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| November 18, 2005 |
REVIEW: The Genesis Prayer: Discover the Ancient Secret to Modern Miracles
 Oh bother.
This is what I think of a particular genre of books (I won't deign to call it literature) that seeks to show us how we can be filty rich, find the most stunningly beautiful spouse, cure cancer, make peace in the Middle East, and be named supreme ruler of the world. No really, if you just buy this book and follow its advice you'll get all of that. You'll walk on water too.
When its self-help books for the business dreamers, I find them inoffensive if annoying. When it pops up in the realm of religion, it just becomes insidious. Spare us the absurdity.
So it was with a deep sigh that I picked up The Genesis Prayer by Jeffrey Meiliken. The inside flap was more than enough to spike my Nonsenso-meter (I trademarked that, really). "The Genesis Prayer," it reads with all candor, "the first and most powerful prayer in the Bible, is a source of untold riches."
I crap you not. According to this humble description, this one little prayer "creates miracles," "brings blessings, health, happiness, soul mates, or children," and "plugs us into the forces at play in the universe." You'll be a superhero after reading this book. Really.
The book, written by a mathemetician, and using some simple (ha!) formula that underpins the Bible sheds its immense light on our ability to get whatever we want! Those last four words should be enough to send any rational person running. Absurd enough, I admit, but what intrigued me (in a very bad way) was how the book ties in so many legitimate threads.
Gematria, for one gets is due. I don't know that this is actually gematria, but it gives the whiff. The numerical study of the Hebrew canon isn't intended to show us the doorway to the universe, some secret backdoor into the Matrix where we can make anything we want happen. It is intended to give us a deeper insight into the texts, and even when it veers into the mystical it still retains a sense of humility. No serious mystic makes the kind of grandiose promises that this load of tripe does.
Then there is the avenue of religious studies that seeks to find the commonality between religious faiths. At its most developed, this particular veign of philosophy argues that all religions are essentially the same message in different packaging. Think of it as a philosophical Rosetta Stone, showing us there one divine source can emanate into a variety of fractured religious denominations.
Underlying this book is the notion that all religious faiths tap into this underlying code in some respect, though the author focuses on the Hebrew texts. The problem is that this form of religious theory isn't a conspiracy theory but an honest intellectual attempt to show our commonality and lessen division. It's not a get rich quick scheme, for crying out loud.
Nevertheless, people will get this book. They will read this book. They will utter a prayer and something good will happen. They will think the two are linked. Post hoc ergo propter hoc!
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