...  You may find this of interest: In 1965, I discovered Napoleon Hill’s classic book Think and Grow Rich (and I utilized it deliberately, and it worked for me gloriously!). Hill’s principles worked so well for me that, using Think and Grow Rich as a textbook, and in conjunction with my business, I began teaching the principles I had been learning to others.

My mission statement was at that time the same as it is today: It is my intention that the lives of all people I interact with will either be elevated as a result of our interaction, or they will be left where they are, but that no one will be diminished as a result of their association with me.

After a few years of teaching Hill’s principles of success, I came to realize that only a handful of those who were studying with me had achieved the magnitude of success that I was anticipating for all of them. And although there were many who did experience significant growth, there were also those who appeared to have no significant financial growth no matter how many success courses they attended.

In the first nine pages of Hill’s book, he instructs the readers to look for the secret. (He mentions “the hidden secret” 24 times.) Well, I probably read that book over a thousand times between 1965 and 1982, but I was never certain that I never really knew what “the secret” actually was. I sensed that something was missing. Somehow I sensed that there was another factor in the financial-success equation . . . and so I began to search for the missing link.

During my continued search, even though I read through many books regarding many philosophies, Think and Grow Rich was still as close to what I had been asking for as I had been able to find, but much of what Hill knew he didn’t include in the book (because it wouldn’t have been accepted by the mass market). And much of the secret that he did put in the book was edited out!

About three years ago, I discovered an unabridged Think and Grow Rich manuscript. It had been republished by Melvin Powers’s Wilshire Book Company; and as I compared it, word for word, with the version that I had been using for over 40 years, I was amazed to discover that the “secret” had actually been skillfully edited out.

It’s no wonder that I was not able to discover Hill’s secret: It wasn’t there! I won’t use the space here to go into much further detail, except to tell you that among many other potent omissions, the word vibration was edited out of the book 37 times. (Remember that point—I’ll be referring to it later.) And so it turned out that many of the “secrets to success” Napoleon Hill had discovered he didn’t even try to publish, and much of the “truth” he did try to publish in his first edition was edited out.

And now, let’s move forward 70 years to where Esther and I find ourselves amusingly enlightened regarding our experience of a publication of a “truth.”

A television producer asked Esther and me to allow her to build a television show around our work. She brought her film crew onboard one of our Well-Being Adventure Cruises and filmed the heart of her production around our workshop there on the ship. However, because of a series of fortuitous events, the movie evolved into a DVD format before its Australian network-television airing, and as a result, the project became an enormous success. Millions of people around the world have viewed it. And although the show was named The Secret and its advertised intention was to reveal to the world the previously hidden “secret to success,” little did the enthusiastic viewers know that the real “secret” that they had been seeking had, once again, been suppressed. . . . In other words, before the show was allowed to be aired, we were informed that The Powers That Be had demanded that, among other things, Abraham’s use of the key word vibration be edited out of the project.

Esther and I were astonished! Here, seven decades later, the public is again being “protected” from the word vibration! And so, it turned out that the real secret behind The Secret was that “the secret” was still being kept a secret.

When you’re on the inside of an event like this, doesn’t it make you wonder how much “truth” ever gets past the censors? However, I’ve come to believe that the reason why most of those innovative philosophical concepts are edited out by the media is not to try to hide the “truth” from the masses, but rather to be able to sell what the marketers believe the people will buy. Also, well-meaning people, in their desire to make innovative ideas more acceptable, often water down or reword new ideas to weaken or buffer the impact of their purity. Abraham has informed us that there is never a crowd on the Leading Edge of thought. However, in this new age of instant Internet connection, we have learned that there are always, among the crowd, Leading Edge thinkers.

Esther and I received the delightful news from our publisher this past week (in March 2007) that our book The Law of Attraction (transcribed from our 1985 recordings) has moved up the charts to arrive at the number-two position on the New York Times bestseller list. Also, of the millions of books listed on Amazon.com, our first Hay House book, Ask and It Is Given, has remained among the top 100 books purchased for nearly every day since it came out three years ago. We were told last week that our CD audio book The Law of Attraction is at the number-three position of all those available on iTunes; and that beginning this month, the Teachings of Abraham are now on display in Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, Target, and Costco—in other words, they are now available at each of more than 10,000 mass retail outlets and regular bookstores—and the list goes on. (We even had the pleasure and honor, this month, of creating three radio shows with the brilliant—and fun-loving—television host Oprah Winfrey.)

Why am I pointing this out here? Well, now that this information is so readily accessible to mainstream audiences, we’re beginning to hear a wide variety of mainstream responses—via various book reviews—and now I’ve begun reading the online reviews. And, oh, how sweet it is to read of how much pleasure these books are bringing to so many of those who now have the opportunity to learn from them. But ouch! The sting of one bee in a bouquet of fragrant flowers! For instance, there are critics who denounce the message because they believe Esther is profiting by “faking” her means of reception of these teachings—in other words, “she says she’s channeling” so that readers will buy the books. And then there are those opposite critics who would denounce the information because they do believe that Esther is receiving these teachings directly from Abraham, but they have been told by the programmers of their conscience that there is something wrong with allowing a book to be written in that manner. . . . How would you please them all?

Well, we learned long ago that no one can please everyone, so we decided early in 1985 to self-publish our material so that we could make available whatever practical information we would receive from Abraham (uncensored) in its purity to those who are asking the questions that are being answered by Abraham.

When Louise Hay requested that we ask Abraham to write a comprehensive book and allow Hay House to publish it (Ask and It Is Given, 2004), she stated to her executives: “We will inform our entire staff that Abraham’s words are not to be changed during the editing process. We are going to allow Abraham’s teachings to reach out, in their purity, into the entire world.”

Esther and I are indescribably pleased that Louise and her publishing company are in the process of fulfilling that intention of providing this magnificent material, in its pure form, to those people of the world who are asking for it—and we also appreciate those people of the world who are asking for it. We do adore facilitating the publication of yet another magnificent book that will continue the dissemination of the Teachings of Abraham, but our greatest joy is in the translation—the creation—of the information.