Wayne Dyer Exposed - A Critical Perspective on him
Posted: September 22nd, 2008, 9:26 am
http://wayne-dyer.inspiresyou.com/33/t-795.html
A Critical Perspective on Wayne Dyer
Murdoch2555
17-08-2005 20:23:51
Let us consider that Mr. Dyer is a very spiritual and enlightened individual. An oracle of "source energy" that has codified his effusive wisdom into a series of books that retail somewhere in the vacinity of 25-30 dollars.
Wayne Dyer has certainly reached many people with his message of self actualization (Maslow) and reaching Source (Cost Plus World Market Lamp). My first question regarding Mr. Dyer is his lack of fecundity in regards to his work; what exactly is the river bed of Dyer's original thought? To me, it seems greatly lacking. True, the Daila Lama tends to repackage traditional Buddhist wisdom in his texts and has found a very popular market around the world. Yet it appears to me that Wayne sells himself as the worlds foremost thinker on "Self Development".
When one listens to Wayne speak, one is astounded by his use of quotation. From Emmerson to Einstein, Wayne tends to prologue all of his mystic wisdom with the ideas of other people. This would be okay if it were just used as a stepping stone, intended to develope on and expand an idea or principle...this does not seem to happen very much, and when it does they tend to exist as logical extensions of "rational" knowledge applicable to his spiritual dimensions of work. His most recent work, "The Power of Intention", the concept that one can manifest their desires through meditation that focuses on what they can have instead of negative thoughts in regard to what they lack, can be found through-out constant religious and spiritual texts through out time. Granted, Dyer does not hide this fact, and one finds it slightly frustrating, in the fact that not only does he rob ideas, he has no problem with advertising it.
Understandably, Dyer repackages many of these ideas in the same respect Teenage Christian Mission Leaders repackage christian themes in an MTV style, making it more palpable for teenagers. A balding man in a Cosby sweater on PBS is a slightly easier sell than an Eastern mystic in robes.
Another concern of mine is Dyer's use of stories both personal and universal that simply appear to be works of fiction. In particular his lenghty stories that appear on his PBS specials for the single purpose of getting some shots of women in the audience crying. One involves a young student who is very poor developing a special relationship with a teacher that helps him progress. Another involves a retarded child whose baseball fantasy is manifested through the care of other players. THe first story is surely false, as it orignated as a story in Chicken Soup for the Soul and found later popularity as an e-mail forward. The second one I have seen as an e-mail forward, though it's origin I do not know for certain.
Another concern regards his very purpose. Wayne has no problem letting the world know he is fabulously rich, even revealing he is in the top 1% income bracket in a letter to politicians on his website, which seems primary focused on his repulsion for having to pay alot of taxes.
If Wayne has access to secrets of spritual success and wisdom, why does he have siminars? What I mean by this is, why doesn't he write down everything he knows that can help people into a book, and send it to his editor?
One you've had access to the 10 secrets for success and inner peace, why on earth would you need the power of intention to manifest what you want? You now have success and inner peace if you used his last book, why is there always more wisdom to be sold for 30 dollars?
And as mentioned before, why, if Dyer truely wants to help the world, does he not simply scribe all the wisdom he can imagine into a book and pay airplanes to airdrop them into poor neighborhoods, instead of making fun of the garbage that poor people have on their lawns (Creating your life with thought, The Inner Wisdom Library).
Instead, to suppliment his wisdom, many people must pay thousands of dollars to see Wayne in person at a variety of new age spiritual events. It is not always this expensive ofcourse, but as anyone here who has been to a Dyer event knows, it is very expensive to listen to him speak.
Why is this?
Wayne is amazingly rich...why does he still feel the need to charge this money for his appearances?
Many might suggest that his PBS work is very altruistic, but infact, he is paid enourmously for those shows, and it is a wonderful advertisement for his books and all materials contained in his Enchillada packages.
On a personal note, I cannot help but noticed that Wayne appears to me to be an incredibly ego-centric man...I cannot exactly back this up with evidence, but it's simply a very strong feeling I get. To me, it's perfectly okay to be egocentric, it's just difficult to acccept this in somene who claims to have nearly transcended all of his ego ways.
Remember that Wayne also contradicts himself constantly. In the Power of Intention (I believe) he talks about a coworker who is sick with a cold, and how disgusting his snot is. 20 minutes later he tells us that we must find beauty in everything we see, even a homeless person urinating on the street (This was preempted by a story regarding the work of Victor Frankle the founder of Logotherapy, and him finding beauty in the head of a fish, which was given to him in his soup by his Nazi captors during the holocaust). Why can't he find snot beautiful?
This is simply one example I found particularly amusing.
I am not a very spiritual person, but I think it's good if people can find wisdom in Wayne Dyer.
However, it's not his wisdom.
I don't understand why he is more concerned with being rich than with making sure his message gets out to everyone.
His attitude towards the poor is to me disturbing, in the notion that poor people are slaves to their "intention" and that anyone can escape their socio-economic positions with what basically is wishful thinking. While this may be true in many cases, to dismiss the political and economic factors is to me, callous and un-"source" like, so to say.
He writes diatribes against paying taxes, but I've not seen his work urging politicians to do more to help homeless people, or, if he truely believes his work is what they need, why don't we see him going out and making sure that all disadvantaged people have his books, tapes, cds, dvds, yes, he even sells a pack of playing cards.
Finally, a woman posted a message on here that I will summarize as saying, "I am jobless, without a husband, am very shy and need money, I have been trying to manifest what i want with the power of intention, but it is not working".
This is very sad to me, I believe Dyer's "Intention" philosophy is very dangerous, as it gives hope to the hopeless in a very disingenious way. If this woman wants to change her life, she has to get out into the world and try to create a better life through action. Believing that her "thoughts" and "meditations" will manifest her life simply is a lie. If this were true, not only would everyone have Waynes book and be manifesting everything they want in their life, the economy of the world would have failed over night.
I am not one to disregard positive thinking or even "manifesting meditations" as a positive act; I do agree that our mental attitude effects us an aweful lot, but only as it relates to our actions from it. This woman was horribly frustrated because her attempts at manifesting were not working, and it makes me sad to think all of the people out there that have been duped into believing this.
The real way to manifest, is to become a self-help guru and make millions writing books of based on the works of others, and charging thousands for personal appearances.
Many of you will simply say this is "resistance" as Wayne is fond of saying to anyone who disagrees with him.
Just a critical point of view
Murdoch
A Critical Perspective on Wayne Dyer
Murdoch2555
17-08-2005 20:23:51
Let us consider that Mr. Dyer is a very spiritual and enlightened individual. An oracle of "source energy" that has codified his effusive wisdom into a series of books that retail somewhere in the vacinity of 25-30 dollars.
Wayne Dyer has certainly reached many people with his message of self actualization (Maslow) and reaching Source (Cost Plus World Market Lamp). My first question regarding Mr. Dyer is his lack of fecundity in regards to his work; what exactly is the river bed of Dyer's original thought? To me, it seems greatly lacking. True, the Daila Lama tends to repackage traditional Buddhist wisdom in his texts and has found a very popular market around the world. Yet it appears to me that Wayne sells himself as the worlds foremost thinker on "Self Development".
When one listens to Wayne speak, one is astounded by his use of quotation. From Emmerson to Einstein, Wayne tends to prologue all of his mystic wisdom with the ideas of other people. This would be okay if it were just used as a stepping stone, intended to develope on and expand an idea or principle...this does not seem to happen very much, and when it does they tend to exist as logical extensions of "rational" knowledge applicable to his spiritual dimensions of work. His most recent work, "The Power of Intention", the concept that one can manifest their desires through meditation that focuses on what they can have instead of negative thoughts in regard to what they lack, can be found through-out constant religious and spiritual texts through out time. Granted, Dyer does not hide this fact, and one finds it slightly frustrating, in the fact that not only does he rob ideas, he has no problem with advertising it.
Understandably, Dyer repackages many of these ideas in the same respect Teenage Christian Mission Leaders repackage christian themes in an MTV style, making it more palpable for teenagers. A balding man in a Cosby sweater on PBS is a slightly easier sell than an Eastern mystic in robes.
Another concern of mine is Dyer's use of stories both personal and universal that simply appear to be works of fiction. In particular his lenghty stories that appear on his PBS specials for the single purpose of getting some shots of women in the audience crying. One involves a young student who is very poor developing a special relationship with a teacher that helps him progress. Another involves a retarded child whose baseball fantasy is manifested through the care of other players. THe first story is surely false, as it orignated as a story in Chicken Soup for the Soul and found later popularity as an e-mail forward. The second one I have seen as an e-mail forward, though it's origin I do not know for certain.
Another concern regards his very purpose. Wayne has no problem letting the world know he is fabulously rich, even revealing he is in the top 1% income bracket in a letter to politicians on his website, which seems primary focused on his repulsion for having to pay alot of taxes.
If Wayne has access to secrets of spritual success and wisdom, why does he have siminars? What I mean by this is, why doesn't he write down everything he knows that can help people into a book, and send it to his editor?
One you've had access to the 10 secrets for success and inner peace, why on earth would you need the power of intention to manifest what you want? You now have success and inner peace if you used his last book, why is there always more wisdom to be sold for 30 dollars?
And as mentioned before, why, if Dyer truely wants to help the world, does he not simply scribe all the wisdom he can imagine into a book and pay airplanes to airdrop them into poor neighborhoods, instead of making fun of the garbage that poor people have on their lawns (Creating your life with thought, The Inner Wisdom Library).
Instead, to suppliment his wisdom, many people must pay thousands of dollars to see Wayne in person at a variety of new age spiritual events. It is not always this expensive ofcourse, but as anyone here who has been to a Dyer event knows, it is very expensive to listen to him speak.
Why is this?
Wayne is amazingly rich...why does he still feel the need to charge this money for his appearances?
Many might suggest that his PBS work is very altruistic, but infact, he is paid enourmously for those shows, and it is a wonderful advertisement for his books and all materials contained in his Enchillada packages.
On a personal note, I cannot help but noticed that Wayne appears to me to be an incredibly ego-centric man...I cannot exactly back this up with evidence, but it's simply a very strong feeling I get. To me, it's perfectly okay to be egocentric, it's just difficult to acccept this in somene who claims to have nearly transcended all of his ego ways.
Remember that Wayne also contradicts himself constantly. In the Power of Intention (I believe) he talks about a coworker who is sick with a cold, and how disgusting his snot is. 20 minutes later he tells us that we must find beauty in everything we see, even a homeless person urinating on the street (This was preempted by a story regarding the work of Victor Frankle the founder of Logotherapy, and him finding beauty in the head of a fish, which was given to him in his soup by his Nazi captors during the holocaust). Why can't he find snot beautiful?
This is simply one example I found particularly amusing.
I am not a very spiritual person, but I think it's good if people can find wisdom in Wayne Dyer.
However, it's not his wisdom.
I don't understand why he is more concerned with being rich than with making sure his message gets out to everyone.
His attitude towards the poor is to me disturbing, in the notion that poor people are slaves to their "intention" and that anyone can escape their socio-economic positions with what basically is wishful thinking. While this may be true in many cases, to dismiss the political and economic factors is to me, callous and un-"source" like, so to say.
He writes diatribes against paying taxes, but I've not seen his work urging politicians to do more to help homeless people, or, if he truely believes his work is what they need, why don't we see him going out and making sure that all disadvantaged people have his books, tapes, cds, dvds, yes, he even sells a pack of playing cards.
Finally, a woman posted a message on here that I will summarize as saying, "I am jobless, without a husband, am very shy and need money, I have been trying to manifest what i want with the power of intention, but it is not working".
This is very sad to me, I believe Dyer's "Intention" philosophy is very dangerous, as it gives hope to the hopeless in a very disingenious way. If this woman wants to change her life, she has to get out into the world and try to create a better life through action. Believing that her "thoughts" and "meditations" will manifest her life simply is a lie. If this were true, not only would everyone have Waynes book and be manifesting everything they want in their life, the economy of the world would have failed over night.
I am not one to disregard positive thinking or even "manifesting meditations" as a positive act; I do agree that our mental attitude effects us an aweful lot, but only as it relates to our actions from it. This woman was horribly frustrated because her attempts at manifesting were not working, and it makes me sad to think all of the people out there that have been duped into believing this.
The real way to manifest, is to become a self-help guru and make millions writing books of based on the works of others, and charging thousands for personal appearances.
Many of you will simply say this is "resistance" as Wayne is fond of saying to anyone who disagrees with him.
Just a critical point of view
Murdoch