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Has anyone read either of these books or anything on the subject matter? I find it very interesting, that we can tap into certain vibrational frequencies and influence our lives. Millions believe it in and millions believe it is a crock of shit, where do you lie?

I've listened to some of it, coming to the conclussion that people manifest their own destinies. The secret isn't fake and it isn't real, it just is. The fact of the matter is that if people act in a decent optimistic manner it will draw things to them whereas if they act like an asshole everyone will just step away. The cd itself seems repitive and dronish, the same thoughts and ideas are repeated again and again with only a change of aim and little else. Seems as if it only teaches you to think by triggering the mind to function abstract thoughts on different thoughts instead of releasing cut and dry statements that stop you in your tracts. It's been stated through the centuries within various naturilist and religious books, funny that people only take notice now.

Ignoring Dak's image there (is that liver? I love liver).

I was interested in the Secret and read a little about it. One good review said it's basically going on about positive thinking ie. if you think positively then good things will happen and you're life will be better. This is basic common sense. The danger with the Secret was that it promised things that are really not in the control of the believer, no matter how positive you are (avoiding major illnesses etc).

There is a large industry in self-help. It is in the industry's interest to keep repackaging the same basic things to con people into parting with their money.

However there's a forum on the Secret somewhere with a few positive posts.

Lozx

The Secret cracked me up. Not because I scoff at the idea of manifesting your reality, but because they called it "The Secret" when it's been done a lot before. I think the Church of Religious Science has classes on how to manifest your reality, using what they call "spiritual mind treatments"... we Wiccans just call them "spells".

Some people swear by it, some people scoff at it. Some don't believe in it because they tried and it didn't work for them. I know one woman who says she has an "agreement with the universe" about getting easy parking spaces, usually halfway down the row near the door. It works for her, so she believes in it.

Well, I'm currently discussing these things with a single indiviua and he likes to take my ideas so I won't cheat on him, so to speak, on ZAADZ.com and there are a lot of other people in the zaadz.com community who know a lot about this stuff. I will just tell you that there is a bit more to it than what the secret explains if your in a rut and want to get yourself out.

sorry laurence google didn't seem to have too many images of shit in a crock.

The Muppet Show, "Witch Doctor"

It describes people as magnets.

If people were magnets, Mother Theresa would have been raped and brutally murdered.

It says the law of attraction is why cheerios cluster in the bowl. That's what we call "surface tension."

And worst, it essentially blames the victim. If you're not doing well it's because you aren't doing it right. Its your fault if your sick, poor, etc.



It's a ridiculous excuse for a self-help atrocity. It's popular because it's lazy. Because it amounts to, "I want and the universe will give me, without actual effort."

Well I think that it goes a little too far. I don't think you can blame a victim for attracting an atrocity. I do think though we do tune into certain vibrational frequencies and our thoughts create our lives.

One can be rich as heck and be miserable, one can be poor and be happy, its all in the mind.

I think that is an oversimplification spoken from a point of privilege.

It's easy to be miserable when your rich. But being truly poor gives you little time to be happy. You're just exhausted at best.

Yes, beyond the point where you have enough money not to worry about the essentials, there is a definite mental aspect to it. But it is definitely not, "all in the mind" as much as I wish it were.

It can be a very valuable tool, it can also mean nothing to you and therefore completely useless. Like so many things in life, its what you make of it.

Some people have the ability to make use of everything in life and use it to their advantage. Able to thrive in life with a simple screwdriver. Others seek tools that magically do things for them...the "here I am, just fix me" mentality.

A transmission is useless without the power of the engine...
In the end we decide whether this concept works for us or not.

One mans opinion.

I believe in stuff like this to a moderate extent, but I'm careful to weave it into other things I believe and have been taught (typical Unitarian Universalist). I believe that people create their own luck without even realizing it. I believe you can influence outcomes based on the positive energy you put into the situation, even if it is positive energy in a passive sense. I believe a little bit in karma, and sort of a "pay it forward" type of dynamic. I believe that if your mind focuses on what you want, then of course you're more likely to achieve it. I also think all this positive energy stuff works very subtly and that, of course, other more realistic factors are at play. All I know is it cannot hurt.

That being said, I've never read or seen The Secret. But I've heard plenty about it. I imagine it is old common sense with sensationalistic new packaging. I've also seen "What the bleep Do We Know" and "I Heart Huckabees". I've read a couple of books, notably, "The Four Agreements". It's all, more or less, the same basic concept.

Unfortunately I have a couple of friends who seem to have sunk themselves into The Secret and it is kind of creeping me out. When I tell them of a particular problem or concern, they talk to me as if I don't "get it" and start spewing Secret-ish rhetoric. One big problem I have with Secret-ites is that they totally diminish whatever difficult situation might be going on and tell you to simply think differently. Like I said, keeping your chin up is good and can be helpful in tough spots, but the way some of these folks talk seems a bit simplistic and delusional.

It's fun to watch Madonna and other celebrities find a new religion and suddenly sink themselves into it. It is scary when it is one of your own friends.

How can thinking positively about one's life *ever* be a bad thing? The "secret" to The Secret is anything but a secret. It's common sense. Yet, properly packaged, the author has managed to use the law of attraction to attract a pile of cash. So, I guess it's working for her!

The only people I know who are into this book/movie are people whose lives are something of a mess. They're all struggling in one way or another, yet I haven't seen any positive results come of their Secret obsession. It reminds me of the poor sending in their last few bucks each month to the TV preacher.

Everyone wants an easy answer.

well, I can't help myself but straight guys' asses are my little secret. I adore watching them in the locker room at the gym...

I have NO shame either...

The stuff in that book ain't nothing new!

stripperrocco you do have a point, except the path is just now coming into light and I like that.

Me, I actually went to a workshop with a hypnotherapist who helps people to make a living doing what they love. Turns out I love to help people. It brings to mind a few ethical and moral concerns though like, would it be a good idea to actually charge for this. I have heard many people say it doesn't do much for the soul and I agree.

So with that said I have an idea to share.

There is one technique which jumps out to me in the book. Inviting things into your life is one of the central concepts and it says that what you say you have in your life is what happens(somewhere close to that anyway) For example: were I to say, "I always date homosexual guys who have a seven and a half inch penis, are very handsome, and are physically fit with a buff and toned body, nice ass and total gentlemen" I would be attracting more of that into my life.

Now, I have a theory. One could use the power of contrast, not the kind on the TV, as in opposite of something you might not be too fond of combined with affirmations that are already thought out for you and the law of attraction as I just mentioned from The Secret along with a little visualization, you would have something to meditate on almost every opportunity you have and attract only the best life has to offer.

Another positive one to leave you with

I always encounter people who support, encourage, and motivate me to accomplish my goals and live life to its fullest no matter what they might have been through, no matter what their beliefs are, and no matter where they stand in society. plus a few other things I will probably think of later.

RuggerUnfortunately I have a couple of friends who seem to have sunk themselves into The Secret and it is kind of creeping me out. When I tell them of a particular problem or concern, they talk to me as if I don't "get it" and start spewing Secret-ish rhetoric. One big problem I have with Secret-ites is that they totally diminish whatever difficult situation might be going on and tell you to simply think differently. Like I said, keeping your chin up is good and can be helpful in tough spots, but the way some of these folks talk seems a bit simplistic and delusional.

Exactly. I find people a lot of times use "The Secret" as a faux spiritual means to not deal with their deeper issues. Why deal with your inner rage, your rampant insecurities, or your jealousy issues if you can have "the secret" to life handy in your back pocket? The movie bothers me because I feel like it creates this silly notion that you can simply have something if you want it bad enough - and gives very little attention to the idea that we're often held back by our subconscious fears and desires. There's also something incredibly lazy/greedy about this manifestation craze - it's not always about what you want but more about what's intended for you.

I also don't like the constant quest to liken metaphysics to physics (i.e. the law of attraction). That is why it is called "meta"-physics - because they are not the same! To equate the two to one another is to undercut both: science is a system of empirical thought that cannot be bent and twisted to support what is unprovable; and spirituality is far too powerful and elusive to be boiled down to science. Ken Wilbur wrote a great book about how so many of the world's greatest scientists were also mystics - and yet thoroughly opposed the race to join the two.

Mark wahlberg - "good vibrations"

Another idea is to take the affirmations, and organize them into categories in accordance with your needs on the Maslow Hierarchy Scale with what you have already attained of each level in mind and then set boundaries with other people. That way you can let something else do the talking for you except you will be using your own selections so be sure you know what your talking about as well so you send a consistent message.

My boyfriend is very much into a lot of positive thinking / self-help authors and he got me interested in The Secret. We ended up buying the DVD and I downloaded the unabridged audiobook. We both watched and listened to it pretty regularly for about a month. We even made "Vision Boards" and everything lol. (Little embarrassed...)

After getting all worked up and excited about it we both ended up kinda falling off the wagon. In the end I think its just too simplistic. Too much shit happens in real life for you to have attracted EVERYTHING. Also, they talk about physics briefly in the The Secret, but they never offer any real proof.

I think I got so into it because I grew up in a very conservative Christian home and I ended up walking away from all religion. The Secret sounded like something I could get into, but in the end I think spirituality is much more complicated than just focused thought...

This stuff isn't only crap, it's vicious crap.

It's a reworking of est (anyone my age has to remember est).

I had an experience with them some years ago. They ran something called "The Holiday Project" in New York. Basically, young single people with nothing else to do would go around to area hospitals and visit with the inpatients--who, over the holidays, are always the sickest of the sick.

After going around to the wards and distributing small gifts (combs, socks, etc.) and talking for a bit with the patients, we retired to a conference room that the hospital provided so that we could nibble snacks and "process" the experience.

"Processing" consisted of sitting around a conference table, and each participant was expected to stand up and tell the group what he or she had gotten from the experience. The first man stood, shyly beaming, and related that he had spent all his time in the oncology ward.

"I talked to them about their cancer," he said. "I think I really made them understand how their negative vibes are what caused them to be sick." And he sat down, looking like a puppy waiting to be petted and praised.

My turn was next. "I think that is maybe the most callous thing I've ever heard," I said, and slammed the door as I left.

Well, what the hell, I was 22.

If visualization worked, I'd be having sex with Jake Gyllenhaal right now!

Good ole Werner Erhard and his blend of Scientology and "positive thinking" called est. He was basically exiled when allegations of incest arose, but his work lives on as Landmark Education. It's still as cultish as ever.

The Secret is, as many have noted, just recycled New Age magical thinking. It reminds me, too, of Louise Hay, whose work was popular during the early years of the AIDS epidemic, before anyone even knew what was causing the disease.

Louise said it (and all other disease) was a product of negative thinking. Many desperate people with AIDS bought into this crap. I had several friends who paid big bucks to go to her place in California, and get covered with crystals while reciting "positive affirmations."

In Houston, when a friend involved in a local Louise Hay "support group," was in the hospital dying, his colleagues came into his room and literally told him his impending death was demonstrative of the failure of his thinking. My friend, thank God, got enraged and sent them out of his room.

That is something New Age bliss ninnies routinely miss -- the absolute cruelty of their blame-the-victim mentality. Since life is inevitably painful for everyone, it's also why nobody remains under the spell of this crap very long.

"If visualization worked, I'd be having sex with Jake Gyllenhaal right now!"

Perhaps your visualization is not detailed enough. I think you need to describe the scene from start to finish with complete details.

There is some common sense truth to it I think, that we attract what we deserve seems like a logical conclusion. I try to be a positive person and I really don't like to be around negative people, for example. The thing that bothers me the most about the video (I haven't read the book and won't -- I read Tuesdays With Morrie and vowed to never read a best selling self-improvement book again) is the lack of documentation for all the things they claim. They interview a lot of people with impressive titles under their names but never really do much to prove the points they are making. The other thing I don't like about the presentation is it almost seems to be suggesting if you wish for something you will get it.

As I recall, you must wish for whatever it is, but you must also act as though its arrival is a forgone conclusion.

I've heard ads on the radio for a book by one of the "experts" in the film. The ad is addressed to people who have tried the Secret but still aren't getting what they want. You just need to buy one more book....

There was a great American Express commercial that featured the cast of 30 Rock. Somebody was trying to explain to Kenneth the page that some people didn't celebrate Christmas. They mention that Jane Krakowski's character practices The Secret, then there is a jump cut to her and she says with great determination "I will marry George Clooney."

Surveys show that self-help authors make most of their money from self-help books. The Secret trotted out a dozen or so people who have specialized in it. In other words, they never actually succeeded at anything except selling books (and other services) purporting to contain authoritative information about how to succeed.

Why is that?

Nevertheless I still believe there are mental skills which can be cultivated and enable us to practice positive thinking, optimism, physical and mental health, emotional self direction and intelligence, and get the outcomes we need or want, and just be happier.

The universe is a place full of totally random acts. This scares the liver out of people, so they cook up notions about how they can influence events with their thinking, or how bits of rock a zillion light years away can influence your personality. It's all the same crap, packaged over and over.

What I don't get is why people don't see that the randomness of the universe is not frightening, it's LIBERATING. It is what makes me hop out of bed early each morning to see what's going to happen next. It's not knowing who you will bump into, who might suddenly one day make that inexplicable leap from acquaintance to dear friend, or from friend to lover. It's tbe not knowing that keeps it all fresh. If I could influence events with my awesome Secret-fueled think power, it would be like skipping to the end of the book. Who wants that?

My experience with self help and positive thinking philosophies fit an 80/20 rule.

80% of what they say makes sense, 20% doesn't.
The 20% that doesn't they want you to apply to situations that make up 80% of your life.

So really, at best they can help you with 20% of life situations. But don't get too excited about any particular self-help guru - 100% of the useful stuff has all been said by someone new in each generation for thousands of years.

The good stuff you hear at a Carnagie seminar is probably the same stuff a Chinese emporer was directing his regional governors on 6000 years ago.

Read widely - you'll see the common threads - take what makes sense and do the best you can with it.

It doesn't hurt for a couple or a group to use a self-help book as a basis for discussions that lead to agreements on how to interact or resolve problems. Just don't get militant about it, like the book is a magic recipe that must be followed or life goes to hell.

Ipichva.

First of all HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU !

Your second paragraph in my humble opinion really "hit the nail on the head".

Though I do not agree with the idea that the universe is random,we are trying to view infinity with a finite mind.

Anyway wish you joy when you hop out of bed in the morning.
Regards.

AWESOME ABUNDANCE AFFIRMATIONS/COMMANDS (PART 1)

I release all of my vows and oaths of poverty
I allow money to accumulate into a secure nest egg and still have enough for my needs.
I am divinely guided as to how to use money for both my Highest Good and the Highest Good of our world/planet/Mother Earth, etc.
I understand how having ample money/abundance/prosperity feels.
I allow myself to have money/prosperity.
I believe in magic.
Money is magic.
I feel I have enough money.
I allow myself to be prosperous.
Having money/prosperity is spiritual.
I believe I can win the lottery.
I allow myself to win.
I allow myself to find money.
I allow myself to draw money into my life.
I open myself up to all channels of prosperity/money in my life.
I understand what finding money feels like.
I understand what “being open” to money/prosperity feels like.
Money finds me.
I agree to accept all the money that Universal Law has to offer (for my highest good).
I allow myself to accept all the money that Universal Law has to offer, for my highest good.
Money is energy and there is no limit to energy.
I understand what divine energy feels like.
I am willing to accept free money.
I allow myself to accept free money.
I easily convert energy to cash/money.
It is ok to get money without any effort at all to use for my highest good and the highest good of others.
I allow myself to get money without any effort at all (for my highest good).
Infinite amounts of money are easy for me to accept.
I am relaxed about finances and abundance.
I obtain all I will ever need and more to share.
I allow myself to obtain all I will ever need and more to share.
I understand what it feels like to have all I will ever need and more to share.
My world is abundant/prosperous.
I deserve an abundant world.
I understand what an abundant world feels like.
Having money is fun.
I understand what fun feels like.
I allow myself to have fun.
It is a blessing to be abundant.
It is a blessing to have money.
I allow myself to have ample resources.
I attract money/abundance.
I allow myself to attract money/abundance.
I understand what attracting money feels like.
Money enhances my life and the life of others.
I can do great things with money.
Abundance/prosperity is simple and natural to me.
Abundance is a way of life.
I understand what abundance as a way of life feels like.
I allow myself to have abundance as a way of life.
I have financial independence.
I accept and allow financial independence into my life.
I understand what financial independence feels like.
I am financially independent.
I am worth of receiving.
I understand what it feels like to receive.
I easily sustain abundance.
I allow myself to sustain abundance.
I understand what it feels like to sustain abundance.
I am wise when it comes to money.
I allow myself to be wise when it comes to money.
I understand what it feels like to be wise when it comes to money.
I am comfortable having money.
Abundance flows into my life.
Money issues are neutral for me ( as opposed to making me angry, uncomfortable, etc).
I am ready to receive my divine inheritance.
I allow myself to receive my divine inheritance.
I am worthy to receive my divine inheritance.
I understand what receiving my divine inheritance feels like.
I have achieved balance with finances.
I understand what it feels like to achieve balance with finances.
I allow myself to achieve balance with finances.
Money/prosperity comes to me easily.
I allow money/prosperity to come to me easily.
I am comfortable having money.
I understand what it feels like to be comfortable having money
I allow myself to be comfortable having money.
Money flows to me easily.
I allow money to flow to me easily.
I understand what it feels like for money to flow to me easily.
Opportunities flow and prosperity/money come to me effortlessly.
I allow opportunities to flow and money to come to me easily now.
I understand what it feels like for opportunities to flow and money to come to me easily.

**many of the affirmations/commands on this list have been adapted from a list by “Beth” published in the Theta Healing Practitioner Manual.

Putting the affirmations in the post above into perspective, it is more like, having a job, keeping money you find in briefcase lying around in the street without reporting it to the authorities, robing a bank, winning the lotery, making an invention which changes the world for the better, those kinds of things.

gettoknowit, explain to me the connection between robbing a bank and inventing something that makes the world better?

different ways to get your hands on some bread.

in that case, you might want to ATTRACT the inspiration for the invention but REPEL the urge to rob a bank.

Duh! Why would anyone want to go to prison?

DiverScience said
If people were magnets, Mother Theresa would have been raped and brutally murdered.

On that note.. Mother Teresa was a deceitful whore of the Catholic church. She was more concerned with collecting money from suckers to spread her brand of extreme Catholicism and her crusade against contraception than actually helping people.

People suffered horribly in her "hospitals" while she spent the money campaigning for catholicism, money that was taken from people who were lead to believe their donations would help the poor.

The Catholic Church is of course doing everything in their power to paint her as a saint and expedite her canonization, do some research.. just more corrupt filth from the Catholic church. Read up on it!

Yeah, gettoknowit, that's why I wondered (and still wonder) why they're both linked to your affirmations. Presumably you WOULDN'T list robbing a bank as part of your perspective on the affirmation goals, but there it is.

posthuman said
Mother Teresa was a deceitful whore of the Catholic church.

Wow, strong words there, posthumous! (btw, I agree)

It was a joke. There is a difference between decision and affirmation.

The Secret is a rather crudely simplified version of what I've studied about the law of attraction and affirmative prayer in Religious Science over the years. It is nothing new to this continent. Earnest Holmes was talking about it as early as 1914 and Emma Curtis Hopkins before him and they both borrow heavily from and give credit to many eastern philosophies. It's just slick new packaging for our McDonald's mentality and cultural ADD these days. Regardless of whether you agree with it or not both author and publisher "manifested" themselves a shit load of money.

I've heard a lot people make the argument that The Secret is nothing more than common sense. I would suggest to you that "common sense" is the least common element in the universe. Because if it was so "common", why are so many people buying the damned book.

It always amazes me that so many people find life either so perplexing or so disappointing that they turn to these mountebanks and snake-oil salesmen, each with his own bizarro blueprint for How To Be Happy And/Or Rich And/Or Wanted Sexually By Everyone.

I blame spirituality and religion. It sets up the two ideas in people's minds: that there is some sort of perfection if only we knew the path to it, and that everything in life has a Meaning and a Purpose.

In fact, we live on an icy little rock in the slow lane of a not-particularly-distinguished solar system so far away from the center of our own galazy that if we wobbled just a bit we'd fall out of it entirely. We're like the Akron, Ohio of solar systems. Our being here at all is one wonderful, cosmic joke.

Don't run from uncertainty. Enjoy it.

Okay, this is a lame joke, but it was told to me by a Religious Science minister after she had discussed The Secret in a Sunday service.

A priest a rabbi and a religious science minister are sitting in hell together.

The priest asks the rabbi "What are you here for?"

The rabbi responds "I couldn't keep kosher. Why are you here?"

The priest says "I couldn't keep away from the alter boys"

They both look over towards the religious science minister to ask him the same question, only to find him in the lotus position chanting "It's not hot and I'm not here!"

okay, I warned you it was lame....

jprichva said[quote][cite]posthuman said[/cite]Mother Teresa was a deceitful whore of the Catholic church.

Wow, strong words there, posthumous! (btw, I agree)[/quote]


The frequently loathsome Christopher Hitchens debunked Mother Teresa in his book "The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice."

The most repugnant thing about her is that she didn't believe in giving pain medication to the dying, so people suffered unnecessarily. I don't see how you can avoid calling her a sadist in that regard.

As I recall, she also would not provide good medical care for members of her order -- no dental care at all, I believe.

Her hypocrisy was also rampant.

Letters discovered after her death also described a very embittered woman who had one deep religious experience and was angry the rest of her life because she could not repeat it.

now i have to find a truly perverse way to destroy my mother theresa bobble head...........

"It's the Laws of Attraction- If you want a horse; it's yours!"
After I saw the movie my only thought was "tell me something I dont know."
Then I went for Ice Cream.

Gotta love Scorpion's Signature Move - "Get Over Here"

With regard to these books, I believe that anyone can take age-old ideas and put them together in a pretty package and regurgitate it to the masses as something "new" or "mysterious" or even "secret wisdom". This information... or as some call it, "path"... is not new, nor is it just now coming into light. Its been around forever in one form or another.

You are responsible for your own life and your own happiness, that's for certain. But there are factors that you can't control and you have the responsibility to take those factors and make the best you can out of it. Coming from a poor family, I can certainly say that poverty isn't something that makes one happy. However, one can sometimes find it within themselves to maintain an optomistic outlook as opposed to a pessimistic one... and that does seem to make things a little better.

I believe in balance in all things, taking responsibility for self, for my actions and for my choices (and yes, my mistakes). I believe in common courtesy, treating others as I want to be treated, respecting self and others and especially respecting one's elders and their wisdom. I believe in my gut instinct. I believe that every person/situation has a lesson to teach me (or a lesson to learn from me). I believe in love, thinking for one's self, and personal autonomy. And there's much more, but I'm tired of typing...

Everyone I've ever known who was into things like New Age mysticism, the Secret, and any other 'positive thinking' or other magical approaches to life, was looking for an effortless fix, a magical cure, or a way to deflect actually dealing with their own problems.
The idea of positive thinking does work, but only if you understand why. It is not a 'power of the universe' type of thing or anything magical or religious as people tend to attach to it. It works because a genuine change in attitude will likely shift your decisions of any 'on the fence' issues to result in a less self destructive approach. It doesn't affect every decision, nor does it mean that all your decisions will be good, for there is no presumption of intelligence in this. Intelligence and knowledge is far more powerful and useful in the decision making process. These decisions would probably be a small percentage of the total, but the outcome of a few decisions could (I emphasis 'could' here) have a positive effect on one's life. Granted, many who pray, or hope or wish things would be better, assume that in the random cases that turn out well, that it was their wishing, praying etc, that caused it.

It's like the fact that in medicine, sometimes people get better regardless of the intervention, or lack thereof.

So if I wish I'd build my body up, and it gives me the drive to do the actual work required, the positive thinking works. Buying a lottery ticket and wishing I would win, doesn't change the odds. If I did win, it was chance and not the power of positive thinking as EVERYONE who buys a lottery ticket wishes that they would win.

So as already been said: these types of programs are fodder for the masses who will not fix the problems that they themselves create or enable. Nor will they fix those problems any more effectively when the causes are entirely outside their control or random incidents.

Eggsactly!!! PLease stand by for the publication of my book: The NOT SO Secret Secret.

jprichva saidThis stuff isn't only crap, it's vicious crap.

It's a reworking of est (anyone my age has to remember est).

I had an experience with them some years ago. They ran something called "The Holiday Project" in New York. Basically, young single people with nothing else to do would go around to area hospitals and visit with the inpatients--who, over the holidays, are always the sickest of the sick.

After going around to the wards and distributing small gifts (combs, socks, etc.) and talking for a bit with the patients, we retired to a conference room that the hospital provided so that we could nibble snacks and "process" the experience.

"Processing" consisted of sitting around a conference table, and each participant was expected to stand up and tell the group what he or she had gotten from the experience. The first man stood, shyly beaming, and related that he had spent all his time in the oncology ward.

"I talked to them about their cancer," he said. "I think I really made them understand how their negative vibes are what caused them to be sick." And he sat down, looking like a puppy waiting to be petted and praised.

My turn was next. "I think that is maybe the most callous thing I've ever heard," I said, and slammed the door as I left.

Well, what the hell, I was 22.

Anybody wanna be my Shame?

obscenewish said

Hah. Never forget, a negative times a negative gives a positive.

On est....I still remember a friend whose girlfriend dragged him to one of their meetings. They locked the doors so you couldn't get out to take a leak. Because my friend was a newcomer, he was asked "...how long have you been an idiot?..." which is a standard question, apparently, directed to all newcomers. What was fascinating to him was how many of the new people there caved in and admitted that they were idiots. His only response was to try to reign a violent impulse to punch the guy, which gave him great anxiety, simply because he is a gentle guy, and has never even been in a grade school fight.

John

I actually was sent that book to review but never read it. I don't need further enablement of my pessimism. My partner pulled the book out recently to read. He kept telling me "I don't find it very funny." I had to explain that it's not a parody.

Well, most of the usual permutations of hogwash have been written and re-written thousands of times, so they have to come up with new ones.

"The Anti-positivity of negative non-actual non-positivity." Thanks, and that'll be $32.95. I'd sign your copy, but the unsigned ones are more valuable, as they are practically unknown.

NativeDude said Coming from a poor family, I can certainly say that poverty isn't something that makes one happy.

Coming from a wealthy family, I can certainly say that wealth isn't something that makes one happy.

To be honest, I think it is both funny and sad that some of the very same people who complain vehemently about organized religion will run to every fad that comes along - some of which are nothing more than a way for some author to make money off of book sales.

Mariah Carey - "Vision of Love"

Tomorrow is Valentines day, I'm so excited.

The Law of Attraction one of the seven Hermetic Pricipals of the Universe. I studied to be a Wiccan Priest for a year when I was 18, mostly meditaion and becoming energetically sensitive. Anyways my answer is YES.

gettoknowit saidWell, I'm currently discussing these things with a single indiviua and he likes to take my ideas so I won't cheat on him, so to speak, on ZAADZ.com and there are a lot of other people in the zaadz.com community who know a lot about this stuff. I will just tell you that there is a bit more to it than what the secret explains if your in a rut and want to get yourself out.

There definetly is.

oooooh, check out the Deal or No Deal show tonight. Buff bods with cases of cash.

I read The Secret and got some value out of it. However, I didnt wake up at 6 foot tall today so I guess I better return the new wardrobe I bought since it doesnt fit me ( aAsk , Believe , Receive).

I have the Laws of Attraction on CD. I find them very useful. It has helped to change my mental attitude towards goals and aspirations. We all have certain vibrational frequencies, and the laws of attraction help you to change those vibrational frequencies to attract what you want out of life.

It's hogwash, and it's mean-spirited hogwash at that. And those vibrations you feel? Air disturbances from an airliner passing overhead.

My ex believed in this crap. Reason enough to dump him (as if I didn't have many other reasons).

I thought "the Secret" was very interesting and plausible. It does make one think about what is really important in life.
It does raise one disturbing idea though, that we're all a part of the same cosmic energy force, that we are all interconnected and a part of one another. That would mean being interconnected with jprichva, ummm, no way.

Awww, John, I know when you say "ummm no way", you really mean "Please come over so we can have hot monkey sex for hours."

Be right over.

LOL, OK jprichva, so ummmm, what are you wearing?

For me, both "The Secret" and "What the )*& Do We Know?" were refreshing in that the ideas expressed in each (which I boil down for my own consumption to mean the way I see something is going to affect my experience, and the ideas I give energy to are going to shape my future) are rarely addressed in the mainstream media (except perhaps on Oprah, which I'm not in the habit of watching).

Like anything else, those ideas can be misunderstood and misapplied.

The one thing about The Secret that bothered me is that there was no place given for "enough." It was always a bigger house, a nicer car, etc.

Desire itself can be calmed down, which seems to be less of an intellectual process, because the mind can always come up with reasons, rationalizations, and paradoxes to distract the aspirant, than an emotional one.

Each to his own, in the matter of giving one's time and attention to desire creation and fulfillment, time-filling (a serious habit of mine), or self-understanding.

Charlie

Two friends both got heavily into 'the secret'. They both wanted the same position that came up for grabs at work.

So who's 'secret' was stronger? Neither got the position. It was handed to someone who was a harder worker and had put in a lot more time studying the tasks involved in the job.

This is where most of these kinds of beliefs fall short. We live in a limited world. Suppose it DID work and everyone used the secret to get rich? Where would the money come from? Suppose everyone used the secret to only attract physically perfect people into their lives? It disgusts me.

Thanks for bringing up Louise Hay and est. Both are rotten.

I was at my first and only est meeting where they went at us for over an hour to get us to pay 500.00 in 70's dollars for the course. I stood up and told them I'd counted close to 600 people in the hall, and if everyone paid one dollar then someone could go. Instant hate. One was supposed to suffer financially to gain benefit from the course as one would then appreciate est that much more.

If nothing else, movies like The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know make curmudgeonly farts like me a little more pleasant to be around. What I like about The Secret is that it's way less commercialized than est or The Landmark Forum. I don't see the creators of this program hyping it to oblivion.

I think it all boils down to choice.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.
-Viktor Frankl

You can choose to be grateful in spite of your present circumstance. You can choose to aspire to be or to have more instead of settling for mediocrity. It's uncanny how, over time, the law of attraction then starts to kick in and circumstances dramatically improve. Do you become a great pianist or athlete just by wanting it really bad? Yes...after much practice. Does it mean that you always get what you want? Probably not, but as Mick Jagger once sang, maybe you get what you need. On the other hand, do you attract the negative stuff, as well? I've personally done a lot of soul searching on this, and I can see how, in many cases, I have attracted much (but not all) of the negative stuff I've experienced into my life.

Like others have previously stated, people can go overboard with this stuff. Someone mentioned est, which I actually attended when I was 12 years old. At the time, it did absolutely nothing for me, and had it done so, I likely would not have experienced all of the pain and turmoil I encountered in subsequent years. We also attended a Religious Science church when I was young, (that is, up until the Baptists found us and performed their voodoo), and all I took away from that was a little diddy about how nothing is too wonderful to happen, nothing is too good to be true. There will always be those well-meaning but annoying zealots who beat you over the head with this stuff, kind of like the Amway people. In the end, I think it's really all about personal transformation that happens in a subtle and quiet way as these nuggets of wisdom are woven into the fabric of one's life. In a way, like XRugger said, you then start to make your own luck.