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This was an interesting read, it's a terrible book, even a Bad book by several standards, but it was interesting to read as a case study. Having read some of the work of Noam Chomsky, and having become sensitive to what he called "institutional blindness," it was interesting recognize it in a fairly typical fashion in, of all places, a self-help book. Which, in retrospect, is not that surprising considering who this kind of literature is marketed to: middle to upper-class Americans and the perspective of the world that they are fed and live in.

I think there is value in self-help books. Eckart Tolle's "The Power of Now" touched me in different times of my life. Now I can see better the "product" aspect of that book. Just a gander at the main page of Eckart Tolle's website treats you to a heavenly airbrushed picture of Tolle's face à la guru littered with suggestions for buying all kinds of products - pretty much the opposite of the message of the book. But that's how marketing goes in America. That book panders to that audience in subtle ways. When the great evils of the world are demonstrated it's always the communists who are used as examples while western crimes are tactfully omitted. However, there is something in the core message of that book that rings true, and Tolle concedes that whatever is written is merely a guidepost and nothing in it should not be taken as set in stone. In "Power vs Force" though, not only is the pandering ramped up considerably, but in contrast to "The Power of Now," David R. Hawkins is adamant that he is speaking the one unambiguous truth.

You need to look no further than the back cover, where pandering begins by displaying unsourced quotes by spiritual symbol and farce Mother Theresa, and business tycoon Lee Iacocca in praise of the book, suggesting that they both read it and took the time to comment on it, which I find very doubtful.

Flipping the book over we get its title in imposing black and white - Power vs. Force - and what an unfortunate title it is. Anyone who deigns to call himself a scientist, such as the author, billed as M.D., Ph.D., with a pretension to expound a scientific work, as he does, would be reticent to use terminology that already has an established use in science, such as Power (measured in watts) and Force (measured in newtons), but one step further, to cast them in opposition to each other, is even more confusing and idiotic. However, all this makes sense in light of the knowledge that this is a pseudoscientifical book, not actual science, so it works as foreshadowing.
I don't want to insult your intelligence by describing the method of the book but, to put it simply, the author claims that if you press down on the wrist of the extended arm of someone else while asking them a strictly Yes or No type question, regardless of whether the answerer knows the answer, they will either "go weak" if it is false, or "go strong" if it is true, and it is exactly on those vague terms that the book explains it, just matter-of-factly enough that you take this ludicrousness as something self-evident.

It would have been one thing if the author had used this as a study of people's biases to wanting something to be true or false, but what he claims is the opposite: he claims that, independently of the type of person and beliefs, literally any person has knowledge in their consciousness unaware to them extractable by this method. Which would mean that the most ardently patriotic German soldier at the height of the Third Reich would need only to have someone test him for the question "Is the Fuhrer a good guy?" to have his wrist "go weak" and be proved of that falsity. The author goes well beyond that though, claiming we can get the truth for everything ever this way. Alright.

Following the explanation of the method, using a combination of other pseudoscientific theories and simpleminded vague extrapolations from the latest physics discoveries it spend quite a few pages portraying this method as having the usual attributes of a Science: demonstrability, repeatability, success in double-blind experimentation. Only to immediately after warn that, like psychics and fortunetellers, it only works if you believe in it or, as they call it, that the experimenters "calibrate" over 200 on their bogus scale. I won't bore you with how they came upon this scale, so ridiculous that it is. If you really want to waste your time, read the book.

What struck me by this time was that, apparently, these tests and calibrations have been done since the 70s till the present day by different groups, demonstrating an astounding example of mass confirmation bias to rival that of the UFO convention people. Again it reminded me of Chomsky when he was talking about that group of researchers who had convinced themselves they had taught apes human sign language, later shown to be an advanced form of conditioning, not language learning. Yet the researchers were convinced they had succeeded, so strong was their confirmation bias. Funnily enough, later on in "Power vs. Force," Hawkins refers to these experiments unabashedly as true, as well as other classically debunked theories such as Kirlian photography showing the "soul" of objects. Everything is possible, when you want to believe.

He goes on to claim that skepticism and atheism and calibrate under 200, and by his own words, things that calibrate under 200 are "negative". So for a book that makes a big point about people's freedom, clearly their right to doubt when searching for the truth is demeaned. Of course, if I was the author, this is exactly what I'd want because it'd be the only way anyone would swallow the compounded silliness of the ideas of this book - strictly if you had no discernment whatsoever.

What follows after the reversal back into pseudoscience forms the bulk of the book: pages and pages of empty ideas about how in every field Power is good and Force is bad. I can describe all this writing with a Chomsky quote: "That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything." Basically, it boils down to this: Stalin is Force (or Bad), and Gandhi is Power (or Good), so why not call the book Good vs. Bad, you may ask, and it's a good question, I think it was simply to sound more fancy.

You get my point: the book is silly, it's garbage, but looking through it from Chomsky's perspective was interesting. From his analysis of the media he concluded that "The mass media serve as a system for communicating messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda." I see "Power vs. Force" as the end product of this propaganda. The author's views on many aspects seem almost comically aligned with powerful interests, which is bewildering on such a spiritually slanted kind of book.
Here are some examples:

From Chomsky you learn that the current view of labor unions in America as a bad thing is a relatively recent phenomenon, a product of violent repression and effective propaganda in the past. To Hawkins, a product of this, they are as bad as communism, a mere "refuge for petty politicians."
(p. 176) "It is easy to forget that the initial appeal of communism was idealistic humanitarianism, as was that of the union movement in the United States, until it became a refuge of petty politicians."

According to Chomsky, there should be a pandering of the media to powerful people, for they are the ones in control in the background. Surreally we have this section which precludes any comment.
(p. 226) "When we come to know the powerful men of the world, captains of industry, presidents of banks, Nobel Prize winners, and members of legendary American families, it is striking to see how many are open, warm, sincere, and view success as a responsibility, noblesse oblige. These are truly successful people, notably courteous and considerate to all; whether visiting potentates or talking to servants, they treat everyone as an equal."
And yet a scarce few pages later, in defending some failed paper of his about nutrition:
(p. 233) "The paper was largely ignored in the United States because there was still no paradigm to give it credibility. The medical profession has simply been uninterested in nutrition, and organized medicine has traditionally been less than kind to innovators. It is helpful to remember that it is a foible of human nature to stoutly defend an established position despite overwhelming evidence against it."
It is as if Hawkins knows rationally that people are controlled by propaganda, but completely blind that could be a part of that group:
(p. 256) "It seems that society institutionalizes certain self-propagating levels of consciousness that become an ingrained characteristic of various social strata."

It's important to remember that the book was published in 1985, so one would expect, given the record so far, that Hawkins would expound views uncontroversial to middle-class people of the time, which he does, denouncing heavy metal and videogames as corruptors of children, though we can see now in 2017 how what great vehicles for art and expression they came to be. I think that, had the book been written today, seeing the financial success of these things and their impact on society, he'd have a different view: whatever view would be the popular view today.

I have to mention Hawkins' calibrations of religions. Apparently, the original teaching of Jesus, Buddha and Lord Krishna (which I wasn't aware was a real person) are 1000, "the highest attainable on this plane." The calibrations have faded predictably to lesser levels. Original Judaism calibrated at 985. Pretty good, but just so you know inferior than Christianity. Apparently though, "Modern Judaism" is only 499, the upward limit on Hawkins' "Map of Consciousness ®" for the "Reason" stage, but not enough to get into the "Love" stage, as if to say: "Yeah, Jews are good with worldly stuff like money, but they're a far cry from true spirituality like us Christians."
For Islam, apparently Mohamed s teachings calibrate at 700 proving once again that Jesus is the main dog, and following that there is only mention that fundamentalist movements have dropped that figure to between 90 and 130, well below the threshold level of goodness of 200. This last kind of selection of framing opinions and selective omissions conforms to Chomsky's theory. In this case, to the dogma of American government since the Russians stopped being the scapegoat in the 80s to the present day that the Islamic Middle East is Public Enemy No. 1.

The cherry on top for me is that the so-called "Map of Consciousness" table mentioned before is indeed labeled with the "®" trademark symbol just as I wrote above, revealing in the most simplest way what this book, which apparently "calibrates" at 700 is - a product, empty of content and full of bullshit. There are many more contradictions and senseless stuff I could talk about, but it would be a waste to spend one more minute in talking about this book.

The person who lent me this book did it because, "since I enjoyed 'The Power of Now,' I'd be sure to like this." I'm as flabbergasted at that opinion as I am about all the positive reviews I see about this book on Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ. I'm going to return it today and I honestly don't know what to say when he asks "What did you think of it?"
I think I'll go with: "It didn't speak to me."