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What If?: The Challenge of Self-Realization
What if you awoke tomorrow with amnesia—no memory of who you are, what you like and dislike, and so on. Would you be the same person? What if, as in the movie The Matrix, you discovered that everything was a simulation and you were just a programmed component? What if everything you believed was false? Who would you be then? Eldon Taylor has been researching the power of the mind for more than 25 years. He has repeatedly demonstrated the overt attempts that have been made to control your thinking. While very interesting in theory, most of us do not understand this on a personal level. It is easy to understand the concept of Mind Programming when it is occurring with someone else, but most would deny that they too are victims. What If? is a very personal book. By using everyday situations and guiding you through numerous thought experiments, Eldon does an excellent job of peeling back the layers and revealing the dissonance in much of your thinking, beliefs, desires, and choices—contradictory beliefs held at the same time with no apparent awareness. Once you have seen your own mind with the filtered lenses removed, it is impossible to remain the same. That is why so many have praised this work as being absolutely life-changing—not just a fascinating read—but a transformational experience!
- GenresSelf Help
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
25 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Eldon Taylor
1,101 books42 followersEldon Taylor has made a lifelong study of the human mind and has earned doctoral degrees in psychology and metaphysics. He is a Fellow with the American Psychotherapy Association (APA) and a nondenominational minister.
Eldon was a practicing criminalist for over ten years while completing his education. He supervised and conducted investigations, and testing to detect deception. His earliest work with changing inner beliefs was conducted from this setting, including a double blind study conducted at the Utah State Prison, 1986-87. Eldon is President and Director of Progressive Awareness Research, Inc. For more than twenty years, his books, tapes, lectures, radio, and television appearances have approached personal empowerment from the cornerstone perspective of forgiveness, gratitude, self responsibility and service.
Eldon now lives in the countryside of Washington State with his wife and their two sons. Apart from his family and work, his true passion is horses.
Eldon was a practicing criminalist for over ten years while completing his education. He supervised and conducted investigations, and testing to detect deception. His earliest work with changing inner beliefs was conducted from this setting, including a double blind study conducted at the Utah State Prison, 1986-87. Eldon is President and Director of Progressive Awareness Research, Inc. For more than twenty years, his books, tapes, lectures, radio, and television appearances have approached personal empowerment from the cornerstone perspective of forgiveness, gratitude, self responsibility and service.
Eldon now lives in the countryside of Washington State with his wife and their two sons. Apart from his family and work, his true passion is horses.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 2, 2011
This book was not so much a way for you to delve into your innermost beliefs as it was a venue for the author to preach his viewpoint and wax philosophical. I really, really did not enjoy this book.
March 7, 2012
A conservative rant disguised as a self-help book. Intriguing at times but overall disappointing.
May 9, 2012
When I first started reading What If?, I got quite irritated (as the author warns that you will). I sat it down for a while and then came back to it. I’m glad I did. Eldon Taylor argues for and against some of our most ingrained personal beliefs – such as capital punishment, abortion, and taxes. He takes us through “thought experiments” – some real and some imagined – to bring us to question what we think to be true. Then he follows each thought experiment with tough, thought-provoking questions.
One of the most thought-provoking questions for me was, “If this were true, would you behave any differently?” To put it into perspective, one example where this question was asked was in the discussion of the existence of an afterlife. Taylor gives several different sides of the afterlife debate, and at the end of each he asks if you would behave any differently if that particular belief was true.
What Taylor does so well is to show that there really is no certainty in the beliefs that we hold. A belief we may cling to for years can one day be completely obliterated in favor of a new belief based on knowledge we have gained. Taylor goes through much of why we believe what we believe and the manipulation that takes place in order to get us to believe one way or another. He suggests that, rather than ever taking someone’s word for something, we investigate it ourselves and come to our own conclusion based on the facts, not propaganda. I have seen this in my own life. Just in the last seven years my life has changed dramatically – mostly from personal experience and exposure to things I thought I understood but did not. My beliefs are unrecognizable in comparison to the beliefs I held seven years ago.
What If? is a challenging book, and one that will leave many of us feeling unsettled – in a good way. Through the emotions that Taylor’s questioning evokes, we learn where we hold rigid beliefs and in turn where to begin to open our mind to other possibilities. Taylor doesn’t give answers to the questions he posits, though he does offer some personal opinions in some of the scenarios. His purpose for writing What If? is to get us to answer the questions for ourselves so we can better understand who we are and why. Many of us are mindlessly walking through life as followers and never quite understand the underlying reasons why we believe what we do. If we were challenged on our beliefs, many of us would be hard-pressed to come up with a fact-based, non-emotional response to our challenger. What If? is a great way to start on the journey towards self-awareness so that we can better understand ourselves, speak confidently about what we believe and why we believe it, and take action based on those beliefs rather than standing on the sidelines waiting for someone else to do it.
One last question from Taylor to leave you with: “What was your last truly original thought?”
One of the most thought-provoking questions for me was, “If this were true, would you behave any differently?” To put it into perspective, one example where this question was asked was in the discussion of the existence of an afterlife. Taylor gives several different sides of the afterlife debate, and at the end of each he asks if you would behave any differently if that particular belief was true.
What Taylor does so well is to show that there really is no certainty in the beliefs that we hold. A belief we may cling to for years can one day be completely obliterated in favor of a new belief based on knowledge we have gained. Taylor goes through much of why we believe what we believe and the manipulation that takes place in order to get us to believe one way or another. He suggests that, rather than ever taking someone’s word for something, we investigate it ourselves and come to our own conclusion based on the facts, not propaganda. I have seen this in my own life. Just in the last seven years my life has changed dramatically – mostly from personal experience and exposure to things I thought I understood but did not. My beliefs are unrecognizable in comparison to the beliefs I held seven years ago.
What If? is a challenging book, and one that will leave many of us feeling unsettled – in a good way. Through the emotions that Taylor’s questioning evokes, we learn where we hold rigid beliefs and in turn where to begin to open our mind to other possibilities. Taylor doesn’t give answers to the questions he posits, though he does offer some personal opinions in some of the scenarios. His purpose for writing What If? is to get us to answer the questions for ourselves so we can better understand who we are and why. Many of us are mindlessly walking through life as followers and never quite understand the underlying reasons why we believe what we do. If we were challenged on our beliefs, many of us would be hard-pressed to come up with a fact-based, non-emotional response to our challenger. What If? is a great way to start on the journey towards self-awareness so that we can better understand ourselves, speak confidently about what we believe and why we believe it, and take action based on those beliefs rather than standing on the sidelines waiting for someone else to do it.
One last question from Taylor to leave you with: “What was your last truly original thought?”
June 12, 2012
Taylor seems to contradict his own advice. I purchased the book because he claimed to offer the opportunity to challenge one's beliefs, something I am more than willing to do. However, it seems he is only interested in having the reader challenge their own beliefs in order to adopt his (mostly political and economic conservatism). Rather than offering readers the tools to challenge our basic beliefs in order to grow, he tries to direct the reader to just another set of beliefs, equally limited. It is as if a political conservative writer thought "hmmm... all those liberals like those feel good new age books. Maybe if I use their own lingo/templates/language instead of arguing against liberalism, I can turn them around from their "false" beliefs."
The book is sitting on my shelf because I don't even want to give it to the Goodwill so that someone else may read it.
The book is sitting on my shelf because I don't even want to give it to the Goodwill so that someone else may read it.
December 30, 2017
This was the worst.
So bad, I just had to stop (about halfway through), even if I had had every intention on finishing, even after I discovered how bad and how so-not-what-it-promised-to-be this book was.
Now let me tell ya.
Reading about this book, and the introduction I was quite excited. Taking me in a journey in my own imagition, posing hard questions to make me reflect on myself and life, coming out the other side all wiser and having looked underneath and questioned my own, and maybe the worlds, layers? Sure! Take me for a spin, baby! I’m so ready!
And the first two chapters actually held some of that promise. There were some interesting questions and scenarios posed for me to reflect on. The author and his opinions in the background (as initially promised).
But then....
All of a sudden it took a turn and became the complete opposite! All of a sudden the author had an agenda and strong views (that I happened to disagree with most of), openly admitted or (badly) camouflaged in weird and stupid scenarios, pointing to the author’s claims of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and painting opposing views as ‘bad’, trying to force you to reach the same misconstrued conclusions as the author, without any chance to argue the other side or to point out faulty premises, argumentative holes, or alleged presumptions -that is neither true or the reader automatically agrees too (I didn’t anyhow).
It was like reading propaganda, in the form of scenarios and very leading or ridiculous questions. It left me wondering if the author did this intentionally (then shame on you), to get his own agenda across, but in disguise as the opposite - or if he’s innocently not seeing what he’s doing and how opinionated and doctrinated he is (while he’s claiming not to be so, of course).
Either way, the author is of course entitled to his points of view, but I think he should openly admit that that is what the book is and that this is a journey into the author’s views and on the thin grounds he’s puzzled them together, but it is by no means representative of reflective questions, research, arguments that takes all or at least most sides into consideration for you to ponder. And the examples and images aren’t very good either.
I simply had to just get off this train and drop the book. No more attempted concealed dogma, no more stupidity, no more forcing me to listen to this long lame tirade where I have no chance to inject or abject. There are numerous pages that are filled with my scribbles/comments of “oh my god the stupid” or “no, because...” or “what about?” And the likes. You get the picture.
The weirdest thing of all being that this book so much tried to be the complete opposite of what it was. I wonder if others have noticed it too, or if some people fall into the trap of agreeing with author (not counting those that already did), but that might not have reached those same conclusions, had the author actually (as intended) presented a more open picture, and more differing views.
And how weird that it started out on that track, but then went so far off track (was this a mishap or intentional?) Either way, it managed to sent me from intrigued to repulsed all in a matter of hours.
So I got off, before I wasted anymore time and brain cells on this firefodder.
I found this review to describe what I think of this book as well. Only, my copy isn’t going to be sitting on my shelf (I neither want to give it away or sell it -that would be cruel), but I’m going to just dump it in the trash. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So bad, I just had to stop (about halfway through), even if I had had every intention on finishing, even after I discovered how bad and how so-not-what-it-promised-to-be this book was.
Now let me tell ya.
Reading about this book, and the introduction I was quite excited. Taking me in a journey in my own imagition, posing hard questions to make me reflect on myself and life, coming out the other side all wiser and having looked underneath and questioned my own, and maybe the worlds, layers? Sure! Take me for a spin, baby! I’m so ready!
And the first two chapters actually held some of that promise. There were some interesting questions and scenarios posed for me to reflect on. The author and his opinions in the background (as initially promised).
But then....
All of a sudden it took a turn and became the complete opposite! All of a sudden the author had an agenda and strong views (that I happened to disagree with most of), openly admitted or (badly) camouflaged in weird and stupid scenarios, pointing to the author’s claims of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and painting opposing views as ‘bad’, trying to force you to reach the same misconstrued conclusions as the author, without any chance to argue the other side or to point out faulty premises, argumentative holes, or alleged presumptions -that is neither true or the reader automatically agrees too (I didn’t anyhow).
It was like reading propaganda, in the form of scenarios and very leading or ridiculous questions. It left me wondering if the author did this intentionally (then shame on you), to get his own agenda across, but in disguise as the opposite - or if he’s innocently not seeing what he’s doing and how opinionated and doctrinated he is (while he’s claiming not to be so, of course).
Either way, the author is of course entitled to his points of view, but I think he should openly admit that that is what the book is and that this is a journey into the author’s views and on the thin grounds he’s puzzled them together, but it is by no means representative of reflective questions, research, arguments that takes all or at least most sides into consideration for you to ponder. And the examples and images aren’t very good either.
I simply had to just get off this train and drop the book. No more attempted concealed dogma, no more stupidity, no more forcing me to listen to this long lame tirade where I have no chance to inject or abject. There are numerous pages that are filled with my scribbles/comments of “oh my god the stupid” or “no, because...” or “what about?” And the likes. You get the picture.
The weirdest thing of all being that this book so much tried to be the complete opposite of what it was. I wonder if others have noticed it too, or if some people fall into the trap of agreeing with author (not counting those that already did), but that might not have reached those same conclusions, had the author actually (as intended) presented a more open picture, and more differing views.
And how weird that it started out on that track, but then went so far off track (was this a mishap or intentional?) Either way, it managed to sent me from intrigued to repulsed all in a matter of hours.
So I got off, before I wasted anymore time and brain cells on this firefodder.
I found this review to describe what I think of this book as well. Only, my copy isn’t going to be sitting on my shelf (I neither want to give it away or sell it -that would be cruel), but I’m going to just dump it in the trash. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
November 17, 2024
Deep
This book if you really apply what is said in it will take you deep into yourself. At first you may want to throw the book aside, but once you get into it you’ll be grateful you read it. You will look at everything differently after reading this book.
This book if you really apply what is said in it will take you deep into yourself. At first you may want to throw the book aside, but once you get into it you’ll be grateful you read it. You will look at everything differently after reading this book.
November 27, 2018
Most of our ideas and issues are complex with no one answer. We live in shades of gray and need to remember this when making decisions, passing judgment or seeking the best from life.
February 17, 2022
Interesting and thought provoking
April 26, 2019
not sure yet....an attack on auto pilot and the status quo, and our views that may be assumed about ourselves...
While it appears insightful, it assumes itself across normal boundaries of culture. To adopt the thoughts would require the reader to sacrifice parts of self in order to gain what amounts the writers pretentious view of human interaction. The pretense is built on very interesting ideas and information.
A very enjoyable and simple read that will make you question ideas and rules you have that you never would have considered moveable. Give it a shot
While it appears insightful, it assumes itself across normal boundaries of culture. To adopt the thoughts would require the reader to sacrifice parts of self in order to gain what amounts the writers pretentious view of human interaction. The pretense is built on very interesting ideas and information.
A very enjoyable and simple read that will make you question ideas and rules you have that you never would have considered moveable. Give it a shot
June 3, 2013
As you flip through the chapters, it makes a very disturbing read. Provides various thought experiments, changing their circumstances and hence how the conclusions go through a change. Some of these experiments are painful and make us dwell could this angle change the entire meaning so much!
In all he challenges us to question our beliefs and look at a case from different angles of morality. A question that comes throughout the book- Would you know this would be true, would that change anything in your behavior.
In all he challenges us to question our beliefs and look at a case from different angles of morality. A question that comes throughout the book- Would you know this would be true, would that change anything in your behavior.
April 8, 2011
The questions that Eldon Taylor poses in his book What If? The Challenge of Self-Realization are profound. They had me thinking for days and has had an everlasting effect on my life. Not for the faint of heart but if you want to peer into the depths of what you truly believe then I highly suggest this book.
May 8, 2011
Had high hopes for this but not loving it. It's a series of thought experiments designed to get you thinking about what your true values are. It's pretty useful up to a point, if you've never examined your inner life, and it's quite interesting, but I went into all this stuff at uni in much more depth and can think of philosophy primers that do a much better job...
May 27, 2011
It provides a series of thought experiments. I found most of them to be quite interesting and some of them to be profound.
Read
October 23, 2011Great!
It is a high-level self-help.
It is a high-level self-help.
July 13, 2016
It was interesting but went over my head at times. It's good to get perspective.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews