In the introduction to this amazing book, author David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D., makes the accurate assessment that “This book makes a huge promise, perhaps the biggest promise that has ever been made to you: it can provide you the means by which you may detect if you're being misled. (You never need to read a book or buy into any major teaching again without testing it first - it's too dangerous and costly.)”
Imagine being able to accurately assess a book’s content value, a teacher’s ability, a sales person’s integrity, the spiritual level of a guru, the skill level of a Tai Chi master, the safety of a product, a criminal’s innocence or guilt. This is exactly what Hawkins proposes - all through the use of the simple, self-taught methodology of applied kinesiology.
When Hawkins discovered kinesiology, he was an incredibly successful psychiatrist who had experienced a spiritual transformation and the miraculous healing of a fatal illness at age 38. After his spiritual transformation, during which he essentially became “one” with what he calls The Presence, he was able to brilliantly diagnose and psychically uplift and help heal thousands of patients. But he was dismayed by how small his efforts were when faced with the tide of human suffering, which, he recognized, was solely the result of mankind’s identity with the ego and resultant distancing from the God self.
When he discovered kinesiology, which is the use of muscle testing to determine whether a substance (or an idea, another person, a teaching etc.) makes the body weak or strong, he was instantly amazed by its potential. The body doesn’t lie. It knows what it knows. It doesn’t have opinions or worries or judgments that might interfere with pure knowing. By using the body to calibrate levels of truth, Hawkins hit on a reliable tool that people could use to self-test anything in – or out of – the world. Insights could be gained through kinesiology that were ordinarily out of reach for people unless they had developed the spiritual capacity for high levels of intuition…. Not something the western world is noted for.
By muscle-testing, Hawkins developed a point calibration system ranging from 1 to 1000 that indicates the level of consciousness being produced by whatever is being tested. He calibrated human emotions ranging from humiliation, which calibrates at 20 on the scale, to fear at 100, courage at 200, acceptance at 350, love at 500 and enlightenment from 700-1000. He also, over the course of 20 years and millions of calibrations, tested various thought systems, philosophies, religions, books, individuals – messiahs, teachers, military geniuses, etc. throughout history.
According to Hawkins, for the most part humanity is stuck well below the level of love and has only recently risen to an average level of close to 200. Even the greatest geniuses, such as Einstein and Newton, topped out at 499. Below love, he maintains, we are stuck using force as our only means of survival and creation. True power starts at level 500 with love. Only at that place do we become aligned with the universe and flow with the Power of God’s love rather than against it.
“Man thinks he lives by virtue of the forces he can control, but in fact, he's governed by power from unrevealed sources, power over which he has no control,” write Hawkins. “Because power is effortless, it goes unseen and unsuspected. Force is experienced through the senses; power can be recognized only through inner awareness.”
By using kinesiology, Hawkins maintains that people at last can teach themselves how to differentiate between lower states of consciousness and attractor patterns of force, and those of higher consciousness and attractor patterns of the power of the godhead, the universe, oneness and love. Fascinating and empowering, Power vs. Force is a lucid, compelling, and ultimately compassionate book filled with insight and practical knowledge. A must for anyone longing to develop discernment along the spiritual path.
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PAVEL'S PICK
DVD Review
Shining Soul: Helen Keller’s Spiritual Life and Legacy
by Pavel Mikoloski
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
- Helen Keller
One day back in high school I picked up a dusty copy of My Religion, (now entitled Light in My Darkness), the spiritual autobiography of Helen Keller (1880-1968). I had seen the The Miracle Worker, a stage play about this amazing American icon, and wanted to know what the spiritual life of a deaf, blind woman at the turn of the century would be like – especially one who contributed and achieved so much in life despite what some would consider severe handicaps. Time magazine, in fact had named her among the one-hundred most influential people of the twentieth century.
I was immediately struck by the profundity of her words and her perceptions. Her book testified to her deep and abiding gratitude to Emanuel Swedenborg, whose spiritual theology inspired and informed her character and her life. Says Keller, “Swedenborg’s writings are the voice in my silence. When I remember these truths, I am strong again, and full of joy. I am no longer deaf and blind. His writings have brought down to me Truths from Heaven that have given my spirit a thousand wings.”
Emanuel Swedenborg ( 1688-1772) was quite an interesting character to begin with. After reading Keller, I was curious to find out more and delved into several books about his theology. Swedish philosopher, theologian, chemist, anatomist, and mystic; fluent in eleven languages, Swedenborg devoted the first half of his life to scientific investigations. After a profound spiritual experience of Jesus, he turned his full attention to theology and started to explore realms accessible to his new visionary capability. Both in dreams and while fully awake, Swedenborg’s visionary capacity allowed him to travel to inner realms – uncharted territories. Upon returning, he would describe in detail his experiences and his meetings with other beings. Swedenborg was convinced that he had been designated by God as a spiritual emissary to explore higher planes and to report his findings to humankind.
There is another fine documentary by the same team entitled Splendors of the Spirit: Swedenborg’s Quest for Insight. His spiritual writing influenced Emerson, Goethe, Henry James Sr., Dostoevsky, and William Blake, among others. His writings encompass thirty volumes of over 50 works. The longest volume contains some 754 pages and the shortest 293 pages. Many of his multi-volume works are devoted to a new method of Biblical interpretation, which he called Correspondence.
Swedenborg asserts that he expounds the internal sense of both the Old and New Testaments. His book, Heaven and Hell, has probably attracted more attention than any other of his works. His detailed accounts of the afterlife make it more of a page-turner than any of the others. Reading his works, needless to say, can be daunting, although the Swedenborg Foundation’s current project of a completely new translations of his works — the New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg— do make them more accessible.
The Foundation is wise to have commissioned Emmy award-winner Penny Price to produce and direct a documentary that explores the last frontier of Helen Keller’s life – her spirituality. Just as Keller stimulated me twenty years ago to want to know more about Swedenborg, she will probably peak your curiosity as well. I think he is every bit as fascinating as some of our more modern well-known mystical icons, such as Helena Blavatsky, Edgar Cayce, Robert Monroe, and JZ Knight.
Shining Soul: Helen Keller’s Spiritual Life and Legacy tells the story of how Keller encountered Swedenborg’s works, how she reacted to them, what they meant to her, and how they contributed to determining her mission to live a useful life dedicated to improving the lives of other people suffering from society’s fears and prejudices against the severely disabled. The one-hour documentary is comprised of archival footage, stills, historical re-enactments, and contemporary expert interviews with renowned writer and human-empowerment teacher Jean Houston; the first blind man to climb Mt. Everest, Erik Weihenmeyer; the first deaf Miss America, Heather Whitestone-McCallum; Helen Keller’s great grand niece Keller Johnson-Thompson; as well as a passel of scholars and Swedenborgian ministers.
To truly understand Keller, one must understand the spiritual underpinnings of her life; which is precisely what Shining Soul attempts to uncover. It includes mention of an out-of-body experience Keller had whereby she experienced oneness with all things and a direct experience of God. Keller proved an inspiration to almost everyone who met or learned about her— from the most severely disabled and socially deprived, to luminaries who befriended her, such as Mark Twain, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Martha Graham, American presidents and foreign heads of state. It was by her example that she demonstrated what was possible. She had little use for limitations of any kind.
If you really want to challenge your own couch potato attitudes, this video will prove to be quite an inspiration. Keller bit into the marrow of life with such savoring passion, that it is easy to feel a bit like a schlump in comparison. Her courage, her inner beauty, her deep spiritual disposition, her emotional depth, and her staggering intellectual accomplishments, will leave you in awe. This new documentary explores a major source of her inner strength and will leave you wanting to know more about the spiritual genius whose work inspired her.
57 minutes, Available through the Swedenborg Foundation, swedenborg.com
