"A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle: Review

As many of you know, Mrs. Axinar is a HUGE Oprah Winfrey fan and when we went to Chicago back in February to be audience members for the taping of Oprah segments with Valerie Bertinelli and William Shatner, Oprah also taped some spots for her "online class" featuring a book called "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle.

Well, the waiting list at the library was MASSIVE. Just last week I got the hard cover and the Book-On-CD and I've been starting to listen to it and I'm finding myself scratching my head.

He made the recording for the Book-On-CD himself and the first question I'm asking myself, "What IS that accent??" Bavarian? Austrian? All his Wikipedia bio says is that he was born in Germany. Now there are a few YouTube clips of him and in this particular one he's a little more animated than on the "A New Earth" Book-on-CD, but, I'm telling you, on the CD, he's putting me in mind of Malachi Throne's version of "The Keeper" from the B&W workprint of the first Star Trek pilot, "The Cage".

Of course then I got to thinking - was Malachi Throne DELIBERATELY trying to do a German (and specifically a SOUTH German) accent for The Keeper?

In fact, there is a remnant of the Malachi Throne voiceover of The Keeper in the preview of "The Mangerie" Part II.

I haven't gotten very far along in the CD, but I took a quick look through the hardcover and it's looking to be a pretty quick review of Buddhism.

Actually between trying to listen to that CD and watch What the Bleep!? - Down the Rabbit Hole" at the same time and I'm starting to get spacey.

Oh, speaking of which ... the goofnozzles at our Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County CLEARLY did not take a good look over this set because in their excitement to split this set up into the "movie" part and the "extra footage" part, they completely overlooked the fact that the extra-long "Quantum Edition" version of the movie is spread out over disk 2 and disk 3 of the set, so, yes, my friends, I'm watching What the Bleep!? - Down the Rabbit Hole OUT OF ORDER. Now, if that's not enough proof that I've started to take a turn around the bend, I'm not sure what would be.

Oh, and if that's not bad enough, the "Quantum" cut of "What the Bleep!?" has both Ramtha AND JZ Knight.

I'm not sure what to make of this, "Your thoughts create your reality," stuff.

I suppose in some sense it would be nice if one, by sheer force of will, could eliminate all suffering.

However, I think I'm more into the view of life taught to me by a rabbi from Canada once. Citing Ralph Nader this rabbi pretty much explained that, properly directed, righteous indignation is a GOOD thing.

In other words - there really ARE rotten bastards out there and people of good conscience ought to make concerted efforts to STOP them from being rotten bastards.

Or at least stop them from spreading their misery to others ...