Butterworth’s construction of this book seems to rely on a contemporary media contrivance, a play on words, to appeal to his readership. And to me, this angle is distracting rather than appealing. The information that EB is sharing is worth reading without coining anymore new words that take away from the message rather than adding to it. Positrend? Why coin a word when two good words – positive trend – works and the reader understands what that means? Negatrends? Why coin another word as an opposite to the former coinage when there are two familiar words – negative trends – that are understood? Again, this approach in my view takes away from the very powerful message that EB has for his readers. The message being that the negative trends in play during the second millennium must be replaced with a set of positive trends in the third millennium; and here is how it can be done.
Butterworth also tends to use the popular teaching tool of repeating one’s message in various ways in order to ensure that the pupil hears and retains what is being taught. He does this throughout this book in ways that were even more noticeable than in previous books that I’ve had the privilege of reading. For example, in the first chapter, The Ground of Being, in discussing one’s relationship with God and prayer he repeats his argument almost word for word. On page 10, he says: “Of course this challenges you to get a new insight into prayer. Prayer is knowing the Truth, realizing oneness. It is dealing with the God-is-now-here metaphor. The old idea was that prayer was a means of trying to reach God somewhere ‘out there’ in the nowhereness of space to try to get Him to solve our problems. But the Truth idea is that we want to understand the principle of Oneness – and our oneness in the One – so that the Presence is present as us. Then we draw upon the infinite potential within us by which we solve (or dissolve) our own problems.”
Then, after stating a personal, brief story of once receiving a letter from a minister accusing him of destroying God, reducing prayer to bold, brazen affirmations, Butterworth explains that he challenges people to destroy their own limited construct of God and repeats on page 11 almost word for word what he has said in the previous paragraph. He says: “…may challenge you to a new insight in prayer. Prayer is knowing the Truth, meaning oneness. The old idea was that prayer is a means of trying to reach God and get Him to solve our problems. The Truth idea is that we want to understand the principle so that we can solve our own problems, or dissolve them.”
Butterworth’s theology resonates with me. Yet, I find distracting some of the methods he uses to “teach” the reader. At times his repetition gets in the way of his powerful message, and this reader then tends to skip large portions of the book to avoid the repetition. However, in doing so I have found that there have been times when I have missed new points that he has made. Because his books tend to be prescriptive in nature, when new points are missed the reader may assume there is a flaw in the system rather than in their reading. On the other hand, repetition of ideas that are new to readers can assist with establishing an understanding of concepts that need to be grasped before the reader can move on to the next level of understanding. This is especially important in metaphysical teachings when a person has had little or no exposure to the principles of metaphysics.
One of the most salient points that Butterworth makes in Positrends or Negatrends was to take a personal inventory of your life. Break patterns of sameness and reach for the new, the exciting, and the different. “Life is an experience of growth,” he says; “it is a process of development and unfoldment. Thus at forty a person should be twice as well equipped to receive and use the blessings of life as at twenty. At sixty he should be three times as equipped; at eighty, four times. Knowing this – really knowing this – will not only add years to your life; it will add life to your years.” Butterworth certainly lived his message. Even in the final years of his life when he lived with a debilitating illness, he added life to his years.
A question I asked Sue is this: Could you argue that EB essentially has just one message, and he keeps re-stating it in new ways?
ReplyDeleteDr.Tom,
ReplyDeleteI would argue that EB has a theology that is based on Panentheism, and from that foundation he constructs all of his messages. Some of those messages he repeats in most if not all of his books.