LTRP Note: Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God books remain popular today even though they came out many years ago. The following article by Warren Smith gives us a glimpse of what really lies behind the New Age/New Spirituality movement.
By Warren B. Smith
In 1992, Neale Donald Walsch, a disillusioned and distraught former radio talk show host, public relations professional, and longtime metaphysical seeker, sat down one night and wrote God an angry letter.1 He was amazed when “God” immediately answered his letter by speaking to him through an inner voice. That night, and in subsequent conversations, Walsch wrote down all of the dictated answers to his questions. The dictation continued for several years.2 Walsch’s Conversations with God: Book 1 was published in 1995 and became the first in a series of best-selling Conversations with God books. It seemed that in Walsch “God” had found yet another willing channel for his New Age/New Gospel teachings.
In a style reminiscent of John Denver and George Burns in the movie Oh, God!, Walsch and “God” present a more “down home” version of the same New Age Gospel teachings that were conveyed through previous “inner voice” dictations to Helen Schucman and Barbara Marx Hubbard. With Walsch playing the role of devil’s advocate, “God” cleverly plays off of Walsch’s leading questions and comments. Walsch and “God” come across in these conversations as a couple of “everyday Joe’s” who systematically dismantle biblical Christianity with their straight-from-the-source, “spiritually correct” teachings. With the assurance of two foxes now in control of the henhouse, they emphatically assert that the New Gospel is from God and that the “Old Gospel” is not.
Delighted by the fact that they are being taken seriously by millions of readers, “God” and Walsch appear to thoroughly enjoy their process of bringing the public up to spiritual speed. Continuing to build upon the foundation of New Age teachings already introduced through Schucman, Hubbard, and others, “God” and Walsch add some special twists of their own to the New Gospel story. Using Walsch as the straight man, “God” introduces many of his more extreme teachings with smug, authoritative statements such as: “There are no such things as the Ten Commandments,”3 “So who said Jesus was perfect?,”4 and “Hitler went to heaven.”5
Walsch’s “God” makes a number of other provocative statements about Hitler. The net effect is a minimization of Hitler’s actions and an obvious glorification of death. The following are two of “God’s” comments about Hitler and death:
So the first thing you have to understand—as I’ve already explained to you—is that Hitler didn’t hurt anyone. In a sense, he didn’t inflict suffering, he ended it.6
I tell you this, at the moment of your death you will realize the greatest freedom, the greatest peace, the greatest joy, and the greatest love you have ever known. Shall we therefore punish Bre’r Fox for throwing Bre’r Rabbit into the briar patch?7
Walsch, always the public relations man, anticipates reader incredulity at statements like these by expressing apparent surprise and then asking “God” questions that the skeptical reader would probably ask. But in his process of seeming to challenge “God”—which he does with considerable skill—Walsch actually enables “God” to further expound upon and reinforce the thoughts and ideas of his teachings. Not surprisingly, Walsch always seems to come around to “God’s” point of view. Even to some of his more extreme views about death and Adolph Hitler.
Direct quotes from Walsch’s “God” (From False Christ Coming: Does Anybody Care?)
Hitler and Evil
Walsch: Well, I’m going to have to ask the questions here that I know so many people are thinking and wanting to ask. How could a man like Hitler have gone to heaven? Every religion in the world. . . I would think every one, has declared him condemned and sent straight to hell.
“God”: First, he could not have gone to hell because hell does not exist. Therefore, there is only one place left to which he could have gone. But that begs the question. The real issue is whether Hitler’s actions were “wrong.” Yet I have said over and over again that there is no “right” or “wrong” in the universe. A thing is not intrinsically right or wrong. A thing simply is.
Now your thought that Hitler was a monster is based on the fact that he ordered the killing of millions of people, correct?
Walsch: Obviously, yes.
“God”: Yet what if I told you that what you call “death” is the greatest thing that could happen to anyone—what then? (CWG Book 2, p. 36)
I do not love “good” more than I love “bad.” Hitler went to heaven. (CWG Book 1, p. 61)
The mistakes Hitler made did no harm or damage to those whose deaths he caused. Those souls were released from their earthly bondage, like butterflies emerging from a cocoon.
(CWG Book 2, p. 42)
So the first thing you have to understand—as I’ve already explained to you—is that Hitler didn’t hurt anyone. In a sense, he didn’t inflict suffering, he ended it. (CWG Book 2, p. 56) (Taken from False Christ Coming: Does Anybody Care?, chapter 3 by Warren Smith)
Notes:
1. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue, Book 1 (NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996), p. 1.
2. Ibid., p. 2.
3. Ibid., p. 95.
4. Ibid., p. 192.
5. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue, Book 2 (Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads, 1997), p. 35.
6. Ibid., p. 56.
7. Ibid., p. 36.
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