Megan liked a trivia question:
At what historic battle did the original incident occur that forever divided Houses Atreides and Harkonnen? see if you know the answer »

Megan liked a trivia question:
J. K. Rowling
Xenophilius Lovegood is the editor of what magazine?

Harry Potter Box Set see if you know the answer »

Megan liked a trivia question:
"I must go down to the sea again
To the lonely sea and the sky
And all I ask is a tall ship
And a star to steer her by..." see if you know the answer »

Megan read and liked Caris's review of What the Bleep Do We Know!?: Discovering the Endless Possibilities for Altering Your Everyday Reality:

"For those only interested in reading this book to find out exactly which swear word "bleep" refers to:

Yes, they tell you. The secret is out.

Bleep = fuck

Moving on, this book was crap. It was cheesy and ir...more For those only interested in reading this book to find out exactly which swear word "bleep" refers to:

Yes, they tell you. The secret is out.

Bleep = fuck

Moving on, this book was crap. It was cheesy and irresponsible. Of course, we make our own existences and I made mine, so it is my fault that this book sucks. Sorry about that.

Shortly after seeing the movie, I felt like I had missed something. I wasn't blown away. My life hadn't miraculously changed. My eyes weren't suddenly open to a world now more visible because of some spiritual clarity I had gleaned from the amateurish production. So you can imagine how excited I was when a customer at work started to talk to me about the movie, and, later, this book. You know when you get really excited about something and you want to talk about it, so you think that everyone else wants to as well? Yeah. That's where this guy was. So a few weeks of sidestepping his questions of whether or not I had watched Down the Rabbit Hole, the much anticipated sequel to What the Bleep, he supplied me with this book and the promise of others that would "blow [my:] mind."

I started it earnestly enough, willing to give it a chance. This was a book, after all, and I have a much better relationship with books than I do with movies. I enjoyed some parts of it. I think quantum physics is really cool. It's trippy and scientific. I like the implications of such theories, and I am willing to see the world as something other than a series of mechanical systems. But then we got to the self-help portion of the book, which, unfortunately, comprised the bulk of it.

I had braced myself for this after reading the dreaded works on the back cover and after I stumbled across a "customer care survey" stuck in the middle. It was okay. I'd read self-help books before and emerged unscathed. Seldom a better person, but not hurt, nonetheless. This hurt me though. It hurt me because impressionable people at weak points in their lives could potentially stumble upon this book looking for answers. I speak specifically of the recklessly spouted brilliance on page 203 which implicitly states that the "I am an alcoholic" part of the twelve step program "locks the person into that personality." Wow. Pretty bold statement. If you would simply own your addiction then leave it behind you, you'd be fine. But, instead, you focus on the fact that addiction plays a significant role in your life? Hmm.

I'm concerned that none of the qualified(?) writers of What the Bleep has ever suffered from addiction. Oh yes, they've suffered from these emotional addictions they go on and on about. But that seems slightly different to me. Of course, they liken it to the same thing because our bodies are predisposed to addiction due to naturally occurring receptors on our cells or whatever, but it's just not the same thing. New age philosophies are not infamous for helping people get past addiction, but the twelve step program is. Is it perfect? No, not by any means, but it's going to be more successful 99.99999% of the time than simply changing your universe.

Shortly after reading that bit, I started to wonder if these people should be writing this book at all. I looked around, but could find no real information on the authors. In the back, there was a big list (photos included) of the qualifications of the experts referenced in the text. There was one heavily referenced expert who popped out at me. This was because every piece of expert testimony was accompanied by a photo of said expert and this expert, named Ramtha, looked a hell of a lot like the beautician Elle befriends in Legally Blonde. So after a while, I flipped to the back to read about Ramtha.

I quickly discovered that Ramtha wasn't a woman. Ramtha is a 35,000 year old dead person being channeled by the woman in the picture. After this revelation, I walked into the bathroom and held the book over the toilet, trying to decide if I could come up with a reasonable excuse for not returning the customer's book to him. I couldn't, so I left the bathroom and continued reading. I couldn't focus, however, as all I could think about was Ramtha disappearing into the sewer system.

Unfortunately, my discovery of the true identity of Ramtha not only convinced me that this book was written by unqualified people, it was also based upon...how do I say this? Oh, yes. Complete bullshit.

I could go on like this all day, but I won't. I've already spent more time on this book than was warranted. The epilogue was stupid. I feel bad saying that, but it was. "Stupid" is the only word that succinctly describes that chapter. Sorry. And I'll admit, I skipped the making of the movie chapter uselessly tacked onto the end because you couldn't make me care about that if you tried really really hard.

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