A Priceless Gift

A Priceless Gift

A special dedication ... a thank you ... for those pioneers
whose efforts have helped launch EFT.

“We are on the ground floor of a Healing High Rise”

You and I have been given a priceless gift.

Unfortunately, we will never meet some of our benefactors because their essential contributions were made over 5,000 years ago.  These brilliant people discovered, and mapped, the centerpiece of EFT, namely, the subtle energies that course throughout the body.

These subtle energies are also the centerpiece of acupuncture and, as a result, EFT and acupuncture are cousins.  Both disciplines are growing rapidly and, as time unfolds, they are destined to have a primary role in both emotional and physical healing.

In more recent times, some other dedicated souls have advanced our use of these ancient techniques.  Principal among them is Dr. George Goodheart and his many fine contributions to the field of Applied Kinesiology, a forerunner to EFT.

Dr. John Diamond’s work gets exceptional applause because, to my knowledge, he was one of the first psychiatrists to use, and write about, these subtle energies.  His many pioneering concepts, together with the advanced ideas from Applied Kinesiology, has formed the foundation upon which this new Healing High Rise is being constructed.

Dr. Roger Callahan, from whom I received my original introduction to these energy tapping procedures, deserves all the credit history can give him.  He was first to bring these techniques to the public in a substantial way and did so despite open hostility from his own profession.  As you might appreciate, it takes heavy doses of conviction to plow through the ingrained beliefs of conventional thinking.  Without Roger Callahan’s missionary drive, we might still be sitting around theorizing about this “interesting thing.”

It is upon the shoulders of these giants that I humbly stand.  My own contribution to this rapidly expanding energy psychology field has been to reduce the unnecessary complexity that inevitably finds its way into new discoveries.  EFT is an elegantly simple version of these procedures that professionals and laypersons alike can use on a wide variety of problems.

We are on the ground floor of a Healing High Rise and thus we have much to learn.  Accordingly, I am indebted to the many EFT practitioners around the world that have tirelessly contributed their innovations to our web site (www.EmoFree.com).  They are taking us to new levels.

e-hugs, Gary.



A Note to Researchers
         
Note:  For a quality summary of research in the Energy Psychology field (in which EFT is the most prolific method used), please read this article by David Feinstein, PhD.

This Gold Standard EFT Tutorial offers several advantages to those interested in EFT Research:

• It is backwards compatible. Many peer reviewed EFT studies have been completed and some of these studies were based on a longer form EFT protocol that was popular prior to this Tutorial.  This Tutorial has divided that protocol into easy to use parts but, overall, there is no substantive change in it.  One need only put the parts back together to arrive at the original protocol used in previous research.  Thus all research using the previous protocol is still valid even though that protocol reflects "Old EFT."  Future research, however, should be based on the more streamlined protocols advanced in this Tutorial.
  
• It is easy to follow and clearly standardized.  Everyone throughout the world has instant access to it through the internet.  This facilitates discussion and replication efforts. 
  
• Fidelity is easier.  Previously, practitioners were trained via a wide variety of EFT versions, thus making true fidelity to the EFT process difficult to come by.  Now, through this Gold Standard EFT Tutorial, practitioners can have identical training and thus can deliver a more uniform approach to research subjects,
  
• More robust results are possible if you focus your research on the Specific Events underlying the subjects' issues.

Those practitioners who have been evaluated by a consistent set of standards will provide even stronger fidelity to the Gold Standard EFT protocol, and you can find a developing list of such practitioners at http://www.emofree.com/practitioners.html
We are available for consultation on research projects to evaluate practitioners and help ensure fidelity to the method.  Contact us

Uncovering Specific Events - An Essential Concept Within the EFT Tapping Process

How to Break Down Complex Cases Into Easy Pieces for Tapping - Simplifying the EFT process

Specific Events are the
building blocks (true causes)
of every issue.

So far, everything you have learned in this Gold Standard EFT Tutorial has led you up to this central concept. As you will see, Specific Events are the building blocks (true causes) of every issue, no matter how complex. The idea here is to break down complex issues into manageable pieces so that you can more intelligently use Tapping for the problems at their fundamental levels.
For some issues, finding the underlying emotional contributors is pretty straightforward. A fear of flying could be the result of one bad flying experience, a lack of social confidence may have begun after a rough break-up, or a craving for chocolate may have been due to common stress about money. If you have been able to resolve a current issue by shifting your focus to the emotional realm with quick results, then you are among those who find EFT to be a bit of a miracle. If not, your unresolved emotional issues may be too complex for an approach that simple. Most people will have to dig deeper for lasting results, so now we will continue our journey toward even greater EFT skills.
Most of the emotional issues that people commonly recognize are broader than the ones we have been using as examples. “I don’t feel worthy of acceptance,” “I don’t deserve financial security,” “I’m not comfortable with intimacy,” “I have a control issue,” or “I have a hard time trusting people” are just a few examples of broader issues that could be inhibiting your happiness or serving as blocks to your success. They can also be referred to as patterns, like “I always attract the wrong partner” or “I sabotage my own financial success.” Trying to address issues like this with The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe might be relaxing and leave you feeling more positive, but that effect can wear off because the issue has not been broken down into small enough pieces to maximize EFT's effectiveness.
If you use our earlier instruction on being specific, you may be able to identify a series of events in your life that led to this relatively broad issue that you are trying to resolve. You may also find some common emotional responses connected to them. In this article, we will discover how Specific Events are the true building blocks to these broader issues, and how finding and addressing the related events will enable you to find faster, longer lasting Tapping results.
Once you understand the concept, we will provide you with a step by step guide for systematically finding and working with the building blocks of your issues.
Here's an introductory video that contains useful discussions from my previous EFT Tapping seminars. Consider this a primer for what is to come.

INTRO TO SPECIFIC EVENTS - WATCH VIDEO

Let's begin our exploration of Specific Events with a common challenge faced by EFT Tappers. That is, we tend to see our issues through "global glasses" and we thus tend to describe them using broad labels. As introduced above, examples might be...

• “I don’t feel worthy of acceptance”
• “I don’t deserve financial security”
• “I’m not comfortable with intimacy”
• “I have a control issue”
• “I have a hard time trusting people”
• “I always attract the wrong partner”
• “I sabotage my own financial success”
• "I have low self esteem”
• “I am claustrophobic”
• “I’m an emotional overeater”
• “I have a lot of stress at my job”
• “My mother thinks I’m worthless”
• "Men don’t treat me well"
• “I have a fear of public speaking”
• "I'm afraid of rejection”

Unfortunately, EFT Tappers with limited training mistake these global statements for the real issues. Accordingly, they address them with The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe using global approaches like:

• "Even though I don’t feel worthy of acceptance ..."
• “Even though I don’t deserve financial security…”
• “Even though I’m not comfortable with intimacy…”
• “Even though I have a control issue…”
• “Even though I have a hard time trusting people…”
• “Even though I always attract the wrong partner…”
• “Even though I sabotage my own financial success…”
• "Even though I have low self esteem…”
• “Even though I am claustrophobic…”
• "Even though I’m an emotional overeater...."
• "Even though I have a lot of stress at my job...."
• "Even though my mother and I always argue...."
• “Even though men don’t treat me well….”
• “Even though I have a fear of public speaking….”
• “Even though I’m afraid of rejection…”

The issues above are all very global, which means that they contain many Aspects.  That is they can be broken down into much smaller parts, and we can be far more specific. Trying to resolve these global issues with a round or so of Tapping is like trying to collapse a solid oak table by pounding your fist on the table top. With enough repeated pounding you might weaken a table leg or two, but that's about it.
A better approach is to take aim at the table legs that support the table top. Remove or weaken the table legs and the table top falls. Herein lies the simplicity, and the power, of Specific Events.

Tabletop and Table Legs - An Ideal EFT Metaphor

Let's expand on this very important EFT metaphor that will help us be more specific with these global issues. Specific Events are, quite simply, the Table Legs supporting the globally stated issue, or Tabletop. As you will soon see, to address the Table Leg with EFT is always more specific than addressing the Tabletop.
To clarify, let's explore the globally stated, "I'm afraid of rejection" issue from the list above.


Rejection example: Instead of using EFT on this Tabletop issue with a statement like, "Even though I'm afraid of rejection....." let’s be more specific and break it down to the Specific Events (Table Legs) that caused it. Not everyone has a fear of rejection, but you can be sure that those who do will have some experience, or Specific Events, in their past to back it up. In EFT terms, those Specific Events might be approached like this:

• "Even though my 3rd grade teacher embarrassed me in front of the class....."
• "Even though my father didn't attend my high school graduation and I felt left out...."
• "Even though my high school sweetheart said, 'I've grown tired of you'...."
• "Even though I was sent to my room for the whole day on Thanksgiving at age 8...."
• "Even though Mom told me 'you'll never get married unless you are thin like your sister'...."
• "Even though I was cut from the Little League baseball team...."

Can you see how each of these events could possibly result in someone saying “OUCH! I just got rejected”? Each of these painful rejections gets stored in the energy system and, as the disruptions accumulate, it can eventually cause someone to avoid rejection at all cost. This might affect the choices they make or the chances they are willing to take in life, and someday they will realize they have limited themselves because they are “afraid of rejection.”
These are the true contributors to the "I'm afraid of rejection" issue. They represent the foundation of the problem. They are the causes while the fear of rejection is but the symptom. To use EFT for an issue like this, we start by looking for the Table Legs, then neutralize those individual causes one by one. When we do, each leg that is removed (or weakened) destabilizes the Tabletop until it eventually collapses and the fear of rejection issue fades.  This is EFT Tapping at its best.
However, don’t forget that Testing is a vital piece of The Triad (Aspects-Testing-Being Specific). One enormous benefit here is that by separating an issue into an organized collection of Aspects, you know exactly what you’re testing when you use the 0-10 intensity rating. On the contrary, if you use global language to address a global issue, the 0-10 intensity rating will represent all the parts at once. If you aren’t getting anywhere, it’s hard to know which parts have improved and by how much … and most importantly, where to go from there for best Tapping results. If you reduce everything down to clear specifics you can often knock them down like dominoes.
Assuming you can find and address all the Aspects in each Specific Event, the events that you neutralize will stay neutralized, and you can confirm that through testing it over time. This allows you to systematically work through your issues and thereby improves your confidence in, and success with, the EFT Tapping process.

Here’s a Tapping Tip:

You might notice that the events we have chosen for this example are all from childhood. That’s because the earlier events have the best chance of being foundational events, i.e. providing stronger support for the Tabletop. If you can imagine that the Table Legs supporting an issue can all be different sizes and strengths, doesn’t it make the most sense to knock out the big ones first? The farther back you can go in your personal history to find a related event, the bigger that leg is likely to be.

Here’s another Tapping Tip:

Keep your eye out for The EFT Generalization Effect. Often the various "rejection legs" have some common themes among them so that removing one leg has an effect on the remaining ones. For example, many of the rejection issues may involve a parent, or school or a particular experience such as domestic abuse or war. Even if an issue has hundreds or thousands of table legs, we can often remove 10 or 20 of them with EFT and then watch as the generalization effect collapses the whole tabletop.
Here is a short video describing the Tabletop/Table Legs metaphor and how the EFT Generalization Effect works.

THE TABLE TOP & TABLE LEGS METAPHOR - WATCH VIDEO

Now, with EFT, you can break down every complex issue into smaller pieces

Using EFT on Specific Events is not limited to rejection issues. It applies to fear, anger, guilt, grief, trauma and every emotional issue you can name. It also applies to all the emotional causes of physical and performance issues. Break these issues down to the Specific Events causing them and you have a formula to bring freedom to just about every issue. With this idea, no issue is too complex because they can all be broken down to their individual pieces and then collapsed with EFT. Here are some classic examples:

• A traumatized war veteran may have a diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This is a global issue because it is caused by many war related Specific Events. Simply identify each of the specific war events and address them one at a time with EFT. When enough of them have been neutralized, the PTSD no longer has a cause and the Tabletop falls along with the veteran's nightmares, intrusive memories, headaches, panic attacks and so on.
  
• Anger issues always have causes and those causes are the Specific Events from which the anger came. Think about your own past, for example, and recall some Specific Events that created anger within you. Do they not still seethe under the surface only to show up now and then as anger outbursts in current time? Can you see that after neutralizing those events with Tapping, you would have less in your "anger bucket" and the result would be fewer anger episodes?
  
• Business, sports, music and public speaking performance issues almost invariably have Specific Events at their core. In these cases, the Specific Events usually generate limiting emotions or beliefs that tend to inhibit performance. Examples: (1) My father said rich people are greedy, (2) If I excel at baseball my schoolmates will resent me just like my cousin did when I was age 7, (3) I can't sing that higher note because my buddies said I would sound like a sissy and (4) I don't deserve a standing ovation because my 8th grade teacher embarrassed me by calling me a showoff. We have all accumulated a river full of these mental stoppers and they all gather behind our own personal dam. Collapsing them with EFT Tapping breaks the dam and opens up incredible new vistas.
  
• Physical issues and serious diseases almost always have emotional causes (my opinion). Medicine and most other methods tend to ignore them and thus, by contrast, the EFT process stands out as a unique approach. It is no wonder, then, that we often succeed where everything else fails. I will devote an entire future article to this topic but, for now, let's recognize that these emotional causes can be reduced to Specific Events. Collapse the Specific Events with EFT and the physical issues often subside or disappear.

What is a Specific Event from an EFT Point of View?

In order to be sure your event is specific enough, choose something with the following criteria:

1. It is a short “movie” from the past, preferably as far back as childhood
2. You are able to give it a title, like “the time when…”
3. It was 1-3 minutes long at the time it happened
4. It contains at least 1 emotional crescendo
5. It has a beginning, an end, a plot, and characters

How do you find Specific Events Within the Tapping Process?

This is usually done with questions that take you back in time to previous experiences that are related to the current issue. There are no cookie cutter questions that work for all circumstances but it doesn't take a genius to start exploring. Here are some examples to give you the idea.

• When was the first time you felt unloved?
• Can you name a time when you felt rejected big time?
• Is there a major guilt experience we can discuss?
• What event in your past does this issue about ______ remind you of?
• What was your most fearful/abusive/traumatic experience?
• Was there an emotional event preceding the onset of your illness?

Our Art of Delivery videos are loaded with these inquiries and are a primary source for quality examples.

Tapping Guidelines for Using Specific Events

Most people have to be guided in this process. Otherwise, they are likely to come up with "Specific Events" that last for several hours or more. So to make sure you have an appropriate Specific Event of manageable length, use these features as guidelines:

• If this event was a movie, how long would it last? If it is anything more than a few minutes, please narrow it down to a one to three minute segment that includes the most important emotional crescendo(s) of the entire event. One common mistake is to choose an event that you could tell a friend in one to three minutes. For this purpose we need something that actually happened in one to three minutes at the time. For example, you might be able to tell a friend about a divorce in a few minutes, but you would have to gloss over a lot of the specific detail. Look for the small segments of time that hold the most emotional impact for you.
• How many crescendos are there in this short movie? If the movie lasts only a few minutes, then there probably won’t be too many crescendos. However, it is usually best to limit the Specific Event to contain only one or two crescendos.  If there are multiple crescendos then address them one at a time, starting with the most intense one.  Often collapsing the most intense one with EFT allows the others to fade.
• If this movie had a title, what would it be? This question has two purposes: (1) it gives you a short phrase to use with The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe and (2) it adds emphasis to the Specific Event, allowing you to distinguish it from other, related events
• How long ago did it happen?  Tapping on an event from last week is certainly an option, but the Aspects of that event are likely to be broad issues of their own. It’s better to start as close to childhood or as close to the origination of the problem as you can get.

Tapping Tip:  What if you can't remember a Specific Event?

Then make one up. This may sound frivolous at first but, in practice, it can be quite effective. This is because a made up event comes from within your deepest emotional recesses and thus it can be embellished into an event that may be even more useful than a real one. I have done this many times with great success.
Once you start tapping, your memory will often clear up, and more events will come to your awareness.

Tapping Tip:  Specific Events vs. Specific Emotions

Ultimately, it is the emotions that emanate from the Specific Events that interest us. These are the causes behind the emotional, physical and performance issues that need collapsing. Some EFT'ers have misunderstood this and have chosen to go for Specific Emotions instead of Specific Events. Even though this is doing it backwards, it will likely provide some results because of the power of The EFT Tapping Basic Recipe. Even a misdirected arrow can still hit part of the target. However, it will often fall short of perfection for two reasons:

• The Specific Events are what cause the emotions we seek in the EFT process but the reverse is not true, i.e. the emotions do not cause the Specific Events. Thus to seek for emotions without identifying their fundamental causes (Specific Events) is an obvious EFT error. The Specific Events are the centerpiece of quality EFT. To sidestep them leaves behind an opportunity for deeper work.
  
• There is no such thing as a specific emotion. We commonly use terms like fear, anger and grief as though they were specific items but, in fact, they are only generalized labels. Grief over the death of a loved one, for example, isn't just a form of sadness. If you look behind it you will often find things like the fear of being alone or guilt for what the griever did or did not do while the deceased was alive. I once sat down and made a list of 50 emotions and could easily define all of them in terms of fear e.g. hand washing OCD can be defined as the fear of germs, guilt can be defined as the fear of being found out, depression can be defined as the fear of being worthless ... and on it goes.

Conclusion

Being Specific is a critically important factor for in-depth success with EFT .. and ... failing to be specific enough is BY FAR the most common mistake made by EFT practitioners. The bigger the issue, the harder it can be to find the smaller pieces. Working with Specific Events will take you straight to the source of the disruption and provide a systematic way to resolve bigger issues, one piece at a time.
Now that you understand the concept, choose an issue (Tabletop) of your own, a related event (Table Leg) and follow us to the next article where we address that event with the Tell the Story Technique.

REVIEW:

In this article you learned how Specific Events contribute to emotional issues.

• Specific Events are the building blocks of broader emotional issues.
• Again, failing to be specific enough is a very common mistake for people using EFT.
• We generally don’t find success by tapping on the broader issues because they contain too many Aspects.
• Understanding the Tabletops and Table Legs metaphor will help you break global issues into Specific Events
• There are five criteria for making sure the event you have chosen is specific enough.
• Addressing events from earlier in your history will usually produce more dramatic results than addressing something more current.
• The Generalization Effect helps to multiply the effects of our work as the relief from one event will spread to benefit other events.

 

zero limits

zero limits

The Secret Hawaiian System for Wealth, Health, Peace, and More

JOE VITALE
IHALEAKALA HEW LEN, PhD

To Morrnah and Ka’i
—Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len

To Mark Ryan and Nerissa
—Dr. Joe Vitale

Ho’oponopono is a profound gift that allows one to develop a working relationship with the Divinity within and learn to ask that in each moment, our errors in thought, word, 
deed, or action be cleansed. The process is essentially about freedom, complete freedom from the past.  ---Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona, 
Ho’oponopono Master Teacher, 
creator of Self I-Dentity  Ho’oponopono, 
named a Living Treasure of the 
State of Hawaii in 1983 by the Hongwanji Mission of Honolulu and the Hawaii State Legislature.


Acknowledgments

Two key people deserve thanks for this book: Mark Ryan is the priceless friend who first told me the story of the unusual therapist you’re about to read about, and Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len is that unusual therapist who 
has become my latest priceless friend.  Nerissa, my love, is my main support person and domestic life partner. Matt Holt and my dear friends at John Wiley & Sons, Inc. are terrific people to know and work with. Suzanne Burns is my key assistant and publicist, and proofread an early draft of this manuscript. My mastermind group supported me in this project, including Jillian ColemanWheeler, CindyCashman, Craig Perrine, Pat O’Bryan, Bill Hibbler, and Nerissa 
Oden. Early readers of this book who helped me shape it and perfect it include Mark Weisser and Mark Ryan. I also want to thank the Divine for guiding me in the process of writing this book. 
I am grateful to all.


Contents

Preface: Where Peace Begins Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len ix

Introduction: The Secret of the Universe Dr. Joe Vitale xi

The Adventure Begins 1

Finding the World’s Most Unusual Therapist 11

Our First Conversation 19

The Shocking Truth about Intentions 27

What Exceptions? 39

I Love You 51

Eating with the Divine 67

The Evidence 77

How to Create Faster Results 113

How to Receive Greater Wealth 123

Skeptical Minds Want to Know 137

Choice Is a Limitation 147

Cigars, Hamburgers, and Killing the Divine 163

The Truth Behind the Story 177

Epilogue: The Three Stages of Awakening 189

Appendix A: Zero Limits Basic Principles 197

Appendix B: How to Heal Yourself (or Anyone Else)
and Discover Health,Wealth, and Happiness 203

Appendix C: Who’s in Charge? Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len 207

Bibliography 225

Online Resources 229

About the Authors 231

Index 233

How to Experience Zero Limits Right Now 238

Preface


Where Peace Begins

Dear Morrnah Nalamaku Simeona, the creator 
and first master teacher of Self I-Dentity Ho’oponopono, had on her desk a placard that read, “Peace begins with me.”

I witnessed this peace beyond all understanding as I worked and traveled with her from December 1982 to that fateful day in Kirchheim, Germany, in February 1992. Even as she lay in death on her bed surrounded by chaos, 
she exuded that stillness beyond all understanding.
It was my great good fortune and honor to have received the training from Morrnah in November 1982 and to have been in her presence for a decade. I have been doing Self I-Dentity Ho’oponopono ever since.I am 
pleased that, with the help of my friend Dr. Joe Vitale, this message can now reach the world.

But the truth is it only has to reach you, through me, as we are all one and it all happens inside.

Peace of I,
Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD
Chairman Emeritus
The Foundation of I, Inc. 
Freedom of the Cosmos

www.hooponopono.org www.businessbyyou.com

Introduction

The Secret of the Universe

In 2006 I wrote an article titled “The World’s Most Unusual Therapist.”
It was about a psychologist who helped heal an entire ward of mentally ill criminals—without ever seeing any of them professionally.
He used an unusual healing method from Hawaii. 
Until 2004, I had never heard of him or his 
method. I searched for two years before I 
found him. I then learned his method and wrote 
that now famous article.
That article swept the Internet. It was posted on 
newsgroups and e-mailed to huge lists of 
people from all walks of life. My own list at
www.mrfire.com loved it, and passed it on to 
tens of thousands of others. They in turn 
forwarded it to family and friends. I estimate
about five million people saw that article.
Everyone who read it found it hard to believe. 
Some were inspired. Some were skeptical.
All wanted more.This book is a result of their 
and my quest. Even if you’re a veteran of the 
five steps in my earlier book,The Attractor 
Factor, you may not understand the incredible 
insights I’m about to reveal to you here, at 
least not at first glance. The simple process 
I’m going to share in this book will help 
explain why I’ve been able to manifest some 
huge accomplishments without actually
trying to make them happen. Here are a few 
of them:

■ My Nightingale-Conant audio program, The 
Power of Outrageous Marketing, happened 
after I quit pounding on their door for 10 years.

■ How did I go from homeless to poverty to 
struggling writer to published author to best-
selling author to Internet marketing guru with 
no plan at all?

■ My desire to attract a BMW Z3 sports car led to 
me being inspired with an Internet marketing idea 
no one had ever thought of before—which made 
me $22,500 in one day and a quarter of a million 
dollars in a year or so.

■ My desire to buy and move into a Texas hill 
country estate when I was broke and going 
through a divorce led to me creating a new 
business that brought in $50,000 in one day.

■ My huge weight loss of 80 pounds occurred 
after I gave up and opened myself to a new 
way to achieve my desire.

■ My desire to be the author of a #1 best-selling 
book led to my writing a #1 best-selling book 
that I never planned to write at all and wasn’t 
even my idea.

■ My appearance in a hit movie, The Secret, 
happened without my begging,pleading,
intending,or orchestrating anything at all.

■ My appearance on Larry King Live in November 
2006, and again in March 2007, happened without 
my ever intending it.

■ As I write these words, Hollywood hotshots are 
talking about turning my book, The Attractor 
Factor, into a movie, and still others are 
negotiating to get me my own television program.
The list could go on, but you get the idea. I have 
many miracles happening in my life.

But why are they happening?

I was once homeless. Today I’m a best-selling 
author, Internet celebrity, and multimillionaire.
What happened to me to create all this success?
Yes, I followed my dreams.
Yes, I took action.
Yes, I was persistent.
Haven’t a lot of other people done those same 
things and yet not achieved success?

What’s different?
If you look at the accomplishments I’ve listed 
with a critical eye,you might see that none of 
them were directly created by me. In fact,what 
they all have in common is a spirit of Divine 
planning, with me a sometimes unwilling 
participant.

Let me explain this another way: Toward the end 
of 2006 I taught a seminar called Beyond 
Manifestation (www.BeyondManifestation.com), 
which is heavily influenced by what I learned
after I discovered the mysterious Hawaiian 
therapist and his method.
In that event I asked everyone to list all the ways 
they knew to manifest or attract something in 
their life.They said things like affirmations,
visualizations, intentions, body awareness 
methods, feeling the end result, scripting, 
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or tapping,
and many, many more. Once the group 
inventoried every single way they could come up 
with to create their own reality, I asked them if 
those ways worked all the time, without exception.
Everyone agreed they did not always work.
“Well, why not?” I asked them.
No one could say for sure.

I then hit the group with my observation: “All of 
those ways have limitations,” I declared. “They 
are toys your mind plays with to keep you thinking 
you’re in charge. The truth is, you are not in 
charge, and the real miracles come when you let 
go of the toys and trust in a place inside yourself 
where there are zero limits.”


I then told them that where you want to be in life 
is behind all of those toys,which is behind the 
chatter of the mind and right there with what we 
call the Divine. I went on to explain that there 
are at least three stages to life, beginning with you as 
victim, then moving on to you as creator of your 
life, and ending—if you’re lucky—with you 
becoming servant to the Divine. In that last stage,
which I’ll discuss later in this book, astonishing 
miracles happen—almost without you trying.

Earlier today I interviewed a goals expert for my 
Hypnotic Gold membership program. (See www.HypnoticGold.com.) He has written a 
dozen books and sold millions of copies of them. 
He knows how to teach people how to set goals. 
Most of his philosophy revolves around having a 
burning desire to accomplish something. But
that’s an incomplete strategy. I asked him what 
he suggested when someone can’t find the 
motivation to set a goal, let alone complete it.
“If I knew that,” he began,“I’d be able to solve
most of the problems in the world.” He went 
on to say that you have to be hungry to achieve 
a goal. If you aren’t, you won’t keep up the 
discipline needed to focus on it and work 
toward it. “But what if you’re not hungry 
enough?” I asked. “Then you won’t reach 
your goal.” “How do you make yourself 
hungry or motivated?” He couldn’t answer.

And that’s the rub. At a certain point all the self-
help and goalsetting programs fail.They come 
up against the troubling fact that if someone 
isn’t ready to achieve something, they won’t 
maintain the energy needed to manifest it.
They’ll quit. Everyone knows this experience 
from setting resolutions on January 1st and
forgetting them by January 2nd. The good 
intentions were there. But something deeper 
wasn’t in alignment with the conscious desires.
So how do you take care of that deeper state that 
isn’t “hungry”? That’s where the Hawaiian 
method you’ll learn in the book comes in 
handy. It helps clean the unconscious, which 
is where the block resides. It helps dissolve 
the hidden programs that keep you from 
attaining your desires, whether health, wealth, 
happiness, or anything else. It all happens
inside you. I’ll explain all of this in the book 
you are holding right now. For now, consider 
this:There’s a quote from Tor Norretranders’ 
book, The User Illusion, that sums up the 
essence of the mental roller-coaster ride 
you’re about to embark on:“The universe 
began when nothing saw itself in the mirror.”
In short, Zero Limits is about returning to the zero 
state, where nothing exists but anything is possible. 
In the zero state there are no thoughts, words, 
deeds, memories, programs, beliefs, or anything 
else. Just nothing.
But one day nothing saw itself in the mirror and 
you were born. From there, you created, and 
unconsciously absorbed and accepted, beliefs, 
programs, memories, thoughts, words, deeds, 
and more. Many of these programs go all the 
way back to the beginning of existence itself.
The whole purpose of this book is to help you 
to experience wonder moment by moment. 
From that place, miracles like the ones I 
described will happen to you.They’ll be unique 
to you.And they’ll be just as marvelous, 
magical, and miraculous. My experience of this 
spiritual rocket ship into power beyond
comprehension has been almost indescribable. 
I have success beyond my wildest dreams. I have 
new skills, and my level of love for myself
and the world is on a level of understanding 
words often fail to describe. I live in a near-
constant state of awe. Let me put it this way: 
Everyone has a lens through which they view 
the world. Religions, philosophies, therapies, 
authors, speakers, gurus, and candlestick 
makers all perceive the world through a 
particular mind-set.What you’ll learn in this 
book is how to use a new lens to dissolve all
other lenses. And once you succeed, you’ll be 
at the place I call zero limits.

Please understand that this is the first book in 
history to reveal this updated Hawaiian method 
for healing, called Self I-Dentity Ho’oponopono. 
But also please understand that this is just one 
man’s experience with the method: mine.While 
this book is written with the blessing of the 
therapist who taught me the amazing method, 
everything to follow is written through my own 
lens of the world.
To fully understand Self I-Dentity Ho’oponopono, 
you need to attend a weekend training and 
experience it for yourself. (Trainings are listed
at www.hooponopono.org and www.zerolimits.info.)
Finally, the entire essence of this book can be 
summed up in one phrase—a phrase you will 
learn to use; a phrase that reveals the ultimate
secret of the universe; a phrase that I want to 
say to you and the Divine right now: “I love you.”
Take a ticket and have a seat.The train into your 
soul is about to take off.

Hold on to your hat.

I love you.

Aloha no wau ia oe.

Dr. Joe Vitale
(Ao Akua)
Austin,Texas

www.mrfire.com

The universe began when nothing saw itself in the mirror.(Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion)

zero limits 1: The Adventure Begins
Peace be with you, all my Peace.

O ka Maluhia no me oe, Ku’u Maluhia a pau loa.

In August 2004, I was speaking and working a 
booth at the National Guild of Hypnotists annual 
convention. I enjoyed the people, the event, the 
energy, and the networking. But I wasn’t 
prepared for the life-changing event that would 
begin that day.
My friend Mark Ryan was working the booth with 
me. Mark is a hypnotherapist, as well. He’s very 
open-minded, curious, articulate, and penetrating 
when it comes to exploring life and all its mysteries.
We often had conversations that lasted for hours.
We talked about our heroes in therapy, from 
Milton Erickson to lesser-known shamans. It was 
during one of these conversations that Mark 
surprised me by asking, “Have you ever heard of the therapist who healed
people without ever seeing them?”
The question stopped me. I had heard of psychic 
healers and remote or distance healers, but Mark 
seemed to be suggesting something different.
“He’s a psychologist who healed an entire mental 
hospital full of the criminally insane (30 to be 
exact)w a single patient.”

“What did he do?”
“He used a Hawaiian healing system called ho’oponopono.”
“Ho-oh-what?” I asked.
I asked Mark to repeat the term about a dozen 
times. I had never heard it before. Mark didn’t 
know the story, or the process, well enough to 
tell me much more. I admit I was curious, but I 
also confess that I was skeptical, as well. I 
figured this had to be an urban legend.
Heal people without seeing them? Yeah, right.
Mark went on to tell me the following story:
“I had been traveling to Mount Shasta in 
California for about 16 years in search of myself,” Mark
 explained. “One friend there gave me a little 
booklet that I never forgot. It was white paper 
with blue ink. It was an article about this Hawaiian 
therapist and his method. I read that article over 
and over again for years. It didn’t describe what
the therapist actually did, but it said he healed people with his method.”
“Where’s that article now?” I asked. I wanted to read it.
“I can’t find it,” Mark said. “But something told 
me to tell you about it. I know you don’t believe 
me, but I’m as fascinated as you are. I want to 
know more, too.” A year passed before the next 
convention. During the intervening months, I 
poked around online but couldn’t find anything 
about any therapist who cured people without 
seeing them. Sure, there’s information on 
distance healing, where someone heals another 
without the other person being present, but I 
understood that the Hawaiian therapist didn’t 
do that. As I would come to learn, there’s no
distance at all in the type of healing he did. 
On top of all that, I didn’t know how to spell 
ho’oponopono to look it up online. So I let it go.
Then, in 2005, at the next annual hypnosis 
convention, Mark again mentioned the therapist.
“Did you ever find anything about him?” he asked.
“I don’t know his name, and I don’t know how to 
spell how whatever that term is,” I explained. “So 
I couldn’t find a thing.”
Mark’s a go-getter.We took a break, pulled out 
my laptop, found a wireless Internet connection, 
and went searching. It didn’t take long to find 
the main and only official site for ho’oponopono 
at www.hooponopono.org. I looked around and 
saw a few articles. They gave me a quick 
overview of what I was about to get into.
I found a definition of ho’oponopono: 
“Ho’oponopono is a process of letting go of 
toxic energies within you to allow the impact
of Divine thoughts, words, deeds, and actions.”
I had no idea what that meant, so I looked 
around some more. I found this: “Simply put, 
Ho’oponopono means,‘to make right,’ or ‘to 
rectify an error.’ According to the ancient 
Hawaiians, error arises from thoughts that are 
tainted by painful memories from the past. 
Ho’oponopono offers a way to release the 
energy of these painful thoughts, or errors, 
which cause imbalance and disease.”
Interesting, yes. But what did it mean?
As I explored the site, looking for 
information on the mysterious psychologist 
who healed people without seeing them, I 
learned that there is an updated form of 
ho’oponopono called Self I-Dentity through 
Ho’oponopono (SITH).
I didn’t pretend to know what all of this 
meant. Mark didn’t pretend, either.We were 
fellow explorers. Our laptop was the horse we
rode into the wilderness of this new land.We 
were in search of answers.We eagerly typed 
forward. We found an article that helped 
explain a few things:

Self I-Dentity Through Ho’oponopono
Being 100 Percent Responsible for the Problems 
of My Clients
By Ihaleakala Hew Len, PhD, and Charles Brown, LMT

In traditional approaches to problem solving and 
healing, the therapist begins with the belief that 
the source of the problem is within the client, 
not within him. He believes that his responsibility 
is to assist the client ...
( http://files.meetup.com/3684022/ZeroLimitsJoeVitaleINGLES.pdf
 ...in working through his problem. Could these
 beliefs have resulted in systemic burnout throughout the healing profession?
To be an effective problem solver, the therapist must be willing to be 100 percent responsible for having created the problem situation; that is, he must be willing to see that the source of the problem is erroneous thoughts within him,
not within the client.Therapists never seem to notice that every time there is a problem, they are always present!
Being 100 percent responsible for actualizing the problem allows the therapist to be 100 percent responsible for resolving it. Using the updated Ho’oponopono approach, a process of repentance, forgiveness, and transmutation developed by Kahuna Lapa’au Morrnah Nalamaku
Simeona, a therapist is able to have erroneous thoughts within himself and within the client transmuted into perfect thoughts of LOVE.
Her eyes brim with tears. Deep trenches enclose the corners of her mouth. “I am worried about my son,” Cynthia sighs softly. “He’s back on drugs again.”As she tells her painful story, I begin the cleaning of the erroneous thoughts within me that have actualized as her problem.
As erroneous thoughts are replaced by loving thoughts in the therapist and in his family, relatives, and ancestors, they are replaced too in the client and in her family, relatives, and ancestors.The updated Ho’oponopono process allows the therapist to work directly with the Original Source who can transmute erroneous thoughts into LOVE. Her eyes dry up.The trenches around her mouth soften. She smiles, relief dawning across her face. “I don’t know why, but I’m feeling better.” I do not
know why, either. Really. Life is a mystery except to
LOVE, who knows all. I just let it go at that, and 
just thank LOVE from whom all blessings flow.
In problem solving using the updated Ho’oponopono process, the therapist first takes his I-Dentity, his Mind, and connects it up with the Original Source, what others call LOVE or GOD.With the connection in place, the therapist then appeals to LOVE to correct the erroneous thoughts within him that are actualizing as the problem for himself first  and for the client second.The appeal is a process of repentance and forgiveness on the part of the therapist—“I am sorry for the erroneous thoughts within me that have caused the problem for me and for the client; please forgive me.”
In response to the repentance and forgiveness appeal of the therapist, LOVE begins the mystical process of transmuting the erroneous thoughts. In this spiritual correction process, LOVE first neutralizes the erroneous emotions that have caused the problem, be they resentment, fear, anger, blame, or confusion. In the next step, LOVE then releases the neutralized energies from the thoughts, leaving them in a state of void, of emptiness, of true freedom.
With the thoughts empty, free, LOVE then fills them with Itself. The result? The therapist is renewed, restored in LOVE.As the therapist is renewed so is the client and all involved in the problem.Where there was despair in the client, there is LOVE.Where there was darkness in her soul, there is now the healing Light of LOVE.
The Self I-Dentity through Ho’oponopono training 
teaches people who they are and how they can solve problems moment to moment, and in the process be renewed and restored in LOVE.The training begins with a two-hour free lecture. Attendees are given an overview of how thoughts within them actualize as spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, relational, and financial problems in their lives and in the lives of their families, relatives, ancestors, friends, neighbors, and associates. In the weekend training, students are taught what a problem is, where the problems are located, how to solve different kinds of problems using over 25 problem solving processes, and how to really take good care of themselves.The underlying emphasis in the training is on being 100 percent responsible for themselves and for what happens in their lives and for solving problems effortlessly.
The wonder of the updated Ho’oponopono process is that you get to meet yourself anew each moment, and you get to appreciate more and more with each application of the process the renewing miracle of LOVE. 

I operate my life and my relationships according to 
the following insights:

1. The physical universe is an actualization of my thoughts.

2. If my thoughts are cancerous, they create a cancerous physical reality.

3. If my thoughts are perfect, they create a 
physical reality brimming with LOVE.

4. I am 100 percent responsible for creating my 
physical universe the way it is.

5. I am 100 percent responsible for correcting the 
cancerous thoughts that create a diseased reality.

6. There is no such thing as out there. Everything 
exists as thoughts in my mind.


Mark and I read the article and wondered which 
author was the therapist we sought: Charles Brown 
or this Dr. Hew Len.We didn’t know.We couldn’t 
tell.And who was this Morrnah the article 
mentioned? And what was Self I-Dentity Ho-oh-
please?

We read on. We found a few more articles that 
shed light on what we sought. They included 
revealing statements, such as:“Self I-Dentity through Ho’oponopono sees each problem not as 
an ordeal, but as an opportunity. Problems are 
just replayed memories of the past showing up to 
give us one more chance to see with the eyes of 
LOVE and to act from inspiration.”

I was curious but I wasn’t getting it. Problems 
were “replayed memories of the past”? Huh? 
What were these authors trying to explain? How 
did this ho-whatever help the therapist who healed 
people? Who was this therapist, anyway?

I found yet another article, this one by a reporter 
named Darrell Sifford, who wrote about meeting 
the creator of this ho’opo-whatever process. Her 
name is Morrnah and she’s a kahuna, or keeper of 
the secrets.What this Morrnah does to help heal 
people is “appeal to the divine creator of our 
choice ‘through the divinity that is within each 
person . . . who is really an extension of the divine 
creator.’ ”

Maybe you understand that. I didn’t at the time. 
Neither did Mark. Apparently this Morrnah said 
some words, like a prayer, that helped people heal. 
I made a mental note to locate that prayer, but 
right now I was going on a different mission: to 
find the therapist and learn his method for healing. 
My eagerness to know more and to meet this 
shaman therapist was becoming more and more 
exciting.

Even though Mark and I really needed to be back 
at our booth at the convention, we let it slide so 
we could continue our quest.

Based on the articles and web site, we guessed the 
therapist we wanted to find was named Ihaleakala 
Hew Len. Some first name. I had no idea how to 
pronounce it, let alone spell it. I didn’t know how 
to locate him, either.The site didn’t have any 
contact information for him. Mark and I tried to 
Google him, but turned up nothing. We began to 
wonder if this ethereal therapist was a fiction, or retired or even deceased. I closed my laptop and went back to the convention.

But the adventure had begun.

THE SECRET DOOR TO SUCCESS

The Secret Door to Success

"So the people shouted when the priests blew 
with the trumpets; and it came to pass, when 
the people heard the sound of the trumpet,and 
the people shouted with a great shout,that the 
wall fell down flat, so that the people went up 
into the city, every man straight before him, 
and they took the city." ~ Joshua 6:20

A successful man is always asked - "What is 
the secret of your success?"

People never ask a man who is a failure, "What is 
the secret of your failure?" It is quite easy to see 
and they are not interested.

People all want to know how to open the secret door to success.

For each man there is success, but it seems to be 
behind a door or wall. In the Bible reading, we 
have heard the wonderful story of the falling of 
the walls of Jericho.

Of course all biblical stories have a metaphysical interpretation.

We will talk now about your wall of Jericho: the 
wall separating you from success. Nearly every
-one has built a wall around his own Jericho.

This city you are not able to enter, contains great 
treasures; your divinely designed success, your 
heart's desire!

What kind of wall have you built around your 
Jericho? Often, it is a wall of resentment - 
resenting someone, or resenting a situation, 
shuts off your good.

If you are a failure (when you quit) and resent 
the success of someone else, you are keeping
away your own success.

I have given the following statement to neutralize 
envy and resentment.

What God has done for others, He now does for me and more.

A woman was filled with envy because a friend 
had received a gift, she made this statement, and 
an exact duplicate of the gift was given her - plus 
another present.

It was when the children of Israel shouted, that 
the walls of Jericho fell down. When you make 
an affirmation of Truth, your wall of Jericho totters.

I gave the following statement to a woman: 
The walls of lack and delay now crumble away,and I enter my Promised Land, under grace. 

She had a vivid picture of stepping over a fallen 
wall, and received the demonstration of her good, 
almost immediately.

It is the word of realization which brings about a 
change in your affairs; for words and thoughts are 
a form of radio-activity. 

Taking an interest in your work, enjoying what 
you are doing opens the secret door of success.

A number of years ago I went to California to 
speak at the different centers, by way of the 
Panama Canal, and on the boat I met a man named Jim Tully.

For years he had been a tramp. He called himself The King of the Hoboes.

He was ambitious and picked up an education.

He had a vivid imagination and commenced writing 
stories about his experiences.

He dramatized tramp life, he enjoyed what he 
was doing, and became a very successful author. 
I remember one book called "Outside Looking In." 
It was made into a motion picture.

He is now famous and prosperous and lives in 
Hollywood. What opened the secret door to 
success for Jim Tully?

Dramatizing his life - being interested in what he 
was doing, he made the most of being a tramp. 
On the boat, we all sat at the captain's table, 
which gave us a chance to talk.

Mrs. Grace Stone was also a passenger on the 
boat; she had written the "Bitter Tea of General 
Yen," and was going to Hollywood to have it 
made into a moving-picture; she had lived in 
China and was inspired to write the book.

That is the Secret of Success, to make what you 
are doing interesting to other people. Be 
interested yourself, and others will find you interesting.

A good disposition, a smile, often opens the secret door; the Chinese say, "A man without a smiling face, must not open a shop."

The success of a smile was brought out in a French moving-picture in which Chevalier took the lead, the picture was called, "With a Smile." One of the characters had become poor, dreary and almost a derelict; He said to Chevalier "What good has my honesty done me?" Chevalier replied, "Even honesty won't help you, without a smile." So the man changes on the spot, cheers up, and becomes 

very successful.

Living in the past, complaining of your misfortunes, builds a thick wall around

your Jericho.

Talking too much about your affairs, scattering 
your forces, brings you up against a high wall. 
I knew a man of brains and ability, who was a 
complete failure.

He lived with his mother and aunt, and I found 
that every night when he went home to dinner, 
he told them all that had taken place during the 
day at the office; he discussed his hopes, his 
fears, and his failures.

I said to him, "You scatter your forces by talking 
about your affairs. Don't discuss your business 
with your family. Silence is golden!" 

He took my lead. During dinner he refused to talk 
about business. His mother and aunt were in 
despair. They loved to hear all about everything, 
but his silence proved golden!

Not long after, he was given a position at one 
hundred dollars a week, and in a few years, he 
had a salary of three hundred dollars a week.

Success is not a secret, it is a System.

Many people are up against the wall of 
discouragement. Courage and endurance are 
part of the system. We read this in lives of all 
successful men and women.

I had an amusing experience which brought this to
my notice. I went to a moving picture theatre to 
meet a friend.

While waiting, I stood near a young boy, selling programs.

He called to people passing, "Buy a complete 
program of the picture, containing photographs of 
the actors and a sketch of their lives."

Most people passed by without buying. To my 
great surprise, he suddenly turned to me, and said 
- "Say, this ain't no racket for a guy with ambition!"

Then he gave a discourse on success. He said, 
"Most people give up just before something big 
is coming to them. A successful man never gives up."

Of course I was interested and said, "I'll bring you 
a book the next time I come. It is called The Game 
of Life and How to Play It. You will agree with a 
lot of the ideas."

A week or two later I went back with the book.

The girl at the ticket office said to him - "Let me 
read it, Eddie, while you are selling programs." 
The man who took tickets leaned over to see 
what it was about.

"The Game of Life" always gets people's interests.

I returned to the theatre in about three weeks, 
Eddie had gone. He had expanded into a new job 
that he liked. His wall of Jericho had crumbled, he
had refused to be discouraged.

Only twice, is the word success mentioned in the 
Bible - both times in the Book of Joshua.

"Only be strong and very courageous to observe to 
do according to all the law which Moses, my 
servant, commanded thee: turn not from it to the 
right nor to the left, that thou mayest have good 
success whithersoever thou goest. This book of the
law shall not depart from thy mouth, but thou shalt 
meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest 
observe to do all that is written therein, for then 
shalt thou make thy way prosperous and thou shalt 
have good success. Turn not to the right nor to the left."

The road to success is a straight and narrow path; it is a road of loving absorption, of undivided attention.

You attract the things you give a great deal of 
thought to.

So if you give a great deal of thought to lack, you 
attract lack, if you give a great deal of thought to 
injustice, you attract more injustice.

Joshua said, "And it shall come to pass, that when 
they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and 
when ye hear the sound of the trumpet, all the 
people shall shout with a great shout: and the wall 
of the city shall fall down flat, and the people shall 
ascend up, every man straight before him."

The inner meaning of this story, is the power of 
the word, your word which dissolves obstacles, 
and removes barriers.

When the people shouted the walls fell down.

We find in folk-lore and fairy stories, which 
come down from legends founded on Truth, 
the same idea - a word opens a door or cleaves a rock.

We have it again in the Arabian Night's Story, "Ali 
Baba and The Forty Thieves." I saw it made into 
a moving picture.

Ali Baba has a secret hiding place, hidden 
somewhere behind rocks and mountains, the 
entrance may only be gained by speaking a secret 
word. It is "Open Sesame!"

Ali Baba faces the mountain and cries "Open 
Sesame!" and rocks slide apart.

It is very inspiring, for it gives you the realization 
of how YOUR own rocks and barriers, will part 
at the right word.

So let us take the statement -
The walls of lack and delay now crumble away,
and I enter my Promised Land, under grace.

***************************
“Outside Looking In” is, most fundamentally, a series of pointed scenes from a busy life. Its vaguely oxymoronic subtitle (“Adventures of an Observer”) seems misleading. No one who counted William F. Buckley, John Waters, Studs Terkel, Beverly Sills and Murray Kempton among his many friends, and who had close-up views of many of the last century’s signal events, can qualify as a true outsider.

The early chapters of “Outside Looking In” are a Greyhound bus tour through many events Mr. Wills covered as a barnstorming young journalist, writing for Harold Hayes’s Esquire and other publications. He was thrown in jail along with Benjamin Spock, Joe Papp and Judy Collins during the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago, after agreeing to take part in a protest. He flew into Memphis on the night of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. He visited strip clubs in Dallas in 1966 while writing about Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer, who owned a club called the Carousel.

There is a chapter here on Nixon (Wills landed on his enemies list), as well as on Jimmy Carter, whom he admired, and on the Clintons (he has kinder things to say about Hillary than about Bill, and admires her gifts as a mimic). There are chapters as well on Buckley, who asked the young and unknown Mr. Wills to write theater criticism for National Review, and on Studs Terkel. Mr. Wills also writes fondly about his friendship with the actor and antiwar activist Dick Cusack, the father of the actors John and Joan, and the rest of the busy Cusack clan.




Credit Patricia Wall/The New York Times
Mr. Wills writes gratefully, and with relish, about the intellectual and spiritual armor he acquired early. “I was blessed by my schooling — Catholic grade school, high school, college (St. Louis University) and graduate school (Xavier of Cincinnati),” he says.

Mr. Wills also has a Ph.D. in classics from Yale, and he is eloquent about why this sort of education matters to anyone who wishes to write and think seriously. “Learning classical Greek is the most economical intellectual investment one can make,” he writes. “On many things that might interest one — law and politics, philosophy, oratory, history, lyric poetry, epic poetry, drama — there will be constant reference back to the founders of those forms in our civilization.”

There are moments when “Outside Looking In” seems like a data dump, as if Mr. Wills were flipping though a trunk of his yellowed magazine clips. There’s more here than is strictly necessary about things like the particulars of Sills’s run as chairwoman of the Metropolitan Opera. And a bit, spread over several pages, about the actor Joseph Fiennes’s behaving like a twerp on a film set that Mr. Wills visited is a waste of this book’s already limited storage capacity.

Other narrative detours are pure labors of love. Mr. Wills’s chapter on his family’s years in Baltimore (he and his wife have three children) includes a long and ardent disquisition on the glories of Johnny Unitas’s passing with the Baltimore Colts, and Raymond Berry’s receiving. Mr. Wills approvingly quotes the sportswriter Frank Deford, who declared: “If there were one game scheduled, Earth versus the Klingons, with the fate of the universe on the line, any person with his wits about him would have Johnny U. calling signals in the huddle.”

Mr. Wills’s politics have never been doctrinaire, but he makes it clear that he arrived at his middle-class conservatism by temperament. He says the rosary daily. He has never smoked pot. He dresses, in his daughter’s words, “like a bum.” He has had sex with only one woman.

“I agree with Hilaire Belloc: ‘it is well to have loved one woman from a child,’ ” he writes.

More than faith, Mr. Wills admires faithfulness. He’s justifiably proud that he’s been true to his wife, to his friends, to the two universities where he’s taught for long stretches over 43 years and to the few literary agents he’s had. For a man who describes himself as one of the least interesting people on the planet, he makes the old virtues sound surprisingly sexy.

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
Adventures of an Observer
By Garry Wills

195 pages. Viking. $25.95.