Do *you* know the Secret?

[TheUnbelievingDLH]

*scoffs* my family is into "the secret." personally I think its a load of bull. or I should say people put too much stock into it; a sort of new age way of thinking. there's nothing new about putting in a positive attitude AND your best job. at least it gives some people a reason to hope. I guess

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

Yeah, MalikFnord23 has always been MalikFnord23, and always will be.
But seriously, and I hope I'm not stepping on anyones toes here, but this reminded me of the whole 'what the BLEEP' phenomenon. Ugh. A bunch of so called experts coming together to sell their version of reality to the masses. I wish it wasn't on Oprah because she's kind of internationally influental. I think this stuff makes waves when people who have never really questioned their perceptions of reality come into contact with low level metaphysics. BAMF! Everything is possible. Ugh. Bad Plato recycled for a new generation.

[Avatar]

Everything is possible, within limits to be determined by experiment and experience.

--A

[balon!]

I haven't seen it yet, but I tend to view almost every form of philosphy, religion, free thinking and pseudo-science in the same light; "some of it will make sense and can be readily applies to my life, some of it makes no damn sense and I fail to comprehend how other people do."

That said, I suppose I'll pick it up at the library and force myself through, just so I can validate my already stated opinion.

[stonemaybe]

(*stop press*

The Real Secret, release date July 23rd.)

Sounds a bit like the Conversations With God books that were the new in-thing about 10 years ago. As far as I recall, they were also based on the assumption that everything will turn out great if you think it will.

[CovenantJr]

My dad's really into this (though he got the idea from something else, not 'The Secret'). He's been convinced for several years that if he expects good things, they will come. So far, no sign of it working - astonishingly.

[Fist and Faith]

(*stop press*

The Real Secret, release date July 23rd.)

Sounds a bit like the Conversations With God books that were the new in-thing about 10 years ago. As far as I recall, they were also based on the assumption that everything will turn out great if you think it will.

CwG is another of those things that I went into with a HUGE amount of scepticism. Unlike The Secret, however, CwG is among my favorite things. While there are aspects of "think positively" in it, it is much more. It's learning of new ways to view everything. I can't recommend it enough. As far as sacred-type books go, it, Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power, and Eknath Easwaran's introductions and translations of The Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita are my big three. Here's a quote I particularly like:

GOD: Passion is the love of turning being into action. It fuels the engine of creation. It changes concepts to experience.

Passion is the fire that drives us to express who we really are. Never deny passion, for that is to deny Who You Are and Who You Truly Want to Be.

The renunciate never denies passion - the renunciate simply denies attachment to results. Passion is a love of doing. Doing is being, experienced. Yet what is often created as part of doing? Expectation.

To live your life without expectation - without the need for specific results - that is freedom. That is Godliness. That is how I live.

NEALE: You are not attached to results?

GOD: Absolutely not. My joy is in the creating, not in the aftermath. Renunciation is not a decision to deny action. Renunciation is a decision to deny a need for a particular result. There is a vast difference.

My dad's really into this (though he got the idea from something else, not 'The Secret'). He's been convinced for several years that if he expects good things, they will come. So far, no sign of it working - astonishingly.

My dad has had this crazy nasal infection for, like, a year now. He doesn't bother with doctors, though. Somebody told him that if you eat honey made by bees in your area, it will give you immunity from such things, so he's been trying that for a year.

[stonemaybe]

Somebody told him that if you eat honey made by bees in your area, it will give you immunity from such things, so he's been trying that for a year.

Tell your dad that helps with allergies, not infections! (Though honey is a natural antiseptic and is incorporated into some commercial wound dressings now, don't think eating it will help nasal infection.) DLB, your view?

[Holsety]

DW totally responded to my thing and I totally never got around to responding back, even though I have a perfectly good response (hah).

Why can't they make a buck on this message, if people are willing to pay for it. It sure couldn't be any worse than any Ronco product, pet rocks, the Abdominizer, etc. And, if it works even in only the smallest ways, it's still cheaper than a night out on the town, and may actually do lasting good.

It's more that....the fact that they're marketing it and using it to make money that makes me skeptical. If it's really a valid idea, shouldn't these people be fulfilled without selling it? So why do they need to 'make a buck' in any case? If they've mastered the secret, shouldn't they be fulfilled w/out getting $$ for telling other people about it? Maybe success sometimes engenders the desire for more success? Power engenders the desire for more power? Hmm, it does sound sorta familiar...ok, I think I'm taking it too far, actually, but it still does weaken my ability to believe it. Maybe I'm just a self-defeating person who can never be happy? (though I feel happy)

If nothing else, people who seek a financial profit off of a 'self help' type thing...well, they poison the idea! Definitely! Because it makes financial success - which many people think of as a lot more than getting by - synonymous with self-help.

Also, I'm too lazy to look right this second, but I heard from my pa that some fan of the secret had implied that poor kids in africa and such just didn't want money enough. Or something like that. But oprah, at least, probably doesn't believe this fully, since that contradicts the philanthropy she's done in the past (and I assume she does on a fairly regular basis).

EDIT-Maybe it's worth noting that I'm an 18 year old, and while I do work, my college and stuff like that is basically reliant on my parents. So it's not like I'm arguing from a position of personal knowledge here.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

I work at a call center for a credit card company, and in the last 6 months I have had no less than three (3) people try to get me to buy this stuff. Malik's first post in this thread summed it up perfectly. I can't believe adults buy this stuff.

[Avatar]

I was just reading something somewhere about this disease called "hope."

--A

[Loredoctor]

The amusing thing is, to the gullible buyers, the 'philosophy' works. But in reality, it works for the sellers because they make so much money selling 'The Secret'. Someone once told me that all these power courses show is that people who run power courses are so successful because people come to power courses.

[Avatar]

I wonder how it's working for the buyers though. Do they simply attribute anything good that happens to it?

--A

[Loredoctor]

I wonder how it's working for the buyers though. Do they simply attribute anything good that happens to it?

--A

I think so. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. And when things don't go well, 'obviously' they aren't thinking positive enough.

What I really dislike about the Secret is the blatant stupidity of it all. What about all those people though history who suffer? No amount of thinking positive would have helped the people in Stalin's Gulags .. .

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

They have massive forums online, it's a really big thing... I don't know, I mean, in a way this gets back to the old debates about whether or not our perceptions form reality or not. To a certain degree you can understand it, if for example you repeat to yourself "I hate blond people" for long enough, eventually you'll hate blond people. Or, a different way, if you repeated "Thin women are more attractive" which is basically what the media does, if you repeated it over and over again, eventually you'd come to believe it and your perception of reality would shift. But this idea that you can somehow shift physics... ugh.

[Avatar]

Not physically anyway.

*shrug* Maybe self-fulfilling prophecies aren't such a bad thing. Optimistic ones anyway.

--A

[Avatar]

That was for Lore btw.

And I dunno...maybe if everybody believed you could, you'd be able to?

--A

[Loredoctor]

And I dunno...maybe if everybody believed you could, you'd be able to?

--A

Watch 'In the Mouth of Madness' - it deals with that. Great movie.

Great post, by the way, Jem.

[Avatar]

Will keep an eye out for it.

--A

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

In the Mouth of Madness! I haven't even thought about that movie in years. I think I have to go find it online immediately. It's been so long I don't even see the connection.