An amazon.com review:
Ira Progoff's
At a Journal Workshop
I don't think I've ever read a book that made me feel like such an idiot! I read Dante when I was 12, and understood the concepts perfectly, and loved the flow of the poetry. I love Shakespeare, and "Hamlet" has to be one of my favorite plays. I can analyze and predict (accurately) patterns that arise in the international arena. I was predicting a war on Iraq the second that Bush first accused Saddam of supporting Al Queda. I KNEW in 2000 that the budget surplus under Clinton would evaporate, and Reaganite spending patterns would be instituted within three years of Bush II's election.
I pride myself on being a smart person, with a huge amount of analytical ability. However, reading the first two or three chapters of Progoff's work left me feeling like I was dragging my head through nonsensical mush! I could not understand what a "Depth Dimension" was, or the philosophy that underpins Progoff's journaling methods. I tried the first exercise in the Log, and found myself lost. First the book said to be brief, and feel the "movement" of my life. Um, what? Find an image, write it down. Who are the people involved in the image, and why is it important? So, I did that, as Progoff was adamant in stating that you should pick up your journal and write the second the book launched into an exercise.
Then I read on to the next page, through mumbo-jumbo and nonsensical language that supposedly "explained" why the log was important, only to discover that the exercise continued two pages later! So much for being brief: the next two pages that asked a series of questions required at least that much more paper in trying to answer them! I shook my head in confusion, and decided to leave those questions as a "jumping off" point for thought. And they triggered none for me.
I put the book aside in frustration for a day or so, determined to slowly plug my way through it. After all, it was supposed to "enlighten" me, right? I found that I was unable to pick it up again. I tried twice to read past page 1 of the subsequent chapter, but I couldn't-- the resistance was just too strong. I couldn't experience "movement" and I couldn't picture myself dipping into a stream of communal experience that supposedly ran underneath everyone's personal well, deep inside somewhere unspecified of the self.
The book was sold to a used bookstore, and I felt considerably freer once it was. The millstone was no longer around my neck, and I could journal in peace and quiet in the way that I wanted. It was nice to be free of that tome-- the book isn't physically light either-- and the metaphysics are heavier than an entire rock quarry.
I don't get it, and I'm amazed that there seem to be a lot of people who do. What's your secret? I'm dying to know! Because I'm feeling pretty darn stupid right about now...
