Do You Believe in Magic? Comments on a Psychology Today Article

About a year and a half ago, a friend of mine brought this Psychology Today article (Do You Believe in Magic? : Eckhart Tolle, the Dalai Lama, and the Future of Psychotherapy) to my attention and I posted a couple of comments. I'm not sure why--maybe PT reposted the article--but new comments began showing up in my email in the last week or so, and I was moved again to respond to some of the responses posted by the author of the original article, a psychiatrist, Dr. Stephen A. Diamond. I thought you might enjoy reading the exchange:

Your Comments on Tolle

Submitted by Todd Wright on March 16, 2010 - 10:01am.

Dear Dr. Diamond,
Spoken like a true Aristotelian.

But perhaps you should read Tolle's books before you comment on them. And if you could refrain from ad hominem attacks on people (even gurus) that would be lovely.

Also, the colorful language you use to subtly slur ideas you don't agree with is probably counter-productive, if your goal is an honest discussion. Probably better to present their ideas objectively and then tell us where you disagree.

Interesting stuff about Jung and the Dalai Lama though. Thanks!

Todd

Reply to Todd

Submitted by Dr. Stephen A. Diamond, Ph.D. on March 16, 2010 - 10:34am.

You are welcome for those things you found interesting. But tell me/us: What is your take on this topic?

Daily Tolle #4

"The deeper interconnectedness of all things and events implies that the mental labels of 'good' and 'bad' are ultimately illusory. They always imply a limited perspective and so are true only relatively and temporarily. This is illustrated in the story of a wise man who won an expensive car in a lottery. His family and friends were very happy for him and came to celebrate. 'Isn't it great!' they said. 'You are so lucky.' The man smiled and said, 'Maybe.' For a few weeks he enjoyed driving the car. Then one day a drunken driver smashed into his new car at an intersection and he ended up in the hospital, with multiple injuries. His family and friends came to see him and said, 'That was really unfortunate.' Again the man smiled and said, 'Maybe.' While he was still in the hospital, one night there was a landslide and his house fell into the sea. Again his friends came the next day and said, 'Weren't you lucky to have been here in hospital.' Again he said, 'Maybe.'"

A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle, pp. 196-7.

You might also like: The Power of Now - The Entire Book

Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 6

Start at the beginning: Read Some Emerson - Spiritual Laws, Part 1

No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter, and he shall be never the wiser, - the secrets he would not utter to a chemist for an estate. God screens us evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream.

Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride. "Earth fills her lap with splendors" not her own. The vale of Tempe, Tivoli, and Rome are earth and water, rocks and sky. There are as good earth and water in a thousand places, yet how unaffecting!

People are not the better for the sun and moon, the horizon and the trees; as it is not observed that the keepers of Roman galleries, or the valets of painters, have any elevation of thought, or that librarians are wiser men than others. There are graces in the demeanour of a polished and noble person, which are lost upon the eye of a churl. These are like the stars whose light has not yet reached us.