"THE SECRET": CREATING A CULTURE OF CHEERFULNESS AS ROME BURNS

[Jcrowley]

"THE SECRET": CREATING A CULTURE OF CHEERFULNESS AS ROME BURNS, By Carolyn Baker
March 28, 2007



A friend recently asked me what I knew about The Secret, and I had to confess, absolutely nothing. A couple of days later, another friend asked the same question, so I decided I’d better investigate this supposedly revolutionary new book and DVD that have taken the country by storm. As I did so, I discovered that nothing about The Secret is revolutionary or new but rather a glitzy, twenty-first century redux of what has come to be called in metaphysical circles “New Thought”.

While aspects of New Thought have their roots in ancient teachings, it is for the most part, uniquely American—its roots in this country stemming from the transcendentalist movement of the late-nineteenth century. Among those giving birth to New Thought in America were Mary Baker Eddy, founding mother of Christian Science, Emma Curtis Hopkins, Ernest Holmes, and Charles Fillmore. What was “new” about New Thought at the time of its inception was its departure from Calvinistic, shame-based Christianity which taught the inherent sinfulness of man, proclaiming instead man’s innate goodness and perfectibility through the use of the Divine Mind which the transcendentalists believed resided at his core.

The New Thought movement emphasizes the supremacy of the mind over the body and material existence. While most adherents of New Thought do not deny the reality of corporeal existence as did Mary Baker Eddy who insisted that “there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter,” they overwhelmingly revere the spiritual over the material and believe that physical, corporeal reality is a manifestation of mind. In other words, that our thoughts and attitudes create our external reality.

<snip>

It’s All About Me
In Sibling Society (1996) Robert Bly astutely, in my opinion, describes American culture as one of children who have never matured into adulthood and where “adults cling to self-absorbed adolescent values, television talk shows have more clout than elders, children are spiritually abandoned to fend for themselves, and in the place of community we have built shopping malls.” I can think of no more apt description of The Secret than this, for it is first and foremost all about me and what I want.

http://carolynbaker.org/archives/the-secret-creating-a-culture-of-cheerfulness-as-rome-burns-by-carolyn-baker

[saltpoint]

1. Any dismissal of Calvinist thought is A-OK in my book.

And I agree with you on Bly. He's tops.

[Critters2]

59. Have you read Calvin...not "about Calvin", not Weber, but Calvin? nt

[donco6]

Here's my favorite Calvin quote:

"God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation."

Wow - creating people to suffer eternal damnation. What a great God!

[Critters2]

67. Yeah, the problem was that Calvin painted himself into a logical corner

with his statements that God foreordained some to heaven, then thought that necessarily meant some had to go to hell. Ursinus and Olevianus cleaned this up, by saying Christians can feel assured their foreordained for salvation, and just not worry about whether anyone is going to hell.

Calvin was mostly a victim of his education at the University of Paris, where logic trumped all--faith, kindness, etc. He was trained to think that way, and it shows.

Too few see his softer side (yes, he had one), like his letters at the death of his wife, his work at making Geneva basically a refuge city during the Thirty Years War, or his encouraging women to believe they might have a vocation outside the home and ordaining them as deaconesses (often in the hospitals serving refugees).

But yeah, he could have stopped at telling people they were going to heaven.

[saltpoint]

65. I have, yes, and I find him appalling.

I would enthusiastically nominate John Calvin for a posthumous Asshole of History Award.

I can't stand the guy.

Now Calvin & Hobbes -- the comic strip -- I thought that was pretty darn good.

[KittyWampus]

2. As someone who's studied Qabala for well over a decade. The Secret is "Esoteric Wisdom for Dummies"

it talks about the Law of Attraction with no understanding of the underlying forces involved.

In other words, it makes a perfectly valid point but ignores the other essential points necessary to bring ones self and environment into balance.

It is unquestionable that our thoughts shape our reality.

There is, however, a very specific process we all must go through before we can reverse that and allow Universal Reality to shape our Thoughts.

The Secret doesn't contain even a clue on how to reverse that flow of energy.

[Pharaoh]

5. Good Point

I always thought "the Secret" was being too simplistic, It's all about "me" when it should be all about "us" as we are all one makes it a bit more complex.

[KittyWampus]

8. IN my training though, the starting point is "Me". We must learn to recognise our Desire Nature

so that we may then learn to direct it safely and efficiently.

Rather than denying,demonizing trying to eliminate our Desire Nature, we must learn to harnass that energy and redirect it.

In Tarot cards, for a pictoral example, Strength is now most often show as a Woman (Subconscious) gently and lovingly managing a Lion (Base Desire Nature).

In days past that symbol was shown by a Man (Consciousness) struggling or killing the Lion/Dragon.

Fundie Christians and all too many exoteric philosophies are about denying or loathing our Desire Nature.

It is an integral part of our Self. And it is what not only drives us forward and helps shape our reality- it's what connects us to one another.

[The Stranger]

23. Excellent posts -- can you give me/us recommended reading on more of this?

[Leopolds Ghost]

38. self-delete

duplicate post

[Leopolds Ghost]

39. it's bullshit if you ask me....Kabbala is religion, not metaphysics.

What you ought to do is study hard metaphysics.

There is a big difference between Transcendentalism
(which is plausible, though misguided) Gnosticism, and Solipsism.

As anyone who has studied hard philosophy will tell you, the mind body "problem" can't be solved by Tarot cards.

Desire is not some mystical force that is part of your consciousness.

It is merely the functional act of wanting STUFF.

You must learn to understand that it is not all about you and your wants.

There are no "fundamental wants" in life other than eat, sleep, drink, and f*ck.

Anything, any understanding beyond that deals with the spiritual, or transcendental, if you will.

Next time you eat a salad, instead of patting yourself on the back for fulfilling your wants, ask yourself: what is it about the salad that I want? There is nothing intrinsic to the taste of salad that makes it a fulfilling experience to eat. Your body craves the nutrients, that is it. Don't try telling us how you're training to understand that this is some kind of spiritual dimension. Spiritual is the exact opposite, understanding that desire for the salad is meaningless.

Some people have a compulsion to wash their hands 50 times a day. Are they "fulfilling their purpose" and "grasping a larger reality" by doing so, or by snapping out of it and observing what they're doing?

All this "self-fulfillment" crap is a narcissistic excuse to abandon spirituality for spiritualism -- who you are is not important -- what's important is that the TV does indeed try and tell you who you are and what to think, and rather than turn off the TV, people seem to think it matters who they are and what they want in life, what to buy, where to seek SELF fulfillment, create an ALTERNATIVE consumer lifestyle for themselves so they can pretend they are not part of the mainstream consumer society.

[KittyWampus]

41. Tarot=glyphs representing the 22 Universal Principles~The Metaphysical Periodic Table Of Elements

You want to study and practise Chemistry, you start by learning Atomic Theory and then memorize the Periodic Table of Elements.

You want to study and PRACTISE (as in not just do a dry intellectual exercise), Philosophy/Metaphysics, you start by learning the basic components of Reality. What the Universe boils down to.

Tarot, as it is used in Esoteric studies, uses symbols to access our Subconcious and Superconscious Mind in a very practical, realistic way. It helps one rid ingrained, habitual attitudes and restructures our Consciousness so it's more intuned to Universal Principles.

It is the pictoral version of the Hebrew alphabet.

It is a Symbolic language just as Chemistry and Mathematics have a practical language that engages in its own sort of shorthand enabling a student to communicate and represent huge amounts of information in an abbreviated form.

Anyway,

You want to build a structure that is durable, you have to be aware of and utilize certain geometric proportions and physical laws.
You want to build a personality that can transcend stresses, you have to be aware of and USE same sort of scientific approach.

Qabala, like Hinayana Buddhism, is the Esoteric branch of a particular Religion. As such, it goes beyond dogma. It is a Philosophy. But one based on Scientific principles that lay out a framework and then gives its practioners the task of using Trial and Error to Verify results.

And it's useless arguing over whether there exists a Subconscious & Superconscious Mind that exist alongside the Consious Mind. Each exists and interacts with the other.

And I have little personal use for studying "hard philosophy" as merely an intellectual exercise.

[ends_dont_justify]

55. Disguisting...don't pay attention to this as 'hard truth'

There is a profound difference between reading and understanding. You obviously do not understand a thing. Anyone with such a gross amount of anger and negativity spewing forth from them could only possibly have read such things to debunk others. If you were serious about what you talked about you would know the distinction is different for the individual. The "it's about me" part comes from everyone's unique make up, psyche, and level of self awareness. No one is born out of some assembly line where we all subscribe to the same id.

And you know what? I know the way this post came across was uncalled for, but I stand by it as I'm passionate about the topic and the people who simply debunk others with NOTHING but rage in them for the sake of being a nuisance, not understanding where it can mess up someone interested in the matter. It was posts like your own that kept me in the hard-brainwashed christian syndicate and I could have been a lot happier a lot sooner as soon as I realized opinions like this are born of nothing but imposing fear on others.

Not a damn soul has the right to tell anyone else their way is wrong. Stunting someone's interest in a greater philosophy sure as hell isn't helping anyone to find themselves on a better path than the tv bandwagon to beelzebub and rot. And I certainly hope the mods let this one slip by without delete -- if someone's gonna dish it out as hard as you just did they certainly need some thick skin to back it up with. Not a one has the right to condemn the individual values of another on this kind of level. Politics it's all up for grabs, but don't go acting as an authority in an area your words to anyone enlightened past the point of a lightbulb can see you're nothing but a brute.

[OneGrassRoot]

21. Excellent commentary - thank you for putting into words . . .

what I have been thinking and feeling about this issue. I'll use your words, if you don't mind. LOL

[DrunkenMaster]

40. Umm....NO

It is NOT "unquestionable that our thoughts shape our reality."

If you truly believe that, I sauggest you repeat "I can Fly" to yourself thirty times and jump off the nearest ten story building. We can talk a little more after you've recovered from spinal surgery.

Perceptions and Thoughts are NOT the truth of the external Universe. You can make yourself believe ANYTHING but that belief does not correspond to the external Universe any more than a child's dream of Santa Claus makes the fat man anything else then a parent's deception.

Nice try at rescuing a broken belief system, though.

[KittyWampus]

42. I CAN fly. Just not with my physical body, YET. However, it is recorded that certain yogi's

after reaching far into their development can appear anywheres at will.

Sounds ridiculous to believe such things are possible. I am not going to try to convince anyone they are and couldn't give a crap if anyone laughs at me for knowing such things are possible.

[DrunkenMaster]

43. Bwahahaaaa!

To paraphrase WC Fields, "there is a seeker born every minute."

Funny shite.

[DrunkenMaster]

44. It has NOT been recorded that ANYONE flies, levitates

or soars through the air without the aid of machines. Please, cite a source. A SCIENTIFICALLY VALIDATED STUDY.

Got one? Didn't think so. Please, put down your DVD copy of "What the Bleep Do We Know" and study some real science.

No wonder the Left has such a bed rep.

[Bill McBlueState]

51. nice use of the passive voice.

"It is recorded..."

It is recorded where and by whom?

[KittyWampus]

58. Read Patanjali's "Yoga Aphorisms" for instance.

[DrunkenMaster]

71. Oh please

If you believe than ANY guru, messiah or miracleman has accomplished ANY type of scientifically validated miracle, please cite a valid source for review.

Otherwise you need to admit that all of this is nothing but mystical mumbojumbo meant to part bored middleclass suckers from their money so they can believe there is something more to existence then their own pathetic, meaningless lives.

[DrunkenMaster]

72. by suckers

for suckers.

[underpants]

49. Why does it have to be a ten story building?

Why not just try to fly from standing on the ground? I have never understood why there had to be the element of sure death involved. Maybe THAT is why there never has been anyone who figured out how to do it-they all fell for that part of the argument and they never got a chance to finish working on it.

[DrunkenMaster]

73. because they BELIEVE!

If you have FAITH, you'll fly! That's the Secret! (tm)

[vanlassie]

83. You think that since you can't think yourself into flying

that your thoughts don't shape your reality?

When you were a child and you believed in Santa Clause he was most definately "real" ---true----to you, at that time.

Today , when you hear a loud noise that you believe is an intruder downstairs, your heart races and adrenalin flows- you get real shakes, real sweat, and you might really do something in reaction.

You mind does that. Right there in YOUR reality. And if you shoot your daughter in fear after believing she is the intruder, she will really be dead.

vanlassie

[eridani]

108. A Zen Christmas koan

First there is a Santa Claus.
Then there is no Santa Claus.
Then there is.

[Chemical Bill]

117. I don't understand...

are you saying that if I can't fly, then "The Secret" is no good?

Bill

[judaspriestess]

100. true, but its getting this out in the OPEN

which is what is desperately needed.

[CJCRANE]

3. I see the B*sh administration

as an example of the worst that can happen using this way of thinking. They attempt to "create reality" to force it to fit their pre-conceived ideology.

Reality is now beginning to fight back.

[CoffeeCat]

9. Yes...and the reality they are creating for us...

...is really sick.

They are inflicted a fear-based reality on this nation--in an effort to control people.

It's as if they want us paralyzed, weak, vulnerable and looking for a father figure to
lead us by the noses in our collective catatonic state.

This administration's policies allows corporations to exert enormous control over
our personal lives. Look at the wide leeway credit-card companies and banks get.
These institutions freely give us enough rope with which to hang ourselves. We can
spend ourselves into debt until they own our butts---or purchase a $500,000 home when
we make $65,000 annually.

Does anyone really think that those things are mistakes? I believe we are being
intentionally traumatized. I know it sounds conspiratorial and a bit nutty. However,
I also know that BushCo cannot pull off their crimes without an emotionally hobbled
citizenry. They freely encourage reckless spending and irresponsibility--as they attempt
to take away social security and other longstanding safety nets.

They can only control us if we're weak--and I think many of their corporate-centered policies
are designed not only to help their corporate buddies---but to emotionally cripple us
into a needy state in which we are too traumatized to fight back.

[marions ghost]

15. you do not sound nutty, TwoSparkles

& you have put it very well IMO. We are indeed "an emotionally hobbled citizenry." The ways this is being done to us are very insidious and many people don't understand what is going on, although they may feel uneasy. It's done purposely, absolutely. I'm not going to write an essay here, but totally agree with you. So would a lot of DUers.

[ananda]

33. bully-abuse syndrome

One of the huge middle class appearances values is niceness
and justification for crimes and abuse.

The only answer is zero tolerance, and it's not always a good
thing to be -nice-.

[KittyWampus]

4. Oh, and the 1st exerise in my Qabalastic training was deciding "What I Want". Most people never

really, effectively do this. Very few people sit down and meditate on what they singlemindedly want. And then focus on achieving that goal.

In Qabala we learn that our Desire Nature is what drives us. It's our Emotive power that propels us out of existing situations.

Without a burning, all encompassing desire it is impossible to devote ones attention to an Objective.

Remember how you could think of nothing else when you met your wife/husband/lover?

That is why the talk in Esoteric Religion of the Beloved.

It is also why the use of Arrows and Hitting The Mark.

The Secret contains none of the Mechanics of how that all works.

[CoffeeCat]

6. We have become hyper-myopic...

Americans seem so grossly self focused. It's as if we're all cocooning into our own little
worlds. "The Secret" is consistent with this myopic thinking. It's as if we have lost our
imagination, curiosity and desire to explore the world outside of ourselves. "The Secret"
validates those who are too lazy or afraid to seek answers outside of their own minds.

People in general are pulling inward. Just look at neighborhoods. Front porches are gone
and have been replaced by enclosed, backyard, glass sun rooms. There has been an explosion
in home improvement and home decor. There is nothing wrong with wanting a nice home and
gorgeous surroundings. However, we seem sucked into our square footage--in an effort to hunker
down and hide from the outside world. Do many of us even know our neighbors anymore?

Just look at the space program--practically dead in the water. Our species seems to be
pulling inward--and dying in many ways. It's almost as if we've evolved as far as we're
going to go. We're not reaching out beyond ourselves.

I sense that human beings are in trouble. I sense that there's a collective PTSD swirling
about. Global warming, corporate greed, crime, war, famine, inequities. How can human
beings NOT be affected by the confluence of threats that loom? PTSD causes paralysis. We
seem paralyzed and corporations that peddle home material possessions are cashing in on
our traumatized state.

I feel as if human beings are shutting down. Books like "The Secret" fool us into
thinking that hyper self involvement and "magical thinking" are productive and intelligent
ways to spend out time. The reality is, that this thinking stunts our emotional evolution
and backs us into isolation from each other and from "outer thinking" that is essential if
for our survival as a species.

Just my 2 cents on a rainy day...

[KittyWampus]

20. Hmm, are Fundie Christians "hyper-myopic"? I see what you're saying but question

how deeply it penetrates into the current situation.

Are these people who want to tell everyone else in the country who can be married, what can be studied etc 'Myopic'?

Seems we'd all be better off if those people DID concentrate more on their own lives.

I do think many of us are "Emotionally Hobbled".

Our Emotional/Desire Natures are bombarded with a lot of crap from ads, from society's expectations, from families.

IMO, there's also the strain of Materialism running through society now. The belief the Material world is all there is. Emotions and Intangibles are devalued or denied.

[Chemical Bill]

119. I missed that part.

Which part of "The Secret" "The Secret" "validates those who are too lazy or afraid to seek answers outside of their own minds"?

Please be specific.

Bill

[Clark2008]

7. I thought it was just Karma - and I'd rather watch "My Name is Earl"

to get my karmatic advice than read this tripe.

:hi:

[Chemical Bill]

118. Does that mean you haven't read it?

How can you judge it?

Bill

[riverwalker]

10. Bly's "Sibling Society"

is one of those magnificent books you never, ever forget. For me it resonated when I watched the country blindly march to war, there were no adults asking questions, or researching into why we are sending our children to kill other children. There were no grown-ups to be found.

[KittyWampus]

12. Um, there were hundred of thousands, if not millions, of people protesting WORLD WIDE

[Morgana LaFey]

70. Yeah, he couldn't have been watching very closely

There were hundreds of thousands on several different occasions, all on one day, in places like NYC and SF. Then there was that one spectacular day when people all over the world -- ALL OVER THE WORLD -- came togehter and protested for peace. Many, many millions of people the world over, including Antarctica and many places I'd never even heard of. We oughtta do that again sometime.

[tjwash]

14. We didn't blindly march off to war.

We had anti-war protests, ant-war marches, and tons anti-war activity from the very hint that they were invading Iraq back in 2002. And we are in San Diego which is a huge military town. People here knew the consequences. There were thousands in the streets, and millions across the world that screamed NO!

We didn't just blindly march off to war and not ask any questions.

[earth mom]

11. The last thing this country needs is more people narcissistically focusing on themselves. nt

[DaveJ]

28. I'm on your side...

I think people would feel more rewarded if they spent their time learning new skills. But one benefit I can see in this might be stress relief.

[Chemical Bill]

120. Thank you for sharing.

I hope you don't progress to violently opposing "The Secret".

Bill

[Beelzebud]

13. I liked it better when it was called The Little Engine That Could.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

18. LOL -- I have a friend, sweet lady, but none too bright...

There were 4 of us out to dinner the other night, all women in our 40s. This one was asking if we'd heard of the Secret and telling us how wonderful it is.

We all kind of laughed -- nicely, really -- and said that if it works for her, it's fine. I agree with many of the above posts that it's nothing new, just power of positive of thinking recycled. But for some people, like this particular woman who has very low self-esteem and a very negative outlook, it's harmless and perhaps it will even help her. She's a long way from looking outside herself to the greater needs of the world, so I'll forgive her that.

But I spotted this "revolutionary" book as tripe right away.

[snappyturtle]

31. Bingo!

:rofl:

[librechik]

16. Worse, it encourages magical thinking, making Bush look normal

instead of deranged

All is well in Iraq! That's the secret!

[Chemical Bill]

121. I never saw that in the vidio.

Could you point out exactly where you saw it?

Bill

[seemslikeadream]

17. Happiness Runs

The sun will always shine where you stand, Jcrowley :hug:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=be0rz3k7Lxk


Little pebble upon the sand
Now you're lying here in my hand,
How many years have you been here ?

Little human upon the sand
From where I'm lying here in your hand,
You to me are but a passing breeze.

The sun will always shine where you stand
Depending in which land
You may find yourself.
Now you have my blessing, go your way.

Happiness runs in a circular motion
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea.
Everybody is a part of everything anyway,
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.


Happiness runs in a circular motion
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea.
Everybody is a part of everything anyway,
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.

Happiness runs in a circular motion
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea.
Everybody is a part of everything anyway,
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.
Happiness runs, happiness runs.

Why ? Because.
Why ? Because.

Why ? Because.
Why ? Because.

Happiness runs in a circular motion
Thought is like a little boat upon the sea.
Everybody is a part of everything anyway,
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.
You can have everything if you let yourself be.

You can have everything if you let yourself be

[WiseButAngrySara]

96. Oh, what a treat! Thank you seemslikeadream! ....n/t

[SmokingJacket]

19. A friend of mine has bought into this all the way.

She recently told me how she was walking down the street thinking that she had to tell a certain person something, and then that person suddenly appeared coming down the sidewalk toward her. Instead of interpreting this as a coincidence, she said, "See, my thinking about the person MADE IT HAPPEN!"

It's actually very deeply creeply once you think about it.

[Neecy]

25. It is kind of creepy

...and it isn't new. In some ways this thinking is every bit as judgemental and inflexible as fundamentalism.

I had a friend who had studied this and bought into it big time. The mantra was, 'you create your own reality' and this always made me wonder. If you walked into your apartment and a rapist was hiding there, did you create *that* reality? Yes, she would say, because you obviously didn't secure your apartment well enough. My sister had breast cancer - did she create that reality? Yes, she would say smugly, and on and on and on and on. There was NO empathy in this mindset, no compassion, and no humanity. It was nauseating. To her, bad or tragic things never just happened to people - they *always* brought it on themselves. It's a very Republican mindset.

[raccoon]

32. self delete nt

[Lorien]

34. Exactly the same experience I had with my friend

and during a year when I became unemployed and faced a serious health issue I had to end my friendship with her. Her constant assertions that it was all due to my "negative thinking" drove me nuts. I once asked her "When the US Air flight went down and all on board died, was it due to their negative thinking, or were mechanics at fault"? She said that everyone on board had actually willed their own deaths :crazy:

You summed it up perfectly; NO empathy in this mindset, no compassion, and no humanity.Sadly, I see the same mindset in my mother who went from being a staunch liberal to a born again Baptist about 20 years ago. Everything is "God's Will". Personal achievements only come from prayer and God's blessings, while hard times are lessons in humility from God. Hard work or plain old dumb luck never figure into anything. Magical thinking is creating a very harsh society, which accounts for all the "me first, fix your own problems 'cause you brought them on yourselves" Republicans.

[Neecy]

50. I can hear my friend now...

I once asked her "When the US Air flight went down and all on board died, was it due to their negative thinking, or were mechanics at fault"? She said that everyone on board had actually willed their own deaths

Yes, you see, they bought tickets on that doomed flight and therefore 'created their own reality'. See how easy it is to dismiss the suffering of others? And you can't reason with these people. It's like a cult.

[Chemical Bill]

122. My sister died of cancer.

I've always thought that she waited until the kids were grown, and checked out. She had had a "near death experience" where she was clinically dead, and brought back to life. She was never afraid of death after that.

But "creating your own reality" is really about how your sister faces her life as she has cancer. I hope that your sister can summon the attitude of Elizabeth Edwards, who is choosing to love and be grateful for her life as she faces her disease.

Death is coming to us all, and I plan on living as long as I can, and being happy while I do it. I also plan on working for economic and political justice. Did you know that Mother Theresa is in the film as an example of someone who created her own reality?

Best wishes to your sister. Anyone who would think otherwise doesn't get the message of things like "The Secret".

Bill

[raccoon]

30. Yeah, and how about all the times when she was

thinking about a certain person and that person DIDN'T appear?

I get impatient with this nonsense.

[gatorboy]

22. Was this an Oprah pick or something?

I hadn't even heard of this book until this week and now it seems like the conversation over it is everywhere.

I just can't figure out how it became so popular so fast. Or maybe I've just been out of the loop.

[earth mom]

24. Yup-Oprah did 2 shows about it.

Oprah has NO clue what's happening in the REAL world. :(

[Leopolds Ghost]

37. Sad how people get their whole world from television daily, isn't it?

Right behind you
I see the millions

Through you
I feel the glory

Listening to you
I get opinions

From you
I get the story...

[symbolman]

26. Interesting

I've spent the last five years writing a book that delves into this, only from an environmental viewpoint, and an adventure story (Based on a True Story), as a vehicle.

From when I spent two summers in the late 70's, during the heyday of the Pipeline, flying all over Northern Alaska prospecting for Uranium by Helicopter, even crashed in the tundra, took them four days to find us, and they knew where we were :)

Just finished up the book, and am waiting for some copies to show up next week and see how they look - I've got some Hollywood interest in it, so I'll be approaching those folks before I publish - called "The Jesus Bolt", the jesus bolt of course is that single item which keeps ALL of the blades from flying OFF the chopper - when the jesus bolt falls out, as the saying goes, "The next person you'll be talking to, is Jesus.."

In my book, it functions as a Metaphor, for what holds the Universe, the Environment, Ecosystems, and a Person together..

The adventures are many, and the point of the book is to meld together both Spirituality and the Environment - something the Fundamentalists are now battling over, saying the Bible tells them they need to be the Stewards of the Earth..

You wouldn't believe the damage I saw up there near and at the Oil Camps, not to mention the beginnings of Global warming, firsthand.

My book is not a christian book, more an exercise in comparative religions, with some yoga and meditation tossed in, on mountain tops in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge of course :)

The cover should appear in my sigline:

[Stevepol]

47. Sounds like a great book. Good luck with it.

[gauguin57]

27. My question is: Why didn't I think of this first ... this steaming pile of moneymaking BS!

"The Secret" SHOULD have been something peddled on late-night infomercials.

But then Oprah got ahold of it and ... well ... kaboom! The authors are instant billionaires!

I need to come up with a scheme like this -- to bilk the sheeple on a mass scale. Then I'll take my billions and make sure every elected post in Washington is filled with a DEMOCRAT! Hell -- I'll be able to get Ted Kennedy elected president with bilked-America-sized earnings.

My book will have something to do with two American obsessions: weight loss and animals. Maybe how we can learn to lose weight by watching animals. Let your dog hypnotize you into losing weight. Something like that. It will sell 80 KAZILLION COPIES.

[elehhhhna]

You COULD have done "Eat like your dog and Lose Weight" but

the petfood recall sorta fudged that idea for now.

Sorry. Try again! LOL

[Der Blaue Engel]

77. How about "Eat Your Dog and Lose Weight"?

:rofl:

I'm sorry...I had to do it!

[elehhhhna]

36. You COULD have done "Eat like your dog and Lose Weight" but

the petfood recall sorta fudged that idea for now.

Sorry. Try again! LOL

[Batgirl]

48. Brilliant idea, just needs a little tweaking

Maybe there is a way to work some kind of home decor angle into the mix. Decisions about furniture placement and window treatments could be based on how our pet's wild ancestors may have interacted with their wilderness surroundings. This could create energy waves in our homes that would allow us to lose weight effortlessly, just by for instance putting the refrigerator in the back yard in a patch of nettles, which would simulate how our dog's forfathers had to run through a herd of wildebeests in order to put food on their families.

[Tsiyu]

91. roflmao

:rofl:

[gauguin57]

53. Maybe DU can write the BS book together, and keep DU running for years, without fundraisers

Keep those great ideas coming! I love the idea of adding the home decor to the diet/animal theme!

[Batgirl]

54. Cool!

"Everything I Know about Dust Ruffles, I Learned from My Dog
(And How I Got Shaplier Hips & Thighs in the Process)"

[quiet.american]

29. Well, it's always something isn't it? EST, the Forum, Chicken Soup, Millionaire Mind. n/t

[lonestarnot]

35. Oprah Winfrey promotion?

[bbgrunt]

45. wonderful and beautifully written. k and r

[EnviroBat]

46. I began reading the book, and opted to view the DVD instead...

Sometimes I feel like I'm going insane now. I'm in therapy, and I may have to be hospitalized for anxiety after what this "Secret" has done to me. Let me try to explain if I can.

The basic precept of the Secret is that you draw things into your life, good and bad, through your thoughts. So say if I smash my car into someone on my way home tonight, that event was due to my thought patterns throughout the day, and I may not have even been conscious of them. It could be that I was worried about making my next car payment. This would be categorized as a negative thought and something bad is subsequently brought into my existence through the "law of attraction". Now, here's the kicker, by focusing on things you don't want, you are still bringing those things into your life through the same "law of attraction"! For example, you might say, "Man, I really don't want to get cancer." Poof, now you're Tony Snow.

Needless to say, now I'm terrified of my own mind. I can't sleep at night for fear of having negative thoughts, or thinking about that which I don't wish to attract into my life. I've tried to think about all of those great things, world peace, financial freedom, having a good job. But my mind is completely smoked now because whenever I think about those "nice" things I invariably think about the antithesis of them as well. There can be no Yin without the Yang if you will. Why would I focus on having a good job? So I don't end up unemployed and homeless. And that is just the type of thought that will attract homelessness into your life.

Don't get too caught up in the Secret like I did, I may throw myself off of a building because of it, and I wouldn't want that to happen to you gentle reader. Oh shit, I'm doing it again! Run for you life!

[underpants]

52. Sounds to me like some ditzies just need to learn how to focus and pay attention

Not you but from what I have read about this book and everything it strikes me that this is meant for dumbasses who overcomplicate things and thereby don't pay attention to what they are doing. Being "ate up" is what it is called in the Army---you are so worried about screwing up and getting in trouble you don't pay attention to what you are doing and you screw up and get in trouble, it spirals out of control from there.

ON EDIT- I have found that organization and not being a slob goes a long way in cleansing your thoughts and not walking around with your head up your ass.

[EnviroBat]

57. I have to agree with you...

I have found that a genuine feeling of gratitude for the any small thing that you perceive in you life as "good", pretty much nails the premise of what this book is trying to promote. My only mental exercise at arriving at that conclusion was just some common sense. Would work wonders for most people.

Me 2 cents...

[satya]

56. Oprah, an abuse victim herself, should know better than to promote this blame-the-victim b.s.

Does she really believe that the "laws of attraction" brought those horrors into her life and that her abusers bear no responsibility for their actions?

An acquaintance of mine (a true believer in "The Secret") insists that the reason we're at war is because the anti-war movement brought it about by thinking negative thoughts--it's got nothing to do with war profiteering or empire-building.

[noonwitch]

116. I think "The Secret" is bs, but positive thinking isn't

I do think that positive thinking is a good thing-not to blind yourself to reality, but to open up different ways to view a situation, and to see different types of solutions to problems.

I've been attending a Unity church for several years now, and they are kind of pushing "The Secret". One of my friends gave me a cd of it. I watched a few minutes and thought it was bull.

One thing about the New Thought or New Age movements-affirming the positive does not mean that one is always at fault for the bad things that affect them. Oprah did not attract abuse as a child.

Believing in the power of the positive doesn't mean ignoring the negative, nor does it mean one is at fault because one is sick or suffering somehow. It means looking for positive solutions, and affirming the good in one's life.

For me, positive thinking has helped stop me from viewing myself constantly as a victim, and has given me the power to change negative patterns in my life. It's helped me take better control of my finances-instead of seeing how much I lack, I see how much I have and how prosperous I am, so much so that I can share with others. I don't have to feel crippled by guilt all the time, for things I have no reason to feel guilty about, because I can let go of that by forgiving myself and others. Forgiveness of self and others is truly the core teaching of New Thought, not the whole prosperity thing that sometimes sidetracks it.

[spinbaby]

60. I had a funny moment a couple of weekends ago

A chubby family--part of the after-church crowd from a nearby mega church--sat down in the booth right behind me at the Chinese buffet. After a while, their conversation turned to how, because of "the secret," all that food wouldn't make them fat because they were thinking thin thoughts.

[Critters2]

61. I keep trying to explain to my parishioners that we don't hold to a self-centered

worldview. That Reformed Covenant Theology (our tradition) is about building community, about being part of a greater whole...NOT about getting that Harley, or Hummer, or sauna you've always wanted. I really don't have many who buy this stuff, but with some I have to compete with this crap, and Joel Osteen ("But pastor, he's a preacher, too! And his church is BIG!") and the like.

Yeah, that's right. Jesus wandered all over the Galilee teaching about kindness and mercy and justice, finally getting killed in an awful way, because it's the will of God that you have that expensive facelift :eyes:

Oh, and all the people who can't buy whatever they want, well, they're just not trying hard enough. The entire population of Darfur is made up of people who aren't wishing for the right things in the right way.


:banghead:

[eridani]

109. Right. How big was the church that Jesus was pastor of? n/t

[PhilipShore]

62. Thinking is a revolutionary act

[minerva50]

63. It's a huge "blame the victim" scam!

It's your own fault if your become ill because you're not visualizing good health.

It's your own fault if you're poor and unsuccessful.

Heaven forbid you should put any blame on luck or circumstance or greedy corporations or evil bosses or being born to the wrong parents in the wrong community. We should all be like Oprah or GWB. It's not even a matter of hard work, you just have to ask the universe for what you need.

[shanti]

my teen son was given a copy of this dvd

i watched about 10 minutes of it (he didn't) and pitched it. redundant, if you ask me...

[shanti]

64. duplicate post

deleted

[Marie26]

66. Sounds like "magical thinking". nt

[Frank Cannon]

68. My favorite part of the Secret DVD (extended edition)

is where the "master teacher" says we should take it on faith that the Law of Attraction works without really understanding why it works. He says, "I don't know how electricity works. Do you?"

Well, yeah, in fact I do. Only because I didn't fall asleep during that lecture in eighth grade physical science class. And as I recall, it had something to do with the attraction of OPPOSITELY charged particles. Kind of doesn't fit with the whole "like attracts like" thing. But I don't suppose anyone who would really get into this video would care.

[donco6]

69. Did you ever read The Celestine Prophesy?

I tried. I got to the part where the guy is describing the moon and then he supposedly feels himself looking at the moon from every point on earth "seeing all the different phases" at once. Brother. His "oneness" didn't realize the moon's phase is the same all over the world. I threw it down and never touched it again.

[Frank Cannon]

78. Good Lord

We could probably run an entire thread with humorous science errors found in New Age literature.

[DrunkenMaster]

74. Shhh!

Don't cite real science whatever you do -- it'll upset the herd.

[LostInAnomie]

75. Sounds like more unfalsifiable faith crap...

... only for the self centered. As a culture we should really be past the idea that magical thinking can do anything but waste our time.

[Jcrowley]

79. That's right

This kind of drivel is really irritating and extraordinarily destructive. For starters it reinforces the notion that it is "up to the individual" if only they can get in the proper frame of mind, or think Dale Carnegie "pep" positive or get in the "flow" they can become a success in the land of milk and honey.

Well of course no class analysis or social movements needed here. And if the individual fails it must be due to some personal shortcoming or improper breathing technique.

This crap comports with savage capitalism quite well and this sort of ahistorical gibberish has been embraced by numerous liberals.

[DrunkenMaster]

76. the REAL secret

The Real Secret is simple: people can be convinced to believe ANYTHING, no matter how contradictory or ridiculous.

It's actually been known for along time. One of the best older books on this subject is titled "Extraordinary Popular Delusions & the Madness of Crowds". Check it out.

[BeHereNow]

81. Sounds like my kind of book! Thanks.

The True Believer by Eric Hoffer is my road map for the days we arre living...
BHN

[PhilipShore]

82. The Organization Man -- Another great book

This book is about the organization man. If the term is vague, it is because I can think of no other way to describe the people I am talking about. They are not the workers, nor are they the white-collar people in the usual, clerk sense of the word. These people only work for The Organization. The ones I am talking about belong to it as well. They are the ones of our middle class who have left home, spiritually as well as physically, to take the vows of organization life, and it is they who are the mind and soul of our great self-perpetuating institutions. Only a few are top managers or ever will be. In a system that makes such hazy terminology as "junior executive" psychologically necessary, they are of the staff as much as the line, and most are destined to live poised in a middle area that still awaits a satisfactory euphemism. But they are the dominant members of our society nonetheless. They have not joined together into a recognizable elite--our country does not stand still long enough for that--but it is from their ranks that are coming most of the first and second echelons of our leadership, and it is their values which will set the American temper.

The corporation man is the most conspicuous example, but he is only one, for the collectivization so visible in the corporation has affected almost every field of work. Blood brother to the business trainee off to join Du Pont is the seminary student who win end up in the church hierarchy, the doctor headed for the corporate clinic, the physics Ph.D. in a government laboratory, the intellectual on the foundation-sponsored team project, the engineering graduate in the huge drafting room at Lockheed, the young apprentice in a Wall Street law factory.

They are all, as they so often put it, in the same boat. Listen to them talk to each other over the front lawns of their suburbia and you cannot help but be struck by how well they grasp the common denominators which bind them. Whatever the differences in their organization ties, it is the common problems of collective work that dominate their attentions, and when the Du Pont man talks to the research chemist or the chemist to the army man, it is these problems that are uppermost. The word collective most of them can't bring themselves to use--except to describe foreign countries or organizations they don't work for--but they are keenly aware of how much more deeply beholden they are to organization than were their elders. They are wry about it, to be sure; they talk of the "treadmill," the "rat race," of the inability to control one's direction. But they have no great sense of plight; between themselves and organization they believe they see an ultimate harmony and, more than most elders recognize, they are building an ideology that will vouchsafe this trust.

It is the growth of this ideology, and its practical effects that is the thread I wish to follow in this book. America has paid much attention to the economic and political consequences of big organization--the concentration of power in large corporations, for example, the political power of the civil--service bureaucracies, the possible emergence of a managerial hierarchy that might dominate the rest of us. These are proper concerns, but no less important is the personal impact that organization life has had on the individuals within it. A collision has been taking place--indeed, hundreds of thousands of them, and in the aggregate they have been producing what I believe is a major shift in American ideology.

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/whyte-main.html

[Jcrowley]

84. Welcome to the businessman's republic

That's quite interesting. Along those lines:
Herbert Marcuse. One-Dimensional Man
One-Dimensional Society

1. The New Forms of Control

A comfortable, smooth, reasonable, democratic unfreedom prevails in advanced industrial civilization, a token of technical progress. Indeed, what could be more rational than the suppression of individuality in the mechanization of socially necessary but painful performances; the concentration of individual enterprises in more effective, more productive corporations; the regulation of free competition among unequally equipped economic subjects; the curtailment of prerogatives and national sovereignties which impede the international organization of resources. That this technological order also involves a political and intellectual coordination may be a regrettable and yet promising development.

The rights and liberties which were such vital factors in the origins and earlier stages of industrial society yield to a higher stage of this society: they are losing their traditional rationale and content. Freedom of thought, speech, and conscience were - just as free enterprise, which they served to promote and protect - essentially critical ideas, designed to replace an obsolescent material and intellectual culture by a more productive and rational one. Once institutionalized, these rights and liberties shared the fate of the society of which they had become an integral part. The achievement cancels the premises.

To the degree to which freedom from want, the concrete substance of all freedom, is becoming a real possibility, the liberties which pertain to a state of lower productivity are losing their former content. Independence of thought, autonomy, and the right to political opposition are being deprived of their basic critical function in a society which seems increasingly capable of satisfying the needs of the Individuals through the way in which it is organized. Such a society may justly demand acceptance of its principles and institutions, and reduce the opposition to the discussion and promotion of alternative policies within the status quo. In this respect, it seems to make little difference whether the increasing satisfaction of needs is accomplished by an authoritarian or a non-authoritarian system. Under the conditions of a rising standard of living, non-conformity with the system itself appears to be socially useless, and the more so when it entails tangible economic and political disadvantages and threatens the smooth operation of the whole. Indeed, at least in so far as the necessities of life are involved, there seems to be no reason why the production and distribution of goods and services should proceed through the competitive concurrence of individual liberties.

Freedom of enterprise was from the beginning not altogether a blessing. As the liberty to work or to starve, it spelled toil, insecurity, and fear for the vast majority of the population. If the individual were no longer compelled to prove himself on the market, as a free economic subject, the disappearance of this kind of freedom would be one of the greatest achievements of civilization. The technological processes of mechanization and standardization might release individual energy into a yet uncharted realm of freedom beyond necessity. The very structure of human existence would be altered; the individual would be liberated from the work world's imposing upon him alien needs and alien possibilities. The individual would be free to exert autonomy over a life that would be his own. If the productive apparatus could be organized and directed toward the satisfaction of the vital needs, its control might well be centralized; such control would not prevent individual autonomy, but render it possible.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/marcuse/works/one-dimensional-man/ch01.htm



Written: 1964

[AikidoSoul]

80. The USA is in it's teenage stage of development n/t

[Selatius]

85. It sounds like "if you think happy thoughts, life gets better"

That's not true. Life gets better when you use your bear hands and work with others to make things better. A better future is built on cooperation and work.

[Digit]

86. It will speak to some and not others....

If you are of the mindset that you believe you always have bad luck, you most likely WILL.

Life deals us challenges at every turn and most will know of people who have overcome those challenges or decided that is their lot in life.

The movie is uplifting and may convince you to change your mindset. It is an individual thing, and if you are ready, it will speak to you.

There are always people out there to say nothing works, everything is everyone else's fault and this is just a tool for those who are willing to make a change in perception and to do something for themselves.

I know...I was totally in victim mode before I found this movie. A real estate deal gone sour where I lost over $10,000, my father died, and I had been fired from my job.

Today, I accepted a new job paying more than my current job, much closer to home, and less hours.
Before this movie, I could not even get a job, now I am moving up from the last one I got after watching the movie. Yes, I had to send out resumes, and yes, I had to go on inteviews. You don't sit back waiting for the universe to deliver your dreams in a FedEx package.

It is not for everyone, but if it speaks to you, check it out.

[Jcrowley]

87. Would that work

for the children of Iraq?

The essence of your point is "It is an individual thing, and if you are ready, it will speak to you" and that is complete rubbish. To believe that you'd have to ignore the entire constellation of events that make up the history of our world.

Nothing is simply about some "indivdual choices" as noone lives in a bubble.

We are in need of mass social movements not ephemeral mythologies of capitalism that promote selfish individualism and earth-destroying concepts of affluence as something worthwhile.

[Digit]

88. Obviously, it does not speak TO you, so don't speak For it. n/t

[Jcrowley]

89. When one is saying

something that can mean anything at any given time one says nothing.

[Digit]

90. Thanks for your input

and thanks for kicking
:hi: :hi: :hi: :hi:

[BeHereNow]

92. So true Jcrowley, and that is exactly the base of the problem with "magical" thinking.

Guess those poor people in Iraq just didn't think enough positve thoughts.

Or, thinking positive thoughts only works for Americans...:banghead:

To listen to half of the adult children I know, that is
exactly the scope of their thinking.
No fucking logic in it at all.

You ask them to reason it out, as to why horrible
things happen to people for no reason, and they can't.

BHN

[walldude]

93. It helped my wife...

Her brother died 2 years ago in our house. He had been living with us and she had been taking care of him for years, he had Muscular Dystrophy. She went into a 2 year depression when he died and nothing seemed to help her. Now I'm not saying this book created some kind of miracle but it did cause a shift in her thinking. You are promoting, in this thread, the idea that this book teaches some kind of selfishness or something to that effect. Well in our case what was selfish was for my wife was to remain in a depressed state for 2 years over someone who is gone while the rest of us who are alive still needed her. Many people are strong enough physically, mentally and emotionally to deal with life and death, many people are not. Hence the need for things like religion, Alcoholics Anonymous, Psychiatrists, therapists, etc.. While this may not be your cup of tea, it is helping some people, to claim that it is dangerous is at best misleading.

[Jcrowley]

95. From article

Let me clarify: I have no problem with people becoming and remaining prosperous. I do not champion the “poor and proud” mentality. What I find offensive and inexcusable is the unwillingness of purveyors and devotees of The Secret to look at the other half of reality—the dark side—theirs and that of their government, move beyond their terminal narcissism, and resist the economic holocaust being perpetrated on them and the rest of the world by a fascist empire. Not to do so is to remain a sibling for one’s entire life, and if America’s middle and working classes need to do any one thing in this moment, it is to grow up and face adult reality. I know of no more shining example of this than Catherine Austin Fitts who is dedicating her time and energy to teaching people how to become prosperous, not by distracting themselves from injustice and economic warfare, but by teaching them to become intimately acquainted with it in order to wisely create options of prosperity for themselves and their loved ones.

<snip>

As for documentaries that address reality, a wiser and more mature approach, from my perspective, is that of Tim Bennett’s and Sally Erickson’s DVD “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire” about which I wrote an extensive article earlier this month. Rather than offer a sibling soporific, this documentary addresses head-on the nightmare that humans have created on so many levels, especially on the level of making the planet uninhabitable, but rather than inviting the viewer to escape into isolated, self-absorbed consumerism on steroids, it presents the opportunity to join with others of like mind and heart to reverse the lethal trajectory on which the human race is spinning out of control. Just as the last thing we need at this moment in history in the face of fossil fuel depletion is a “solution” that involves consuming more oil, the last thing the human race needs in the face of the perfect economic storm is an indulgent “I can have anything I want” perspective that ignores the empire’s evils and perpetuates the very mega-consumerism that is annihilating the planet.

[walldude]

101. I see the point... but in our case and I bet in many others

it's not about being "prosperous" but being functional. It's not about ignoring the dark side of reality but getting yourself in a position to be able to deal with the dark side of reality.

"Just as the last thing we need at this moment in history in the face of fossil fuel depletion is a “solution” that involves consuming more oil, the last thing the human race needs in the face of the perfect economic storm is an indulgent “I can have anything I want” perspective that ignores the empire’s evils and perpetuates the very mega-consumerism that is annihilating the planet."

I fully agree with that statement. However that statement is made under the assumption that the people reading the book (my wife said the movie was boring as hell) are doing it so they can "have anything they want" and that's just not true in all cases. In my wife's case all we wanted was for her to spend her life here with us and not depressed and mourning her brother.

[Jcrowley]

104. Best wishes

Perhaps the poet, T.S. Eliot, said it best:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting,
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought;
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.



As we enter the dark time of year, and perhaps one of the darkest times in modern history, we celebrate in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the coming of the light. Darkness has never been able to unequivocally obliterate it. All great traditions and spiritual teachers declare that human existence is largely comprised of adversity interspersed with moments of light, beauty, and joy.

They have also admonished us to remember that without suffering, there will never be transformation. The days of simply applying bandaids to America’s deplorably corrupt and unjust political, economic, and social institutions are over.

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/American-Addicted-Happiness30nov04.htm

Sincerely

[walldude]

106. Thanks...

You realize what we have here are two opposing sides, the book and the people who support it, who believe that you must be positive to make things work, and the author of the link you posted who believes that you must suffer as others do to understand and improve things. As usual the truth is somewhere in the middle. Both sides are making assumptions and both sides are right, and both sides are wrong. Wow, just like life. :toast:

[eridani]

110. Re: growing up

See the Swami Beyondananda quote in my .sig file.

[a kennedy]

113. Thank you for your post......aren't we all in this together??? and

really, does it matter how we all get through it, just that we do??? It still all comes down to living a good life, helping others succeed and leaving it better then we found it. JMHO. :shrug: :loveya: :grouphug:

[kitty1]

94. What do you think of Dr Wayner Dyer's books....

I was given a CD on one of his seminars to do with the spiritual path. I had seen him before on PBS, and was somewhat intrigued with his metaphysical perspective on some things.
Like the secret, everything is related to "energy" and that people on a higher plane can impact and improve the lives of those still on a lower plane or energy or consciousness.
A lot of his concepts have a similar slant as those on the secret. He's written quite a few books including a bestseller entitled The Wisdom of the Ages.
He does have amazing stories of so called coincidences or synergies that have occurred in his life, and do make a person question if perhaps our lives to some degree have some orchestration to them. As far as timing and meetings go.
I don't agree with all the philosophies put out there, but I have an open enough mind to consider the possiblities of what is available to us as far as the spiritual realm goes.
He is very big on meditation, even in everyday moments and keeping our past from defining us. We should "embrace it and let go of it"

[Jcrowley]

102. Dangerous nothingness

Higher plane and all that means stratified culture and usually brings racist connotations with it. Like Waldorf schools and such. Sounds like the Alphas will throw a few bones to the Gammas.

This whole "embrace it and let go" rubbish simply doesn't say anything. Worse it avoids all discussions and ACTIONS for meaningful mass movements that could effect numerous people in a very real and material way but would entail real risks as well.

Most of this stuff is facile denial and escapism that conveniently avoids dealing with the very difficult issues at hand.

Does this mean the Iraqi children should embrace something and learn to rise above?

This shit's crazy. Rainmakers.

[kitty1]

105. Well Wayne Dyer's early life was no picnic, his father abandoned

his family when he was a baby. His mother struggled and he was subsequently raised in orphanages and foster homes. Not all of them very pleasant.
His father never once wrote or contacted the family after he left.
There were many other difficulties he faced in his life too, so you can't say that the man was operating out of some La La land where you make your up your own fantasies as you go along. He operated in a very real unjust world like most people.
I just think there has to be some balance between our realities the the right attitudes to help change those realities.

[Warren DeMontague]

107. It's nothingness AND it's dangerous? Seems it would have to be one or the other.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with people thinking positively.

Or with people being happy-- or even optimistic, for that matter. Oh Noes!

Although there are a few on the "left" who seem as joyless- and determined to order everyone into states of misery identical to their own- as the worst scowling, uptight church lady puritans on the right, thankfully that crowd is the minority.

"Avoids dealing with the issues at hand"- according to whom? People who meditate don't have time in their lives to be peace activists? Because EVERY book isn't about Iraqi children, that means that everyone who reads them doesn't give a damn about them? Or isn't trying to stop the war?

I agree that "The Secret" is tripe- but so is most of what constitutes the front bookshelf at Borders any given week. But that doesn't mean that everyone who tries to effect positive change in this world while simultaneously maintaining a positive outlook is some kind of moron peddling "dangerous" thoughts.

R. Buckminster Fuller believed HIS optimism was a self-fulfilling prophecy, after a sort, and that guy was no deluded, woo-woo idiot.

Or perhaps you could share with us your reading list, so we can see what books you think will properly spur these risky mass movements you envision as dealing with the difficult issues at hand.

[piesRsquare]

111. Thank you, impeachdubya...

I haven't read "The Secret"--nor do I intend to--but as a child, my family attended Religious Science (which was founded by Ernest Holmes, one of the "New Thought" pioneers Ms. Baker speaks of in the OP's linked article).

All of the posts here regarding narcissism, consumerism, etc have a point.

But just as another poster wrote above, "The Secret" (or "The Science of Mind", which is what I periodically reference), is not necessarily about consumerism.

I need a job, financial stability, would like to have better (and quieter!) living arrangements, would like to earn my higher degree (haven't been able to afford), and would very much like to get married and have children someday. I'm 35.

I've spent so much time and energy--and have devoted so much of my thinking--to the world's problems and to "making a difference" that I haven't taken care of myself. I feel guilty when I take care of myself. I freely spend money on others while I haven't been to the dentist to fix a crown that popped off. I blog about the pet food recall to help people save their pets yet had no energy left to search for/apply for work. I've done plenty of focus on the external and outside--Global Warming, Empire, the war in Iraq, election fraud, poverty, Katrina, etc etc...and have neglected me.

In the Talmud, it is written, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, who am I?"

Focusing on the self is not necessarily selfish. I am useless to the world--the world that needs my energy, creativity, passion, and caring nature--if I am without means and unhappy. Happy people spread happiness, and can inspire and energize.

In paying too much attention to all that's wrong, I have, in effect, poisoned myself. That doesn't make me a better person, or more caring, or more concerned, or more aware--it just makes me another victim. My working for my own happiness and fulfillment doesn't make me selfish, narcissistic, or head-in-the-clouds. There's nothing wrong with me taking some time off from trying to save the world and using it to save myself. For I'm just as important as Iraqi children, exploited soldiers, hurricane victims, and impoverished sweatshop workers. Any tool that can and will assist me with bringing more positivity and stability into my life can't be a bad thing, because it's just not in my nature to disregard the world around me, to not care about the world's tragedies, or to ignore facts and truth.

So I ask the naysayers on this board: Is it okay? Am I allowed to use The Secret/Science of Mind as a tool? Is it okay for me to now focus on myself, so I can pay my rent without having to ask my father for money (which I have to do tomorrow...and am terrified about doing so)? Is it okay for me to take a break from being aware of the scandals, the war, the destruction of the environment and take some time to be happy? Is it okay for me to want to wear clothes that aren't 7-year-old hand-me-downs and live in a two-bedroom apartment (instead of one) so I can have a separate sewing/work room so my stuff isn't cluttering up the entire place? Is it okay for me to want to have the means to travel more of the world? Is it okay for me to want to have a family, and to want my family to live well and enjoy nice things? And thus, is it okay for me to read a book or watch a DVD that will help me get in the mindset such that I can make these things possible in my life? Or is it selfish and narcissistic?

I'm tired of being miserable. Many people in this world will never be able to escape their misery, and that is a horrible tragedy. But does that mean I have stay stuck in my misery? Many people have things much worse than I do...but does that mean I'm supposed to settle for struggling and being unhappy? Or am I being selfish? I'm 35, no job, no partner/husband, no kids, no home, no money. May I start thinking about myself now?

[a kennedy]

114. D*mn right you can......

:loveya: :hug:

[Laughing Mirror]

115. You don't sound like much of an advertisement for "The Secret"

"I'm 35, no job, no partner/husband, no kids, no home, no money."

At the risk of sounding heartless, you might want to try some other product.

[piesRsquare]

125. At risk of sounding heartless,

you may want to try reading my post again. You seem to have missed the point.

[omega minimo]

97. The Secret is paying attention to what you want rather than to what you DON'T want

and there is power in it.















Debunkers, as usual, spend an awful lot of time absorbed in what they-- supposedly-- DON'T want. :crazy:

[Warren DeMontague]

98. Dude, the Oprah Book Club set isn't going to save America no matter WHAT it reads.

If it wasn't this, it'd be some other paperback tripe- or the latest gossip about Brangelina.

[nam78_two]

99. K&R-very interesting

I didn'tget to read it all and I am not really familiar with this "New Thought", but it sounds similar to the stuff coming out of the "slef-help" industry...No wonder Oprah endorses it .....

[gauguin57]

103. This "Secret" crap sounds like friggin' Scientology!

Only, in Scientology, it's the thetans (or the engrams, or Xenu -- I always forget which) that causes the bad energy in your life.

[Hissyspit]

112. Oooooh, a secret... I gotta know!

Is it like a Bible code or something? /sarcasm

[KG]

123. this is 'The Secret': nobody ever lost money preying on the american publics

desire to believe in myths.

a new 'secret' come down the pike every 10 years or so, when there's a new herd to fleece. anybody remember EST?

i think about this kind crap whenever some DUers protest "stop calling americans 'sheeple'"

[piesRsquare]

124. What's EST?

I take it you're not referring to "Eastern Standard Time"...

[KG]

126. Erhard Seminars Training

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erhard_Seminars_Training