The Rule of Attraction / The Secret

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What's your opinion on it? I just watched a video of the first 20 minutes of the film The Secret, and I just did a little research on Wikipedia.

To me, it sounds like a strange assumption, without any actual scientific evidence, ignoring the actual implications of positive thinking. I wonder if anyone actually believes this rubbish.

Well, it sometimes seems to me that I'm the only openly Christian person in this forum. So I'll give my perspective on this.

In the Bible, Jesus said "Anyone who asks for anything from the Father in my name will receive it" (paraphrased, not looking at my Bible at the moment). Jesus is also known to say that anything is possible through FAITH. Paul echoes this in his letters. So Christians are encouraged to make specific requests of God. Most of us recognize that our needs are supplied by God, so living by faith alone that God provides for us and, in one form or another, does answer our prayers.

That said, there are a few (pseudo)Christians among us who take the concept further. Their reasoning is something like this: In the beginning was the Word... (from the Gospel of John). When God created the heavens and the earth, He spoke them into existence ("Let there be light"). God made Man in His image, and through Man's faith and communion with the Holy Spirit endowed Man with the same creative potential. Therefore, if a person has enough faith, he may speak his desires into existence. I like to call this, as many critics do, "Blab it and Grab it" theology. Those who promote these ideas suggest if you want wealth, friends, influence, healing from diseases, a new car, and so on all you have to do is "Name it and Claim it." First utilize the creative potential of the spoken word. Second, look for those things which God blesses you with and accept them as God's gift to you.

It actually makes sense as far as it is actually compatible with Biblical teaching. These preachers, however, are NOT interested in your economic or physical welfare. People come up to these guys claiming to be possessed by demons, chronic migraine sufferers, arthritis, alcoholism, and the like, after which the preacher lays hands on them, "slays them in the spirit," and they are mysteriously and miraculously healed. They somehow always seem to run out of time as soon as some woman in a wheelchair starts making her way to the stage. Anyone with REAL problems that might get a private audience with these healers might tell them that they "named it" and "it" never came. A typical response might be that God's blessing is like an investment--you might need to "demonstrate" your faith by freeing yourself from the burden of your cash flow, which can easily be done by making a donation to said "healer's" "ministry." OK, we did that, but we don't have very much money. Of course!! ! So you just figure out what corners you CAN cut so you can give more. Sell your possessions. Who needs electricity, anyway? Running water? You don't need all that filth on cable TV! Internet? Phone? Please... Food? You know Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days, and God provided for Him...

The end result of all this is, while we do believe that God is still capable of and still does work miracles in the lives of believers, there are those for whom healing will never come. And there are plenty of fine reasons why God would choose to heal one person and not another. Most Christians can accept that. But THESE people, wrapped up in "prosperity gospel," are made to feel that no matter what they do, their faith just won't ever be enough, and they look on themselves and their lives wondering why God hates them so much and why their faith just never seems to be enough. That is a HORRIBLE thing to do to a person. These preachers point to their own success: Their mansions, their cars, their private jets... Well, DUH! You're stealing from your congregants, setting yourself up with the finest things all in the name of "the ministry"! The only people that "prosperity gospel" seems to benefit are the preachers who promote it.

OK...

So enter "The Secret." All the "law of attraction" seems to really do is take "blab it and grab it" and move it to the secular world. It's exactly the same thing and probably borrowed from prosperity gospel teaching. The only difference is they don't mention God or Jesus. It is a play on people's desire to improve their conditions and do so in the easiest possible way. People who have worked all their lives and, for whatever reason, failed at accumulating a large amount of wealth do NOT want to be told "well, if you just work hard and believe in yourself, all your dreams will come true." "The Secret" is just another self-help book borrowed from twisted Christian theology with a heaping helping of New Age.

While "The Secret" brings some of these Christian views to the non-religious world, it's certainly not the first attempt at doing so. Back in the day I was a big fan of the Steven Covey "7 Habits" book--I even bought the planner (it's a good planner, but it's just a planner. I discovered I quickly became so preoccupied with "organizing" that I never actually got anything done. It made a GREAT diary for some of the projects I worked on in grad school, but I'd warn other aspies with similar tendencies to stay away from it. Your organizational and planning skills are probably just fine!). The 7 Habits work great if you have a leadership role in your business. But the most important thing about 7 Habits is it only works if EVERYONE you work with buys into it. These guys make a LOT of money selling the 7 Habits books, conducting seminars that your entire staff ought to attend for "workplace development," and, of course, selling planners. I became disenchanted with Steven Covey when I discovered "The Divine Center," which reveals what Covey ACTUALLY believes and shows that much of his business is involved in promoting his religious agenda. 7 Habits will give you some good stuff, but you run the risk of feeling manipulated if you buy into it. You just have to make up your own mind about that.

One of the main features of 7 Habits is the idea of visualization. You imagine the end result of your goals and aspirations, then you take intermediary, conscious, deliberate steps to bring those goals and aspirations to fruition. The visualization exercise also borrows from religious teaching, New Age, and prosperity gospel "blab it and grab it" philosophy. And it's the same principle at work in "The Secret."

I doubt many here will be taken in by "The Secret." Whether you're Christian, non-Christian, non-religious, or even anti-religious, don't even waste your time with this garbage. Especially don't waste your money buying the books. The only thing you succeed in doing in giving these people money is just making them richer while they laugh at you for falling for the scam. On the other hand, make a study of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn (prosperity preachers), Steven Covey (and family), whoever the authors of the law of attraction are, New Age and new religious movements, and maybe even some environmental activists (just for fun) and write your OWN self-help book patterned after their teachings. You'll be on the NYT Best-Seller list within a week and a millionaire overnight.

It reminds me of a recent IT Crowd episode, in fact (though they were making fun of Scientology as well):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoVXf91fx68[/youtube]

I just said "let there be iPad", but no iPad appeared. Damn.

BTW, if you're linking this to God, and people believe that it's God that does this, then surely that'd go against the concept of free will?

In fact, the whole idea of The Secret goes against the idea of free will.

Sounds like Oprah-style, new age crap designed to bilk gullible people out of their money. Positive thinking can increase your confidence, so reading one of these books could potentially have a placebo effect on the reader if the reader is convinced of it enough - the rest is crap.

The Secret is that gullible people will believe anything if they believe it will bring them
riches all though the power of thinking "I want it thoughts" at their desired object.
Its sort of a contradiction in terms that greed lust and avarice is a positive frame of mind

How would it go against free will?

Not defending The Secret or Prosperity Gospel, but I don't see how it goes against free will.

What it DOES do, and I know the atheists on here will LOVE this, is it turns God into an invisible magician/wizard who wants to grant each person everything they ask for according to their desires. This is completely against the mainstream Christian perspective, which is that God grants each person according to his desires AND according to God's will. God can't be bribed or manipulated. Think of it like parenting: Children ask for things all the time, but that doesn't mean that the parent is obligated to appease the child. Perhaps what the child wants isn't in the best interest of the child's physical well-being (it's dangerous). Perhaps the parent doesn't have enough money to buy everything in the toy store the child wants. Perhaps mommy is cooking supper and can't stop what she's doing to grant the child's wish without risking something on the stove catching fire but will probably happily grant the child's desire later at a more appropriate time. Or perhaps learning patience and hard work to EARN the object of desire is more valuable than simply demanding and getting something.

If God doesn't grant everything we want, there's probably a good reason for that. We Christians bear witness to lessons in faith THROUGH suffering, not the elimination of it. I've personally known people who've accomplished some really impressive things in life BECAUSE of a physical ailment or imperfection rather than in spite of it. These people cling tightly to the hope of an eternal reward and a perfected "glorified" existence rather than receiving all of God's blessing in an impermanent state of physical life.

If it weren't right to ask and have faith that God listens, then why was it Jesus Himself prayed to the Father that He be spared the cruelty of human torture and death? In Jesus' request, He also prayed (maybe even in the same breath) that the Father's will, not the Son's will, be done.

One thing I forgot to mention is another little fun fact about prosperity gospel and the spiritual/New Age link with "The Secret." According to the pseudo-Christian version of it, being made in the image of God makes us gods. One speaker, I think maybe it was Creflo Dollar, put it something like this: If you put two horses together, you get more horses. If you put two cows together, you get more cows. Well, there's no female counterpart to God, but God does have the ability to create something in His likeness. So what comes from (big "G") God? More (little "g") gods! So if we are made in His image and we believe in Him, we are not just LIKE Him, but we are EQUAL to Him.

This is contrary to scripture, which says that only Jesus could rightfully make the claim that, being God's only Son, that He and the Father are one and the same. Taking on human form, God made Himself equal with man, that whoever believes may become an adopted child of God and a brother with Christ as well as with the greater body of believers. We are LIKE God, but we are NOT God, and we're certainly not gods.

In a secular sense, this kind of thought plays on the arrogance of human beings in general and our tendency to elevate ourselves to that kind of status. We've come to believe that we are OWED certain things. So when someone comes up with the idea that you can simply breathe the word of what you want, you can simply take it out of thin air, of course all the tired, oppressed people (and even the lazy people) are going to come out in droves and buy the book because they want to know what "The Secret" is.

You know? If it's a "secret," why put it in a book at all? Let the ignorant masses figure out "the secret" for themselves. Oh wait, that wouldn't bring in any source of income for the author. You want the REAL secret? Write a self-help book so you can get these people running around in whatever ritualistic circles you can think up. And when you start getting emails about how/why something doesn't work, write ANOTHER book, print a blank journal with some warm and fuzzy sounding quotes at the top and instructions on what to meditate about every day when they write in their journal, and tell them that if you follow this and buy that product, it will help them understand better. Then just sit back, count your money, and pay your taxes.

Or start your own prosperity church and compete with Kenneth Copland. LOL You never know. He might invite you to one of his circuses--er, I mean, WORSHIP SERVICES--and you two can have an entire conversation in glossolalia.

Asp-Z - saw that episode last week - love it!

On a serious note: I despise The Secret. Not that I don't believe that positive thinking can (if backed up by appropriate action) have a real effect - it can. It's just the implication some Secret aficionados give out, that if anything good is the result of your thoughts, then so is anything bad. I've heard these people say that the victims of the Asian tsunami must have been putting out the 'wrong' thought patterns.

A lot of the time, people suffer not because of anything they've thought or done, but because of what other people have done. And sometimes, s**t just happens. The job of any civilised human being, when such circumstances arise, is not to argue the mechanics of fecal production, but to fetch a shovel.

I must admit I haven't read the book (nor do I want to) but from what I gather the book is about thinking positively about what you want and never doubt that you will. If it fails, it's the reader's fault for either not thinking positively enough about it or having a single negative thought about it. It's a sure-fire way of blaming the reader if it fails. You can't criticise the method or it will automatically fail too.

So what does it lead to? Either you succeed and thank the book (therefore providing an anecdotal account that The Secret works) or you fail and leave it at that. If you fail and tell others, you'll always get the explanation that it could've come later in your life but you might've missed the opportunity because you started to doubt it.

Though I don't engage in it, it works in a sense. If you believe you want something, and work, you get it. With the law of attraction (which isn't a law, it's a perspective) after making a decision you think the universe is conspiring to make it happen, as you work for it. Things are relative, they're just putting the weight on the universe instead of themselves.

For example if I believe a mystical power wants me to build a house, I'll build a house, just like the guy next door building his house. Regardless of truth in it's doctrine it's getting a job done.

Though when it gets misattributed (Tsunami caused by sin), problems begin to arise.

There's nothing wrong with being positive and learning to love life.

The Chaser does a good piece on The Secret
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usbNJMUZSwo[/youtube]

Sure, positive thinking is great, but assuming that there is a metaphysical force that gives people crap for thinking positively without any action is ludicrous.

My mom had a phrase for this type of thing: "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."

I guess the modern equivalent would replace corvettes and driving for horses and riding.

I'm learning about Asperger's as I'm due to be assessed soon, having done several initial tests with a doctor. Is it possible to believe in non-scientific thinking like this book and and engage in alternative diets or treatments without scientific basis AND still have Asperger's? My sister shows some aspie traits but I value logic truth reason and science above virtually everything, unlike her. She believes in new age type things, so I doubt she has an aspie brain. Am I being a bit 'black and white' in my thinking by assuming ALL aspies are rational and don't believe things like this book?

Short answer - yes, it is.

I think Asperger's plays a role in how we believe or think something, rather than what we think or believe.