Not that Oprah needs me to come to her defense...

Not that I’d expect much in the way of New Age thinking to be supported by the generally conservative-leaning Fox News, but I thought this article was a little over the top.

Let me start off by saying that I am completely aware that this is an opinion column, the author is entitled to his opinion, and I respect his opinions. However the subheader for the Fox411 section is “Celebrity Gossip”, so take it for what it’s worth. I only saw the article because they always stick these Fox411 stingers on the website’s front page.

In the article, author Roger Friedman is questioning whether Oprah Winfrey, using Eckhart Tolle as the tool, is starting up her own ‘cult’. He says this:

“Oprah extolled the author’s virtues, calling his best-selling 'New Earth' book 'one of the most important books of our time,' the seminars one of 'the most exciting things I’ve ever done.'

Imagine that Winfrey considers her conversations with Tolle, a man with a shady and un-checkable background, more important than her schools in Africa and Mississippi for underprivileged children, more important than her Angel Charity network or her zillion-dollar syndicated TV show. Tolle must be something else!”

What I’d like you all to notice is this:

According to the article, Oprah says: “one of the most important books of our time” and the seminars are (author’s writing) “one of ‘the most exciting things I’ve ever done.’"

Then Friedman says: “Imagine that Winfrey considers her conversations with Tolle… more important than her schools in Africa and Mississippi…, more important than her Angel Charity network…”

Wha? That’s not what she said. I know I’m arguing semantics here, but she never said that Tolle and what he’s written is more important than any of these things. What’s clever here (not intelligent, but clever – Tolle reminded us in that book that those are two totally different things) is how many people may have read those two paragraphs and didn’t think twice about arguing the author’s point based on how he spun his words?

Friedman goes on to question whether Tolle is an appropriate spiritual leader, using the main argument of what Tolle’s education (or lack of, or lack of evidence of) is. I think it’s interesting that this is the only item in the column cited as criteria to determine how fit for leadership someone is, as he invokes names such as Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison as more fit spiritual leaders because they are “serious, educated artists with portfolios”.

Excuse me, can I see the portfolio of Jesus Christ, please? You don’t have one for him? Really? I’ve heard he’s a pretty big deal.

The author states that in response to Tolle’s claim that he graduated from the University of London with the highest mark, a rep from the same University says there is no way to verify this. “Clever,” writes the author. What’s clever? That you think Tolle is lying and doesn’t need to provide proof? Or the fact that a London college (read: institution of higher EDUCATION) apparently can’t keep track of who graduates and what scores they got on their tests?

More to the point may not be so much focus on Tolle, but more on Oprah:

“Oprah seems to forget who she is to score points with Tolle, or rationalize why she’s involved in this beyond the corporate money being reaped:
‘Everyone complains about the media and the movies. I mean, if you just look at the Academy Awards this year, and the kinds of movies that were made this year, and it’s all a reflection of who we are. You say in the book,’ Winfrey says to Tolle, ‘that we’re the species that will go and watch people be maimed and killed and murdered for our entertainment.’
We can assume she wasn’t talking about ‘Juno,’ ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,’ ‘The Savages,’ ‘Enchanted,’ ‘Atonement,’ ‘La Vie En Rose,’ ‘Michael Clayton,’ ‘Elizabeth: The Golden Age,’ ‘Into the Wild,’ ‘Away from Her’ or ‘Charlie Wilson’s War’ — all films that had nominations. Just three films featured overt violence this year — ‘No Country for Old Men,’ ‘There Will Be Blood’ and ‘Sweeney Todd.’
But it’s the zealous excitement in Winfrey’s eyes when she says it that makes the difference. Those three films are now the whole Academy Awards, and therefore ‘the media.’”

Let’s clarify something. If he’s bringing up nominated films, where’d ‘The Golden Compass’ go? And let’s not pretend that the three films he mentions were the only films released the whole year with overt violence. These were just the ones nominated for Academy Awards. And how does this make Friedman’s argument better? ‘No Country For Old Men’ and ‘There Will Be Blood’ swept up the nominations with eight each, with ‘TWBB’ winning two awards and ‘NCFOM’ winning four, including Best Picture. And let’s not pretend TV doesn’t exist. Practically most of the prime time TV shows (and a decent amount of daytime shows) feature violence. 'CSI' can’t exist as a show unless someone is murdered every week, let’s face it. And you know what? We apparently want more of it. Oprah and Tolle are just trying to stick it into more people’s faces that we don’t have to watch this stuff.

Lastly, Friedman says that Tolle is no different than Scientology or Kabbalah when it comes to how expensive it can get if you want to purchase the “Books, tapes, DVDs”, as he puts it. Well, sure it can get expensive if you want a copy of his book, his book on tape, his book on DVD, etc., etc. But who does that? $20. Book. Done. Comparing that to Scientology, which we all know now can coerce hundreds of THOUSANDS of dollars out of you? Not even close.

Ultimately, I think the author of the article is feeling threatened that more people are becoming aware of a new state of mind and a new way of thinking about ourselves that can take us out of religion and “the way it’s always been”. I’m actually pretty confident of that, because at the time of my reading of the article, there were three links within the story from a third party program touting Ben Stein’s new movie about Intelligent Design.

But here’s the cool thing. I can let him feel threatened while I do not. And he can spread his word, but so can I spread mine. People are listening to Oprah and Tolle, and I feel we will ultimately get out from under this idea that we are separate from whatever one likes to call ‘The Divine’. The people who agree with this columnist are people who probably don’t want to change their understanding of how the world is and could be anyway. Thus the need for the author to use words like ‘creepy’, ‘nonsense’, ‘gobbledygook’, and ‘kooky’. I don’t know the Jewish word for ‘kooky’, but I bet the Jews called the up-and-coming Christians that, too.

I will agree with the author on a few points. I like ‘A New Earth’, but I will say that there wasn’t anything in the book that I hadn’t read about before. I also would have to say the concept of the “pain-body” is not a new one. I admit I found myself skimming more of the later chapters, just because I knew a lot of that stuff already. And if I had to read the phrase ‘That is to say…’ one more time…

But for somebody brand new to this way of thinking, I think the book is great. Tolle doesn’t use a lot of terms or ideas that might be out of reach for newbies to the world of ‘Awakening’. Tolle uses down-to-earth phrases and concepts that anyone can understand without getting scared off. He references both the words of Jesus and of Buddha. THAT’S why Oprah likes this guy so much. He’s ‘touchable’, ‘reachable’.

Friedman may think the people watching the online seminars appear to have ‘glazed-over faces’, but I’m thinking he would get one himself if he was in a seminar featuring, oh, say, Ben Stein and George W. Bush.