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Quote by Esther Hicks

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The Law of Attraction Das kosmische Gesetz hinter "the Secret"

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Esther Hicks
Esther Hicks

Esther Hicks is an American author, best known for her co-authored series of books on the Law of Attraction, including 'The Law of Attraction.' Her works primarily focus on themes of personal growth, spirituality, and self-actualization. more

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“The case of the general talk of "progress" is, indeed, an extreme one. As enunciated today, "progress" is simply a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative. We meet every ideal of religion, patriotism, beauty, or brute pleasure with the alternative ideal of progress—that is to say, we meet every proposal of getting something that we know about, with an alternative proposal of getting a great deal more of nobody knows what.”

ProgressIdealsGoodHereticsMorality Of Capitalism
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“What has made us move from one extreme to the other? Coutness answers ould probably be offered, but I doubt that such a cascade of responses will really provide clear explanation. One point, however, is clear: when society undergoes a drastic shift, an extremely repressed era soon becomes a very lax one. It's like being on a swing: the higher you soar on one side, the higher you rise on the other. China's high speed economic growth seems to have changed everything in the blink of an eye, rather like a long jump that let us leap from an era of material shortages into an era of extravagance and waste, from an era where instincts are repressed into an era of impulsive self-indulgence. A quick jump seems to be all it took to cross a span of thirty years.”

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“What has made us move from one extreme to the other? Countless answers could probably be offered, but I doubt that such a cascade of responses will really provide clear explanation. One point, however, is clear: when society undergoes a drastic shift, an extremely repressed era soon becomes a very lax one. It's like being on a swing: the higher you soar on one side, the higher you rise on the other. China's high speed economic growth seems to have changed everything in the blink of an eye, rather like a long jump that let us leap from an era of material shortages into an era of extravagance and waste, from an era where instincts are repressed into an era of impulsive self-indulgence. A quick jump seems to be all it took to cross a span of thirty years.”

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“How may we describe the general outlines of nationalist development, seen as 'general historical process'? Here, by far the most important point is that nationalism is as a whole quite incomprehensible outside the context of that process's uneven development. The subjective point of nationalist ideology is, of course, always the suggestion that one nationality is as good as another. But the real point has always lain in the objective fact that, manifestly, one nationality has never been even remotely as good as as, or equal to, the others which figure in its world view. Indeed, the purpose of the subjecivity (nationalist myths) can never be anything but protest against the brutal fact: it is mobilisation against the unpalatable, humanly unacceptable, truth of grossly uneven development.”

NationalismUneven Development
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“Language as a Prison The Philippines did have a written language before the Spanish colonists arrived, contrary to what many of those colonists subsequently claimed. However, it was a language that some theorists believe was mainly used as a mnemonic device for epic poems. There was simply no need for a European-style written language in a decentralized land of small seaside fishing villages that were largely self-sufficient. One theory regarding language is that it is primarily a useful tool born out of a need for control. In this theory written language was needed once top-down administration of small towns and villages came into being. Once there were bosses there arose a need for written language. The rise of the great metropolises of Ur and Babylon made a common written language an absolute necessity—but it was only a tool for the administrators. Administrators and rulers needed to keep records and know names— who had rented which plot of land, how many crops did they sell, how many fish did they catch, how many children do they have, how many water buffalo? More important, how much then do they owe me? In this account of the rise of written language, naming and accounting seem to be language's primary "civilizing" function. Language and number are also handy for keeping track of the movement of heavenly bodies, crop yields, and flood cycles. Naturally, a version of local oral languages was eventually translated into symbols as well, and nonadministrative words, the words of epic oral poets, sort of went along for the ride, according to this version. What's amazing to me is that if we accept this idea, then what may have begun as an instrument of social and economic control has now been internalized by us as a mark of being civilized. As if being controlled were, by inference, seen as a good thing, and to proudly wear the badge of this agent of control—to be able to read and write—makes us better, superior, more advanced. We have turned an object of our own oppression into something we now think of as virtuous. Perfect! We accept written language as something so essential to how we live and get along in the world that we feel and recognize its presence as an exclusively positive thing, a sign of enlightenment. We've come to love the chains that bind us, that control us, for we believe that they are us (161-2).”

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“Siamangs—large black members of the gibbon family—swing high up in the tallest trees of the Asian Jungle. Every morning, the male and female burst into spectacular duets. Their song begins with a few loud whoops, which gradually build into ever louder, more elaborate sequences. Amplified by balloonlike throat sacs, the sound carries far and wide. I have heard them in Indonesia, where the whole forest echoed with their sound. The siamangs listen to one another during breaks. Whereas most territorial animals need only to know where their boundaries run and how strong and healthy their neighbors are, siamangs face the added complexity that territories are jointly defended by pairs. This means that pair-bonds matter. Troubled pairs will be weak defenders, while bonded pairs will be strong ones. Since the song of a pair reflects their marriage, the more beautiful it is, the more their neighbors realize not to mess with them. A close-harmony duet communicates not only “stay out!” but also “we’re one!” If a pair duets poorly, on the other hand, uttering discordant vocalizations that interrupt one another, neighbors hear an opportunity to move in and exploit the pair’s troubled relationship.”

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