How to Make One Hell of a Profit and Still Get In to Heaven

March 1, 2004
Demartini, author of The Breakthrough Experience and founder of the Concourse of Wisdom School of Philosophy and Healing, urges the reader to reconcile competing desires for"earthly profits and heavenly wealth" in this inflated declaration of capitalist self-love. Rather than being wracked with guilt over accumulating wealth, the spiritual-financial guru preaches"a whole new paradigm in financial thinking and feeling" where one's altruistic desire to give is in zen-like balance with more selfish urges to receive. Rising above the hyperbolic swash, Demartini does offer down-to-earth suggestions on savings, investments and business management. For example, organizing your financial house is the first step in making money; or before raising your company's fees, it's best to make a list of every rebuttal you could receive from clients and write and memorize responses to each. However, before stumbling on this sort of pragmatic advice, the reader must endure distracting inspirational maxims ("I take the cream off the top, because I'm worth it") and corny analogies about the importance of multiple levels of savings and investments ("You can break a single pencil with just two fingers, but if you have eight or nine pencils, you can't break them at all"). While the premise--that creating wealth will not automatically send one to hell in a designer handbag--can be a valuable lesson to those afraid of the exploitative evils of material gain, the book swings awkwardly between new age positivism and financial hardball.

February 16, 2004
Demartini, author of The Breakthrough Experience and founder of the Concourse of Wisdom School of Philosophy and Healing, urges the reader to reconcile competing desires for"earthly profits and heavenly wealth" in this inflated declaration of capitalist self-love. Rather than being wracked with guilt over accumulating wealth, the spiritual-financial guru preaches"a whole new paradigm in financial thinking and feeling" where one's altruistic desire to give is in zen-like balance with more selfish urges to receive. Rising above the hyperbolic swash, Demartini does offer down-to-earth suggestions on savings, investments and business management. For example, organizing your financial house is the first step in making money; or before raising your company's fees, it's best to make a list of every rebuttal you could receive from clients and write and memorize responses to each. However, before stumbling on this sort of pragmatic advice, the reader must endure distracting inspirational maxims ("I take the cream off the top, because I'm worth it") and corny analogies about the importance of multiple levels of savings and investments ("You can break a single pencil with just two fingers, but if you have eight or nine pencils, you can't break them at all"). While the premise--that creating wealth will not automatically send one to hell in a designer handbag--can be a valuable lesson to those afraid of the exploitative evils of material gain, the book swings awkwardly between new age positivism and financial hardball.

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