She’s not like the others.
My FaceBook news feed continues to see many, many posts promising shortcuts to manifestation.
Related: Things come in waves
Posts like this one, screenshot captured just now, led me to feel differently about Sarah Prout:
I am not going to link to any of her sites; she has many, and you’ll find her easily enough if you do a Web search. I also will not link to the videos I mention, as they may no longer be available when you read this.
But based on her different “vibe,” I decided to check her out.
I signed up for a “5 Day Manifestation Challenge” she had, beginning November 1. You had to join a FaceBook group, permit texts on your phone, provide your e-address, I don’t recall what all else. Many different activities available to get involved in. As to almost all of them, I decided that I did not have time — at least, not during that week.
She’s diligent in producing content — a new e-mail almost every day, and a new FaceBook post every day. If you comment on a FaceBook post, you get a Message inviting you to get further involved. Some of her offerings (texts, teachings, consultations) are downright pricey. I had set my mind from the beginning, to not spend any money.
Some time later, I decided to watch at least some of the videos she’d produced in connection with the Challenge. There was to be a new video each of the five days. The first one was entitled, “The Missing Key to Manifestation.” So, for sure, I wanted to watch that. It was 35 minutes. There’s a good deal to this that I’ll discuss below. As to the missing key, however —
Almost all the ads I see about manifestation, talk one way or another about a missing key. You follow all the directions teachers give you, you listen to all the audios, you meditate the way they tell you to, and still you don’t seem to manifest — they say. And, of course, for the vast majority of people who try this stuff, they’re right. But each seller promises to give you the missing key.
Apparently even the book and movie, The Secret, never told the secret.
What is the missing key?
The entire first video can be boiled down to six words: “a consistent connection to the Universe.”
That’s all she says, really; that that’s it. Logically, one would anticipate that, having said that, she’d tell you how to get it. In the first video, she does not. She says that’s for the second one.
I’ll discuss the second video in due course. As to this first one, albeit I think I know what she means, I’m also left to wonder. It sounds so much like how some people talk about “faith.” To heal or be healed; to receive answers to prayer; they say one must have “faith.” So, how do you get this “faith?” There’s never an answer, meaning that all that talk was merely disembodied speech.
Will she be that way also? We shall see.
As to everything else in the 35 minutes, aside from time given to procedural and housekeeping details; 11/30, I wrote in my diary:
She says all these things. All these things. To a beginner, each one may be a profound insight, but I’ve been at this stuff so long [I’ve been studying mysticism or esotericism or the occult, call it what you will, since 1983.] that they come off to me as platitudes.
I agree with all kinds of things she says; don’t get me wrong. Shoot, I’ve said many of the same things here. From the first video: (1) The first step is to show up. (2) One must do the work. (That puzzles me, since sometimes I think I hear her say, just as all the others also so, that it takes no work. You won’t hear me say that.)
The second video, I watched the next day; it’s entitled “Spark Your Connection With The Universe And Decode Your Signs.” 43 minutes. Two topics, really. As to the first one, establishing a “consistent connection with the Universe,” she actually, in fact, says nothing. As said, I think I know what she means. I took notes; I actually agree with a ton of what she says. The second topic deals with omens and synchronicities; I tend to feel she puts too much confidence in omens and synchronicities, albeit even Carolyn Myss says there will be synchronicities to affirm newfound “alignment” with the cosmos. Sarah Prout says, among other things, and I agree, to “listen to your gut,” as one’s gut feelings are a reflection from the Universe as to the suitability of whatever one may have in mind.
What is “consistent connection?”
Three ways she mentions to get a “consistent connection with the Universe:” pray; meditate; and commune with nature. What this “connection” is, itself, I construe to be a feeling of being close to God. It is a kind of altered state, frankly. The veil between the seen world and the unseen becomes less opaque. One has a reduced sense of separateness from other things and other people; I am prone to perceive the material objects around me not as solid and discrete, but rather as fields of energy (as, at the atomic level, they are). One has absolute confidence in prayer; one can feel one’s prayers being answered, even while one prays. I sometimes call myself “borderline clairvoyant,” on the verge of clairvoyance. It can involve a subtle “high.” I have been there, at times; for moments, hours, days or weeks.
This is what those who use the term “faith” loosely are normally referring to. How to get and stay there remains the great unanswered question. The state is not a dog: it does not come when called. I know no sure fire way to obtain it.
[Postscript, 12/16/21: Today’s post gives some indications about how to obtain an elevated state of consciousness, and the effects of such elevation.]
Points of agreement
She calls herself a New Thought person, and significantly, so am I, albeit I refuse to own any label. I cannot think of any thing I have ever written in this blog, that I think she’d really disagree with. Some points of absolute concord, though she might not say these things in exactly these same words:
God is ALL. Her prayers normally begin, “Dear Universe …,” and she consistently uses the word “Universe” the same way I do “ALL,” the same way others do “God.”
“Faith” as Jesus used the word means basically “integrity” — walking one’s talk. Answered prayer requires absolute congruence of one’s desires, thoughts and actions. Related: Heart and Soul.
One must do the work.
The energies one sends out, come back. Positive energy returns. Negative energy returns.
One can “alchemize,” that is, sublimate, frustrations into hope, darkness into light.
Dissent
The night I decided to not research her any more, the word that came to me was this: as contrasted with all those other sellers, she’s not a fake; rather, she’s just wrong (that is, mistaken). All these exercises are more or less beside the point; after all, we’re all creating, all the time. Desire is the limiting reactant; we create what we desire.
God bless her.
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