Customer Reviews

A New Earth, An Old Deception: Awakening to the Dangers of Eckhart Tolle's #1 Bestseller

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Richard Abanes has produced a completely predictable and unsubtle fundamentalist Christian attack on Eckhart Tolle's 'A New Earth'. He doesn't look in much detail at Tolle's overall work but selects phrases he wants to be quite superior and snide about. He seems to love throwing around the phrase 'New Age' as a term of self-evident foolishness. His brief and amateur analysis of Tolle's experience in terms of near death experience and false self is utterly superficial. His attitude towards Tolle (and by implication towards others like Krishnmaurti) is wholly unloving. Of course, understood from his own framework of Biblical literalism, it all makes sense, and I imagine it appealing only to those wishing to be confirmed in that unintelligent and unyielding framework. Abanes is also highly selective regarding Biblical texts, avoiding all liberal Christian generosity. Tolle is not without his faults (he also has some areas of superficial analysis and a rather facile belief in democratic access to the now) but Tolle gives off far more love and understanding than Abanes.

Colin Feltham

Mr. Abanes book is very intelligent and great deal of analysis has gone into this effort. Christians that are solid in their faith in God, and that truly desire to follow the message of Jesus Christ, have no problem with, and, in fact, can easily embrace the work of Eckhart Tolle. However, Mr. Abanes appears to be deeply threatened and has been shaken by Mr. Tolle's work. This is worrisome. Please be careful, if you read this, to make note of the underlying fear, criticism, and defensiveness that permeates the work. These are always red flags when someone is attempting to debate a position. Too bad Mr. Abanes energy could not be channeled into something more positive, creative and productive. He's completely missing the big picture. On the up side, this book has definitely helped me to more clearly see the loving intelligence of Mr. Tolle's book. So, in the 'What Would Jesus Do?' question, I must say that Mr. Tolle would be closer to the answer.

Clearly this author is very much on an ego trip. As a follower of Christ for the past 20 years of my life in no way did I find what Eckart wrote in contridiction to my faith. What the book did do is help me understand the bible more. I think Mr. Abanes needs to become a bit more conscious before passing judgement. Everyone is entitled to believe what they want and what makes him think what he wrote is so right? People just make up your own mind about God and why he has you here. It is on the inside of you. Just listen not to the voice in your head but to the small whisper in your soul.

Mr Abanes completly misunderstands Toll's work. There is NO DANGER in Toll's work.. Abane's thinking
is paranoid, witch hunting and very old school catholic.. Dont forget that this church thought the
Earth was flat, and we were the center of the galaxy.. This is an update and that type of thought. Avoid this book
at all costs!! Its a cheap shot to SELL, latching on to Toll's wonderful work

I wanted to read Abanes book side by side with Tolle's book to see two sides of an interesting topic. Unfortunately I found Abanes book to be unreadable. It is condescending and judgemental.

He seems so eager to prove Tolle wrong, that he does not even accurately capture the thoughts from Tolle's book before he critizices them. This is a big disappointment. It amazes me that Abanes must think he might teach me something by criticizing Tolle's work instead of generating convincing arguments.

While I am impressed with Mr Abanes ability to quote scripture, I stopped reading his book after nearly three chapters. I was simply not learning anything.

This is a typical, knee-jerk, almost fundamentalist christian reaction to a wisdom that is fundamental to what makes us human BEINGS.
The teaching by Eckhart do not conflict with Jesus' teachings, only with some of the teachings of MEN who purport to know what the Christian God wants for humanity.

READ A New Earth, read The Power of Now. As a Christian, I ask you to find any part of the teaching that conflicts with Jesus' words. Tolle constantly refers to Christ's teachings with reverence, but the fact that he also refers to the Buddha seems to upset some with closed minds.

If you are a christian and you want to stay close-minded then you will find this book helpful. Intuitively, u may feel a connection with eckhart tolle's teaching but you have a fear that your beliefs may be shaken, so obviously a book like this will give you what your looking for, which is to comfort your rigid belief structures.
Perhaps people that seem close minded are actually just attached to the authority in which they have placed so much trust. Breaking a view with that authority means reconsidering so many other possibilities. Is that why so many people never consider another perspective? Is being `close-minded' really just a safety net used by the brain as a protection from having to rethink the foundation of all one's beliefs?

My entire educational career, apart from my graduate studies, has been spent in Catholic run schools. I have gained much and very little. The teachings from an ancient book, also written by men, has done little to help me find inner peace. What I did gain was much psychological garbage (sin, guilt, doubt, fear). After reading "The Power of Now", one of Tolle's books, I feel more inner peace within myself than ever before. I felt a truth in the words, as others have also put it. People who have entrenched their entire life, career, and identity in something that later becomes questionable, will do anything to destroy what threatens their ego. Read this book; buy it. See how much wasted energy has gone into dismantling every sentence from the original text, just so you may see how people get attached to biblical references that have blinded people and caused so much death and destruction for centuries.

Where there is angst, anguish & attack, there cannot be peace. These ideologies are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist in the same space. Anyone who has the time, energy and financial where with all to draft an entire book to attack another author must have a very sad life.

Talk about taking things out of context. You had your mind made up before you read the book. I never got the feeling that Tolle was trying to set himself or us as being gods. He is only giving insight into how to let go of egotistical and materialistic ways that hinder us from having a personal relationship with God. The kind of relationship that organized religion sometimes gets in the way of. It is meant to work along with organized religion.