Hypnotizing Maria by Richard Bach

I was first introduced to Richard Bach when I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. That lead me to Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah and One. All of which really spoke to me at that point in my life.

Last week I read Dan Brown's latest book, The Lost Symbol. Reading Hypnotizing Maria after reading The Lost Symbol could almost be called... a coincidence. I learned long ago that my thoughts have power, and that I should be careful of what I create with my thoughts. I also learned long ago there are no coincidences - only co-incidences. All of which are touched upon in Hypnotizing Maria. I haven't exactly forgotten those lessons, I just don't think I've been using them as much as I once did. These two books have reminded me of things, concepts, that I once spent a lot of time grasping.

Richard Bach has a gift for teaching you by letting you watch someone else learn, and Hypnotizing Maria is no different from his earlier books in that respect. This book didn't speak to me as powerfully as his previous books did... but is that because I already know what he's saying now, and I was still learning then? It's quite possible, I don't honestly know.

I will say that Richard Back has once again come up with a good way to explain how the Law of Attraction works. Most of us need our logical brains to get out of the way in order to allow the whole self-suggestion slash positive-affirmation thing to work. That means we have to provide our logical brains with enough of an explanation to get it to stop bugging us about what is and is not possible. For me, that came when I read The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. But I have a very loud logical brain and it needed a scientific explanation. For others, I can see this book being a much simpler way to get that explanation through to their logical brains.

Here's the blurb from the publisher:

In this teaching fable, Bach explores flight and a profound interest in metaphysics. In the opening moments of the story, we meet Jamie Forbes, a pilot who guides a woman into landing a plane safely after her husband loses consciousness. The woman later claims that it was like being hypnotized. Richard Bach, in this his twentieth book, has written a compelling fable about reality and suggestion.

Bach explores deep spiritual and philosophical issues in this slim volume. Our true nature, it seems, it is not bound by space and time. We live in a world full of appearances. If we stop accepting these appearances as reality, the book suggests, they will cease to be our reality. We enter this world to explore, to have fun, and to have shared experiences with the people we care about, but most of all to learn how to love and love again.

Now for the question of how I rate the book. Previous books by Richard Bach would have likely received a 10 of 10 from me. Hypnotizing Maria is a 9 of 10. It's a good book, and had a lot of good reminders that I needed in my life right now.

Book Rating: 9 of 10