear sign to me that something is wrong there. If a word comes directly from God it feels like balsam for one’s soul. I repeat, Truth is very simple and does not take loads of words to be explained.
As for where lasting but relative happiness is to be found, in my experience it is found in tuning with Creation’s sovereign spiritual and physical laws, in positive thinking, cultivation of virtues and primarily love, and in self-sufficiency. Regarding the answers to age-old questions concerning the mystery of life and death, if someone claims that he/she has them all, I keep clear of them.
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