Gifts from Eykis

In the second half of the 1980's, I felt like my life was going down the drain. I read Eykis ( 1983 version) and found the 'secrets' so helpful I did something I've never done before or since. I bought a dozen copies and gave them to friends and relatives. Dog-eared doesn't do justice as a description of the back third of the book.

Whenever I get caught up in the useless worries and stresses that so many people in society feel, I revisit this book. For example on planet Uranus if people want to see into the future, they can accomplish it merely by feeling the emotion of worry. However on planet Earth, feeling the emotion of worry does NOT enable us to see into the future, so Eykis was confused about why we bother to worry. It's definitely a good point.

My junior year English teacher was brilliant -- he made us read this book and write a number of essays on the topics it covered. I have never looked at the world the same way again. This book presents all the big topics: education, parenting, government, business, religion, ethics... and shows you a new way to look at them. Or rather, it shows you what is wrong with the way society deals with these issues in today's world. Wayne Dyer uses the novel format to get his message across. And it works. Unlike his other books, this is not your everyday self-help book -- it is more of a large-scale self-help book for the world. He uses Eykis, an inhabitant of the planet Uranus, as the main character, who, as an outsider, has the necessary objectivity and amazing clarity of vision to see what's wrong with this world and how to fix it. This is a must read. I firmly believe that our society would improve for the better if this book became required reading for all high school kids. This book should not only be read, it should be applied to real life.

I read "gifts" quite some time ago now and have given away my last copy. Lessons from it still become active in my day to day routine, however. When I hear someone refer to anxiety attacks I immediately think of Eykis' reports on, "Anxiety gathering to the North of the city, preparing to attack at . . ." Which is not to say that these experiences are not 'real' to the people so afflicted but Mr. Dyer puts them in a perspective which shows that they can be overcome. The best part of the book for me was the last couple of chapters where Eykis shares what she learned during her time on Earth. The simple maxim, "Live and let live," grow your own garden and let your neighbor grow his with whatever he chooses to put in it, would serve world leaders well to heed. As with "Eroneous Zones" and "Pulling Your Own Strings," Wayne has said it again in a no nonsense, common sense vein that, "If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting."

This is one book I purchase to give away. It is brilliant. If everyone in the world would read this book and practice the principles, the world would be at peace and all would be happy. Crime would be nonexistent. This book awakens a whole new way of thinking. An unprecidented way of reverse thinking makes this book one epiphany after another until you say, why can't this be? This makes so much more sense that the way we think now. Buy it, read it, and give it away for someone else to read. One of the best books I have ever read! Five stars!!!!