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Title: Change Your Life With Accelerated Visualization by Harold Kampf, Caolin Wilson, Colin Wilson ISBN: 0-572-02458-4 Publisher: Foulsham & Co Ltd Pub. Date: June, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95

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Average Customer Rating: 3.33 (3 reviews)

Rating: 3
Summary: A good place to begin (but dont stop there)...
Comment: A lot of people are spooked even upon hearing the term "meditation". There's a "good" reason for that since meditation is connected (or associated) with "complicated" philosophies and practices and the average person that he/she is either not up to par for such a task (not mentally equipped?) or simply lacks the time.

This book should've been named "meditation for beginners". It doesnt delve into any depthness but does offer the ground to start.
Meditation is a practice that should begin from a simple level and evolve into something more complete and more rewarding.
It would probably be uneducated to expect someone who has never meditated to dive into the depths of the Kabbalah or any of the eastern philosophies and their meditations techniques right from the get-go. That would be impossible.

For the person who seeks to explore what he can accomplish for himself with meditation this is not a bad book. What it offers is a basic technique for meditating which will have basic results for that matter. What is involved in this technique is simple visualisation and self-hypnosis and a step by step guide on how to achieve it.

Start here with this book and take it further. You will find out that the subject itself will demand from you to eventually take it to another level.

Rating: 3
Summary: rehashing established ideas
Comment: Change Your Life With Accelerated Visualization is a great title, but the book came up short for me. I was looking for something that would accelerate my visualization skills. I didn't find it here. This book is essentially a rehash of established and readily available methods such as NLP, The Silva Method (which I took several years ago), psychodynamics, self-hypnosis, and straight forward visualization scenarios. Granted that these methods are themselves derivations, but with significant improvements.

Mr. Colin Wilson's foreword touches on esoteric philosophies and some occult/mystic background information but doesn't directly offer support for the book's merit. In the second last paragraph, Mr. Wilson states that the author has: "accomplished an exciting and totally personal synthesis of techniques that seem to range from traditional yoga to the visualization disciplines of the Cabbalah and the relaxation techniques of Transcendental Meditation." Fortunately, he said "seem to" because this book doesn't live up to that promo. (David Fontana's THE MEDITATOR'S HANDBOOK, on the other hand, does.) As well as being a long-time researcher and practitioner of mind development, I also work in advertising and my grumble with this book is that although it has its merits, as the able reviewer below from England noted, there's more hype than substance.

Note that the quote on the back cover of the book is extracted from Mr. Wilson's foreword and is misleading because it's taken out of context. When he says: "I'm not usually fond of how-to books...but this one is different" he was not refering to this particular book but one on meditation the author wrote and sent to Colin Wilson in 1975. Also, on the back cover Harold Kampf states: I have devised what I know is the ultimate method to achieve Alpha easily and quickly. Nice combination of hype and ego. Whenever one is in a daydream-like state, one is producing alphawaves. Nevertheless, if his ultimate method is taught in this book I must have missed it because what's in there is a rewording of established countdown induction methods of autohypnosis combining it with visuals such as an elevator. New? I think not. This is followed by his "ABC ultimate technique" which is by any other name "eye-closure" whereby one establishes a conditioned response to ABC rather than 1-2-3, or 3-2-1! Again, new?

Expect to get an earful of the author's take on Theology. Chapter Three is entitled "The Trouble With God" and seems to me a mixture of thoughts inspired by Mystic Christianity, Hinduism, and New Age ideas. The author was prudent enough, however, to inform readers who do not believe in a higher spiritual dimension or interested in the concept of God to skip the chapter.

In conclusion, if you are new to these ideas of dynamic meditation and using your mind and visualization skills to better your life in the areas of problem-solving, goal-setting, and health maintenance this book will surely have benefits for you. Otherwise, there are many other more highly recommended books out there worth your money and time. Such as: VISUALIZATION FOR CHANGE by Patrick Fanning. CREATIVE VISUALIZATION by Ronald Shone, AUTOHYPNOSIS by Ronald Shone, THE SILVA MIND CONTROL METHOD FOR GETTING HELP FROM YOUR OTHER SIDE by Jose Silva and Robert Stone, ULTIMATE GUIDE TO MENTAL TOUGHNESS by Daniel Teitelbaum, any of the NLP books by John Grinder and Richard Bandler, THE EINSTEIN FACTOR by Win Wenger, and the ol' standby PSYCHO-CYBERNETICS by Maxwell Maltz. Happy shopping!

Rating: 4
Summary: An unassuming and valuable contribution
Comment: This is a short guide to the alpha brainwave state sometimes called meditation, how to achieve that state, and what to do once you are there.
There are many books teaching the virtues of creative visualisation for the achievement of one's goals. The main premise of this book is that creative visualisation is only effective when exercised in the alpha state, that is a restful state of mind and body when the brain waves cease their normal feverish activity.
In a sense, the book offers very little that is new on this subject. It has been covered admirably by Jose Silva in The Silva Method, and Jack Black in Mindstore and Mindstore for Personal Development. If you are looking for something that will seriously help to plan your goals and provide the techniques and motivation to follow them through, then I would recommend Jack Black's books rather than this one.
This is not to say that Harold Kampf has copied the ideas of others. All writers on this field are agreed that they offer nothing that hasn't been available for generations before. Each writer adds his own twist. In Harold Kampf's case, he adds two easy methods for entry into the alpha state. I have tried them both and found them both to be effective. Even though coming to this subject with some experience, I was able to modify and add to my existing practices. Harold Kampf does give a good general introduction to the uses to which dynamic meditation, as he calls it, can be put. Examples include speaking to the subconscious, tackling bad habits, losing weight and dealing with health problems.
The author is entirely realistic, and does not present visualisation as a quick fix. On the contrary he advises an honest self-appraisal of one's faults and the problems they cause. Without this knowledge of where we are starting from, there is no basis to formulate the changes we wish to bring about. There are touching and encouraging examples of this process in action.
Harold Kampf does go further than other writers in this area in that he moves on from dynamic meditation to speak of and describe the benefits of passive meditation. His methods also provide an easy route into this state, and he conveys, through the writings of other great thinkers, an easy understanding of what the meditator seeks to achieve and may expect from the practice.
I have seen other reviewers criticise Harold Kampf for straying into religious and philosophical theorising in the course of his explanations. It is my own view that one who has experienced first-hand the benefits of meditation is unlikely to find his or her sensibilities so easily challenged by these passages. The fact that Harold Kampf steers a course between apology and arrogance, managing to avoid both, shows that his aim and intent is true, namely to encourage the benefits of meditation, dynamic and passive, to all who care to listen.
Whether you have read other books on this subject or come to it fresh, I would recommend this book as an enjoyable read and a useful guide.