Joe Vitale - what do you think of this?

[JHL]

Got this via email.
HO'OPONOPONO
by Joe Vitale

"Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a
complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of
them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look
within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he
improved himself, the patient improved.

"When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How
could anyone heal anyone else by healing himself? How could even the
best self-improvement master cure the criminally insane? It didn't make
any sense. It wasn't logical, so I dismissed the story.

"However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had
used a Hawaiian healing process called ho 'oponopono. I had never heard
of it, yet I couldn't let it leave my mind. If the story was at all
true, I had to know more. I had always understood "total
responsibility" to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do.
Beyond that, it's out of my hands. I think that most people think of
total responsibility that way. We're responsible for what we do, not
what anyone else does--but that's wrong.
"The Hawaiian therapist who healed those mentally ill people would
teach me an advanced new perspective about total responsibility. His
name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len. We probably spent an hour talking on
our first phone call. I asked him to tell me the complete story of his
work as a therapist.

He explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years.

That ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous.

Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot
or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs
against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a
pleasant place to live, work, or visit.

"Dr. Len told me that he never saw patients. He agreed to have an
office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he
would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal.

"'After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being
allowed to walk freely,' he told me. 'Others who had to be heavily
medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no
chance of ever being released were being freed.' I was in awe. 'Not
only that,' he went on, 'but the staff began to enjoy coming to work.

Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more staff than
we needed because patients were being released, and all the staff was
showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.'

"This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: 'What were you
doing within yourself that caused those people to change?'

"'I was simply healing the part of me that created them,' he said. I
didn't understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for your
life means that everything in your life- simply because it is in your
life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is
your creation.Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for
what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in
my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you
take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see,
hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility
because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the
president, the economy or anything you experience and don't like--is up
for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as
projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with
you, and to change them, you have to change you.

"I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live.
Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr.
Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho 'oponopono means
loving yourself.

"If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you
want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing
you.

"I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing,
exactly, when he looked at those patients' files?

"'I just kept saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over
again,'he explained.

"That's it?

"That's it.

"Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve
yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world.

"Let me give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone
sent me an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by
working on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the
person who sent the nasty message.

"This time, I decided to try Dr. Len's method. I kept silently saying,
'I'm sorry' and 'I love you,' I didn't say it to anyone in particular.
I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal within me what was
creating the outer circumstance.

"Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for
his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn't take any outward
action to get that apology. I didn't even write him back. Yet, by
saying 'I love you,' I somehow healed within me what was creating him.

"I later attended a ho 'oponopono workshop run by Dr. Len. He's now 70
years old, considered a grandfatherly shaman, and is somewhat
reclusive.
He praised my book, The Attractor Factor. He told me that as I improve
myself, my book's vibration will raise, and everyone will feel it when
they read it. In short, as I improve, my readers will improve.

"'What about the books that are already sold and out there?' I asked.

"'They aren't out there,' he explained, once again blowing my mind with
his mystic wisdom. 'They are still in you.' In short, there is no out
there. It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique
with the depth it deserves.
"Suffice It to say that whenever you want to improve anything in your
life, there's only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it
with love."
More from http://hooponopono.org and
http://hooponopono.org/lectures.html

The more I read articles like this, the more it occurs to me - new age PD is the killer marketing app of our age.

[Antiventurecapital]

Up until only a few short years ago (i.e., 2004), Joe was just a copy writing guru and nothing else. He was quite good at it and made a living selling his services. I even contacted him once about writing copy for one of my websites. He came back with some absurdly outrageous price and I passed on it.

Over the past few years he has gotten into the woo-woo stuff big time. Nothing is too silly for him to pitch. About a year ago, I received a newsletter from a European source which was joint venturing with Dr. Joe on some weight loss program. I wrote back to the editor and asked "What's left for Vitale to pitch? Penis enlargement pills?" He laughed.

[Antiventurecapital]

Originally Posted by JHL

Got this via email.
HO'OPONOPONO
by Joe Vitale

"Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a
complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of
them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look
within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he
improved himself, the patient improved.

How stupid do you have to be to believe such nonsense?

I hereby offer a reward of $10,000 to anyone who can provide proof for this from credible authorities (e.g., psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health professionals, medical doctors.).

[renie408]

Originally Posted by Antiventurecapital

How stupid do you have to be to believe such nonsense?

I hereby offer a reward of $10,000 to anyone who can provide proof for this from credible authorities (e.g., psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health professionals, medical doctors.).

Would you take the word of the previously insane??

Oh man. This all sounds like a lot of hooey to me. But stranger things, Horatio...stranger things....

[Antiventurecapital]

Originally Posted by renie408

Would you take the word of the previously insane??

Oh man. This all sounds like a lot of hooey to me. But stranger things, Horatio...stranger things....

If the story were true, all the insane asylums would be out of business by now.

[renie408]

Originally Posted by Antiventurecapital

If the story were true, all the insane asylums would be out of business by now.

I wonder how you go about researching whether the story is false or not? I googled as many combinations of 'Dr. Len, Hawaii State Hospital and false, fraud, sham' as I could think of and got nothing.

[renie408]

Does Joe Vitale take credit for writing this story? Because I just found it word for word on a website called Soul Food and it is attributed to someone named Ada Porat. It was on this website's October of 2006 edition.

Soul Food for October 2006

[dor]

Originally Posted by renie408

I wonder how you go about researching whether the story is false or not? I googled as many combinations of 'Dr. Len, Hawaii State Hospital and false, fraud, sham' as I could think of and got nothing.

I think it would be up to "Dr" Vitale to provide some documentation to such an extraordinary claim.

[Antiventurecapital]

Originally Posted by renie408

I wonder how you go about researching whether the story is false or not? I googled as many combinations of 'Dr. Len, Hawaii State Hospital and false, fraud, sham' as I could think of and got nothing.

If it was true, it would have been big news. Various medical journals would have published articles on it. Then the mainstream media would have picked up on the story. It would have been all over the news.

[Dani]

A basic internet marketing tactic is to build a list of people with big mailing lists to hawk your goods for you.

Then you offer these people an afilliate payment for the people they drive to you.

The other aspect of this is that for the list owners to take your stuff you usually have to provide them with a prewritten email to send out to people.

That is what this looks like, especially if it appeared word for word on another site.

One of my friends knows Joe Vitale, I should get him to introduce us one day so he can hawk my new um. Penis Enlargement Pills!

I could make a mint!

[Dharma]

Originally Posted by JHL

"Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any of
them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look
within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he
improved himself, the patient improved.

That's how it's done -- doesn't matter if the story is true or not.
The "I'm sorry"/"I love you" part I'll have to research. Never tried that. Sounds interesting.

[Beautiful Future]

http://www.stevepavlina.com/forums/p...therapist.html

I had a feeling I'd seen this mentioned on the forums before. It looks like the same story, anyway.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by Antiventurecapital

Various medical journals would have published articles on it. Then the mainstream media would have picked up on the story. It would have been all over the news.

Would they have? Would it have?

I am not saying I believe it, but just because something extraordinary happens, doesn't mean the world sees it. I can't imagine medical journals would publish a word about it, because, to use the technical term...its too "woo-woo". The Secret is all over the mainstream media and the news, but theres still a lot of people who don't see it, care, want to know or believe it. I have been witness to some extraordinary things in my life too, all of them have never been in the news. Some, only a few people even know about. It doesn't make them any less real.

[Lemon Juice]

When an idea gets critisized a lot like in this thread I begin thinking it might be worth taking a closer look at it because it may be priceless I like the concept of ho 'oponopono - haven't tried it yet but seems to be congruent with the subjective view of reality and I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be very effective.

[dor]

Amazon.com: Customer Discussions: Planted Reviews

I always suspected something was fishy about Vitale and his book read this on amazon there is a discussion:
The Amazon rating system is being gamed by professional marketers-Vitale,Mark Victor Hansen
Jack Canfield to name only very few. How do I know -I have been on the receiving end of their marketing campaigns to set up their books for bestsellers & to get 5-star ratings. There is even a course offered on how to do this.
Pay close attention and you will start to notice the same names as testemonials in/on various books and on Amazon- many of these are authors or marketers who cross promote each other. As marketers they seem to feel anything is fair game to sell more of their products. As noted on another post- now while setting up their marketing campaigns they are advising to give a mixed but positive review so as not to appear so obvious!

My review was deleted along with others and there are dozens of one post wonder reviews of his book - this is quite unethical in my opinion and to me indicates the guy is nothing more than an aggresive salesman who's found a new niche after Amway. If the book were decent it might be forgiveable -but it isn't.

[Lychee]

Originally Posted by dor

Amazon.com: Customer Discussions: Planted Reviews

I always suspected something was fishy about Vitale and his book read this on amazon there is a discussion:
The Amazon rating system is being gamed by professional marketers-Vitale,Mark Victor Hansen
Jack Canfield to name only very few. How do I know -I have been on the receiving end of their marketing campaigns to set up their books for bestsellers & to get 5-star ratings. There is even a course offered on how to do this.
Pay close attention and you will start to notice the same names as testemonials in/on various books and on Amazon- many of these are authors or marketers who cross promote each other. As marketers they seem to feel anything is fair game to sell more of their products. As noted on another post- now while setting up their marketing campaigns they are advising to give a mixed but positive review so as not to appear so obvious!

My review was deleted along with others and there are dozens of one post wonder reviews of his book - this is quite unethical in my opinion and to me indicates the guy is nothing more than an aggresive salesman who's found a new niche after Amway. If the book were decent it might be forgiveable -but it isn't.

Very interesting. I never liked "The Attractor Factor" anyway despite the (falsely given?) 5-star reviews.

[ChromeMolly]

Originally Posted by Antiventurecapital

I hereby offer a reward of $10,000 to anyone who can provide proof for this from credible authorities (e.g., psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health professionals, medical doctors.).

The James Randi Educational Foundation already offers $1M. If it's true, why not "win" the money and put it to good use?
Challenge Info

[Arboretor]

To the OP: There are some threads about Ho'oponopono here on the site, which have nothing to do with Joe Vitale. Search for it.

[Newfort]

Some extracts of Vitale's Energy marketing for those who fall for his cons.

How to Control The "Command Center" In Your Prospect’s Mind
Here’s a million-dollar secret I’ve never shared with anyone before. When you use it, you will get inside your prospects’ heads and manipulate their thinking to get them to do what you want—including sending you money right now for your product or service. Sound hard to believe? Keep reading and I’ll prove my point to you…

To put a spell on people, that turns them on to your product or service, guides them directly to your order page and like a robot, programs them to send you money 24-hours a day, 7-days a week!
…
Your prospects are all in trances. If you merge with their trance, you can then lead them out of it into the "buying trance" you want them to be in.

Agree with them. Merge with them. Accept that trance as your door. Then lead into what you want to sell by tying it back to their trance.
Let’s break down this process into steps:
1. What do your prospect’s believe right now (current trance)?
2. Agree with their beliefs (rapport).
3. Lead their beliefs into your offer (new trance).

That’s the real secret to "Hypnotic Selling."

Let’s look at possible existing trances your prospects may be in when you call, or send them a sales piece.
They include:
"I’m worried about money" trance; "I’m lonely trance"; "I’m afraid of people" trance; "I’m sick and tired of my job" trance; …

And so it goes. You’ll notice that each of these trances are self-serving. That’s the nature of people. They are interested in their well-being first. They are preoccupied with their own needs, desires, pains and more. Any inward state is a trance…
…
I learned the one hypnotic command that always works from hypnotists. A good hypnotist will never give a subject a choice or offer a list of "reasons why you should fall asleep right now."

Instead, a good hypnotist will simply issue a command, "when I count to three, you will close your eyes," or, "When I snap my fingers, you will bark like a dog." The subject responds because they want to please the hypnotist and because they don’t have much of a choice.

Your prospects are nearly the same. Give them one hypnotic command and they will do your bidding.

Know the exact one thing your prospect want and tie everything you say to it. You use every trick you’ve learned to grab and hold attention, build desire, and lead to a strong close, because you know that’s how you create truly hypnotic writing.

Because this is a way for you to plant hypnotic commands right into the skulls of people. This is a staggering power. You are in their command centre.

Extracts from The Scourge of our Time: The Demise of Critical Thinking in the Age of The Secret

:: NewFort Website ::

[Acting Like Godot]

The extract is from Joe Vitale's book "Zero Limits".

The account of this incident, and other accounts relating to Dr Hew Len, is much more extensively spelt out there (several hundred pages long). It also contains letters of testimony purportedly from various members of the staff of the hospital; and letters of testimony from many other people who have met Dr Hew Len.

Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

For those of who you disbelieve, what really is the basis of your disbelief? I suggest to you that the basis is that what is mentioned therein is highly, highly inconsistent with what you perceive reality to be. Therefore you disbelieve it.

In other words, you only believe what makes sense to you. This sounds logical and sensible.

Until you understand that a pre-historic caveman, or a four-year-old child, or people who lived at a time when the earth was widely believed to be flat; would equally be inclined to believe only what makes sense to them.

But once you are willing to admit that you don't even know what you don't know, then perhaps a more interesting, mysterious and ... truer ... reality might start revealing itself to you.

[Acting Like Godot]

I'd like to explain a little about how I think ho'ponopono works. It is merely one form of the LOA. It is the traditional Hawaiian version. Three key points:

1. It is also one of the "absolute" versions of LOA theory. In other words, ho'ponopono is based on the idea that everything, absolutely everything, in your reality is caused by your thoughts. In other words, there are absolutely no accidents and no random coincidences.

2. One of the more unique aspects of ho'ponopono is that its methods explicitly acknowledge that although you create your entire reality, very often you will not be able to know which of your thoughts created any particular thing, event or circumstance.

3. In ho'ponopono, there is a God concept. God is infinitely powerful, loving, kind etc etc.

So how does ho'ponopono work? Well, suppose one day, Dr Hew Len is sitting on a bench in a park. Then John Smith comes along and they chat about the weather for a while and then John says, "Dr Hew Len, in this particular hospital ward, there are 20 mentally ill patients. I wonder if you could somehow help them."

According to ho'ponopono, it is not a random coincidence in Hew Len's reality, that John Smith happened to walk by that day. It is not a random coincidence that John Smith happened to mention those 20 patients.

(Remember, in ho'ponopono theory, there is no such thing as a random coincidence or accident).

Furthermore, according to ho'ponopono theory, you create everything in your reality. Since 20 mentally ill patients exist in Hew Len's reality, Hew Len must have somehow caused these 20 people to be mentally ill.

Hew Len does not know how exactly he has caused this to happen. See Point 2 earlier. The mind is as mysterious and complex as the entirety of reality itself. Hew Len cannot know which of his thoughts or beliefs at whatever point in time in his life has caused these 20 people to suffer.

But see Point 3. There is a redeemer. It's God. So the method of ho'ponopono runs something like this. You meditate. You go to a very deep level of your mind. Hew Len calls it "Point Zero". Those of you who meditate, you may not have come across this term before, but you will intuitively know from your own meditation experience, what it is.

(It's really the point where you can get closest to God/Source/nirvana, whatever you want to call it).

Here Hew Len is going to apologise to his creations. His creations are the 20 mentally ill people. He is going to say, "I'm sorry ... I love you ... Please forgive me .... I did not want to make you mentally ill ... I love you ... I love you ... Please forgive me" etc.

Why?

Because although Hew Len does not know which of his thoughts have created the mental illnesses in these people, he does not have to know. This is one of the defining characteristics of ho'ponopono, as compared to some other LOA methods (which will emphasise the importance of identifying your limiting beliefs; your negative thoughts etc).

Under the ho'ponopono system, Hew Len doesn't have to know, because he's going to bypass all that, and go for the biggest available power. God is Love; Love is God; God is forgiving; Love is Forgiveness; Love is the greatest power in the universe etc.

So Hew Len merely needs to go to Point Zero, and express love, and ask for forgiveness for creating the mental illnesses, and whatever Hew Len had previously done to create the illnesses, will be unravelled.

[Acting Like Godot]

It's important to understand that Dr Hew Len is not Joe Vitale. They are two very different persons.

Joe Vitale is one sort of guy. You can see his personality from his various books; and from "The Secret". Joe is not shy about marketing himself; making money; using the LOA to get money, cars, success etc. (I should point out, in fairness, that there's more to him than just this sort of materialistic stuff).

Hew Len just happens to be a chap that Joe wrote a lot about, in one particular book.

Two very different people, with very different personalities. Be clear on that. I could write a book about Obama or Madonna; it doesn't mean that I am anything like Obama or Madonna.

Now, if Joe's descriptions of Hew Len are correct, you can see that Hew Len is very, very different from Joe.

Among other things, Hew Len's personal approach to the LOA is very different from Joe's personal approach; and for that matter, Esther Hick's personal approach, or Steve Pavlina's approach.

Hew Len is a chronic non-planner. He has no habit of setting intentions. He's not the kind of guy who will form any kind of goal (eg "I want to lose 5 kg in six months' time"). So it is not even relevant to discuss whether he's the kind who will take action on his goals, or just use his mind.

What Hew Len is, is highly intuitive. He refuses to plan, because he believes that the universe is a much superior planner. He trusts the universe to organise everything, and to do it much better than he could have done it himself. For example, Hew Len shows up to speak at a conference, without any idea of what he's going to say. He leaves it to the universe to tell him, right there and then, what he's supposed to say.

All he will do, is constantly maintain his direct connection to God. He keeps thinking about love and forgiveness etc. He will keep doing a process that he calls "cleaning". "Cleaning" means that he constantly cleans himself of thoughts that are selfish, angry, violent, fearful etc. Clean, clean, clean. Hew Len works on purifying his consciousnessness all the time. That's it. Everything else, or so he expects, unfolds naturally from there.

This is another interesting example - for the many people who mistakenly believe that "The Secret" is the LOA, and the LOA is "The Secret", and there's nothing further to be said about the topic.

"The Secret" is not the LOA. "The Secret" is a DVD.

The LOA is something much bigger, and more complex, and many, many different approaches can be taken to it. Hew Len's approach is one.

[luckyluciano]

[QUOTE=Acting Like Godot;301733]The extract is from Joe Vitale's book "Zero Limits".



(Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

For those of who you disbelieve, what really is the basis of your disbelief? I suggest to you that the basis is that what is mentioned therein is highly, highly inconsistent with what you perceive reality to be. Therefore you disbelieve it.)

Or maybe because there are many Thieves and Charlattans at work conspiring to separate us from our money.

Perhaps when one asks for verifiable proof they should not be looked down upon and belittled with such overused words as "perception" (in this forum) as though one's awareness is superior to the one of disbelief.

Many would agree that one requesting the proof has the superior awareness/perception,in possession of a critical/rational mind. In fact this planet is dominated by those who do not possess, the not so common oxymoron called common-sense."

And so the debate continues between the gullible and the atheists.

[cylon]

Atheists aren't gullible?

Atheists fall for scams.

[luckyluciano]

So do the Spiritual....

Sorry you missed the context, or maybe your just trolling....

The use of "perception" in this forum is very similar to conversations I have with many fundamentalist Christians etc. "You must BELIEVE! You must have FAITH....it's your PERCEPTION....if you only had my PERCEPTION then you would understand." Not far off from a religion really.

Proof is evidence which substantiates a claim. When one makes a claim and offers weak, little or no evdidence....then you are asking us to have FAITH or to have your PERCEPTION.

[cylon]

You seem to suggest that gullible and atheist are mutually exclusive.
Belief or non belief in a supreme being is not an indicator of intelligence.
All atheism is, is the non-belief in a higher power. That's it. It's not a philosophy in itself.

When I was an atheist I had a high and mighty attitude, that christians and believers in the supernatural were foolish, mislead, and backwards. One day I asked myself "If I have such a low opinion of these people, why am I so compelled to interact with them?"

These days I don't think it's as easy to label people like that. There are about as many belief systems in this world as there are people. Hell even on this forum, there is no consensus on how LOA works. Everyone has their own take. Everyone is an individual.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by luckyluciano

Perhaps when one asks for verifiable proof they should not be looked down upon and belittled with such overused words as "perception" (in this forum) as though one's awareness is superior to the one of disbelief.

You perceive "perception" to be a belittling word.

That is your own perception.

But I hope that you do not belittle yourself.

In discussions of mind & reality, the word "perception" is extremely important and inherently has no positive or negative connotations in itself.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by luckyluciano

Proof is evidence which substantiates a claim. When one makes a claim and offers weak, little or no evdidence....then you are asking us to have FAITH or to have your PERCEPTION.

There was an extract in the original post. Some people questioned it. They were doubtful as they did not know anything apart from what was stated in those few hundred words.

I have provided the source of that extract. I have stated that it comes from quite a substantial book, several hundred pages long, with many more details of what purportedly happened. I have also stated that the book contains various testimonies from people who were present at the relevant place and time.

(Incidentally, Hew Len did not succeed in curing a "complete" ward of patients. He cured 22 out of 23 patients. One of them did not recover).

I did not ask anyone to believe or not believe in this particular account. I merely told people where to look, if they want to look further into the matter.

Those who are not interested will not look. Those who are close-minded will also not look.

Those who are interested can look, if they want. They can decide for themselves whether it is true or not. If they are undecided, then the book will at least give them some ideas about where they can look next for more evidence.

Lucky Luciano, you must ask yourself honestly. If anyone in this thread has helpfully tried to show some evidence of anything, who would it be?

You? Heheh.

[Acting Like Godot]

Lucky Luciano:

How is your own LOA practice coming along, anyway? Last I recall, you were interested in discussing techniques.

Hoo'ponopono is one form of LOA technique. Whether you believe in the account of the 23 patients or not, you might find it useful.

If you suffer from the deep fear of being cheated of $20 by unscrupulous liars, perhaps you could visit your local library and borrow the book instead.

[Acting Like Godot]

Hoo'ponopono is, by the way, a very old tradition. Please do not mistake it for a newfangled invention from the makers of "The Secret". Ho'oponopono is simply a part of Hawaiian culture.

This entry about Mary Kawena Pukui (now deceased) will give you some idea.

Mary Kawena Pukui - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mary, a well-known scholar of Hawaiian history, culture, music, dance, custom and language, wrote more than 50 books on these topics.

In 1958, she had already written a book about how her grandparents were practising hoo'ponopono.