If You Could See What I See

This is another of the many books that Sylvia Browne has written, this one emphasizing her spiritual organization Novus Spiritus.

A lot of the book covers material she's covered in other books. Most of the material is what would be termed “New Age” in nature, generally dealing with personal behavior. She is a Gnostic Christian, which is where she differs with the traditional Christian views.

For one thing, she says:

”I cannot understand how, for instance, some so-called Christians can preach about Jesus and then turn around and evaluate others to the point of creating hatred and dissent among humankind...They slam other religions and even churches within the same faith; lambasting Catholics or other Protestant sects; they condemn homosexuality, mixed marriages, certain ethnic groups, and the list goes on and on. How on earth is this Christian? Jesus taught us to love one anotehr, be tolerant and peaceful toward others, and to help one another.”

She is also anti-pornography and doesn't support stem sell research. She believes in Atlantis and Lemuria and that humans, as a species, have only about a hundred years left, although she doesn't say what is supposed to happen to end the entire human race.

She talks about the events of 9/11 and is of the opinion that “...people do karmically come down to create a greater good through suffering. ...Those incredible people didn't die in vain; rather, they were like saints who chose to show us that this country was far too complacent.”

I didn't accept that type of thought when Shirley MacClaine referred to a busload of people that died as having chosen that path, and I don't believe that the victims of 9/11 had decided, between lives, to sacrifice themselves so the US would be less complacent.

She also holds with a dual nature of God, a male God and a female God. I have a problem with this since it's so based on human concepts. Assuming that there are other intelligences in the universe, which it seems likely that there are, it is quite possible that some other arrangement of reproduction could have been devised, and that not every single species of intelligent life in the universe is necessarily divided between male and female. Any Great Maker would have created things for all forms of life, and would not be limited to two sexes just because humans are. I'm of the opinion that the Great Maker is beyond the concepts of male and female, composed of those and perhaps other systems, and that he/she/it/they appear to the species that honors them in a manner which that species feels comfortable with.

Although I find much of what Sylvia Browne writes to be basically good advice, I don't find much in this book that is significantly different from what I've read in other New Age-type books. Also, this concept she brings up about humans having only about a hundred years left should have been developed further rather than just say “we're running out of time” and leave it at that.