Prosperity. – video recording reviews
Don Wallace
* PROSPERITY
Can your thoughts make you rich?
Napoleon Hill certainly thought so. So have many others. In fact, scratch any self-made millionaire and, chances are, you’ll find a follower of Ben Franklin, Samuel Smart (the author of the 19th-century best seller Self-Help), and others of the positive-thinking persuasion.
Which brings us to this interactive video: Prosperity literally promises to make money come to you.
Prosperity is surreal and irresistible. As the host, Brenda Wade, chats to us about the techniques of prosperity that we will learn, she seems to inhabit a hybrid world – half real and half computer graphic. First she introduces us to Beverly Hills financial expert Jerry Gillies.
“Success is based on the degree to which you are willing to love yourself,” he says. “The more we love ourselves, the more money is attracted to us.”
From positive thinking to money magnetism requires a quantum leap of faith that many people may balk at. But as Gillies says, making a fist and then opening it, “If I give of myself and my money, then money begins to flow into my life.” Eerie synthesized music gives the moment a Twilight Zone-like quality.
Next we’re treated to the secrets of a melange of millionaires, including Wally “Famous” Amos, whose earthy recipe for success is, “Change your life, change your thoughts. Set goals, focus your energies, and love what you do.”
Marty Lopata, a gold-draped owner of an unnamed fortune, strikes Prosperity’s major chord. “Trust the outcome. Trust that you can get a parking space. Trust that you can get an order of fusilli.”
He’s not joking. For Lopata, and the other “Prosperity Masters” on this video, an attitude of positive expectations is crucial. Gillies recommends prosperity experiences for the same reason. “Hang out with prosperity people. Live in prosperity places. Do prosperity things, such as renting a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce for an hour.”
There’s some common sense to this advice. Some of it also resembles medieval alchemy.
One example is when the duo of Edwene Gaines and Bert Carson take the podium at their Prosperity Master School. “First you must forgive,” Gaines says. “Debt is caused by lack of forgiveness.” Next you must tithe. “Give 10 percent to the person, place, or institution where you receive spiritual food,” she says, basking in the light of a computer-generated sunburst. Although she is too tactful to say it, there is little doubt in my mind that those who take the course are encouraged to tithe to Gaines herself.
The final 15 minutes of the tape is Dr. Wade’s guided tour of a visualization exercise – a true psychedelic voyage, but one that’s based on techniques top athletes have used in the last three Olympiads. Who’s to say it won’t give some people the confidence to break the self-imposed barriers of their subconscious? After all, that’s what psychiatry promises. And perhaps the only way to find out if money can be attracted to you is to try this tape.
COPYRIGHT 1990 Success Holdings Company, LLC
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group