The Dark Side of 'The Secret'

[Bernhard]

It would be closer to the mark to state that it is 'the layman's way' of closing out the world for one's own personal satisfaction. Odd indeed.

That's the best short description of "The Secret" I've ever heard. This film promotes STS.

 

[42k4n3]

anart.

You are so right, after thinking about it. I myself have moved beyond the the gloss that it professes. What I was meaning to convey was that the aspect of Esther Hicks and the concept of her channeling Abraham, is what I got out of it if anything else. I have listened to Esther's sesssions after that and it is that that opend my mind to the concept of channeling.

I know that this is deeply personal as far as I see it, but were it not for that I don't think the idea of higher density beings, such as the C's, would resonate so deeply with me if I had not been exposed to that aspect.

In everything else, I agree that the 'idea' and hook of it is horribly detrimental to doing the work, and a fast-track to STS.

I hope that clarifies

 

[Nawd]

Well we are already STS. "The Secret" promotes the extreme of that type of behavior, gives it an excuse, and then wraps it up in an attempted pretty bow of 'spirituality.' (I did see the movie once, and had a hard time watching the entire thing, too much like a long commercial.)

If such a movie works as a very temporary tool to bring further awareness, then cool! I think that (new fad) people should really, really dig into themselves to see what made them get drawn in to begin with, so that they don't get strapped into the next fad.

anart.

You are so right, after thinking about it. I myself have moved beyond the the gloss that it professes. What I was meaning to convey was that the aspect of Esther Hicks and the concept of her channeling Abraham, is what I got out of it if anything else. I have listened to Esther's sesssions after that and it is that that opend my mind to the concept of channeling.

I know that this is deeply personal as far as I see it, but were it not for that I don't think the idea of higher density beings, such as the C's, would resonate so deeply with me if I had not been exposed to that aspect.

In everything else, I agree that the 'idea' and hook of it is horribly detrimental to doing the work, and a fast-track to STS.

I hope that clarifies

 

[Renaissance]

If such a movie works as a very temporary tool to bring further awareness, then cool! I think that (new fad) people should really, really dig into themselves to see what made them get drawn in to begin with, so that they don't get strapped into the next fad.

I don't know if I'd compare 'The Secret' to be like a fad, although it is packaged very much that way. The basic idea behind it has been growing for quite a bit in the past couple of decades. Some seem to be looking for 'something more' but those with lower levels of development potential are more easily swayed by what's in the immediate environment. The Secret sure makes 'something more' appear to be something easily attainable too, and as such it is 'something less' ...a lot less.

 

[Marcus-Aurelius]

"The secret" by Rhonda Byrne

This book is interesting because what's describing, when applied properly, incite one to remember oneself (to be conscious of one's thoughts) and it describes avoiding  bad feelings expression as the most important thing to change one's life. The struggle against unpleasant emotions has been described as a very good method for self-observation by G trough ouspensky in "In Search of the Miraculous". He even said it must always accompagnies self-study and self-observation.

[moderator - this post was merged into the already existing thread on the topic.]

 

[Oxajil]

Re: "The secret" by Rhonda Byrne

This book is interesting because what's describing, when applied properly, incite one to remember oneself (to be conscious of one's thoughts)

"What else do you want?" said G. "This is a very important realization. People who know this" (he emphasized these words) "already know a great deal. The whole trouble is that nobody knows it. If you ask a man whether he can remember himself, he will of course answer that he can. If you tell him that he cannot remember himself, he will either be angry with you, or he will think you an utter fool. The whole of life is based on this, the whole of human existence, the whole of human blindness. If a man really knows that he cannot remember himself, he is already near to the understanding of his being."

Remembering oneself is not (only) being ''concious of one's thoughts''. I also think that the writer of The Secret doesn't know that humans are basically machines, that they can not ''remember themselves'' the way they think they can. So what the writer describes as ''remembering oneself'' is different than how Gurdjieff describes it. Or so I think.

This also reminds me of this passage:

A. L. Volinsky, whom I had often met and with whom I had talked a great deal since 1909 and whose opinions I valued very much, did not find in the idea of "selfremembering" anything that he had not known before.

"This is an apperception." He said to me, "Have you read Wundt's Logic? You will find there his latest definition of apperception. It is exactly the same thing you speak of. 'Simple observation' is perception. 'Observation with self-remembering,' as you call it, is apperception. Of course Wundt knew of it."

I did not want to argue with Volinsky. I had read Wundt. And of course what Wundt had written was not at all what I had said to Volinsky. Wundt had come close to this idea, but others had come just as close and had afterwards gone off in a different direction. He had not seen the magnitude of the idea which was hidden behind his thoughts about different forms of perception. And not having seen the magnitude of the idea he of course could not see the central position which the idea of the absence of consciousness and the idea of the possibility of the voluntary creation of this consciousness ought to occupy in our thinking. Only it seemed strange to me that Volinsky could not see this even when I pointed it out to him.

I subsequently became convinced that this idea was hidden by an impenetrable veil for many otherwise very intelligent people—and still later on I saw why this was so.

and it describes avoiding bad feelings expression as the most important thing to change one's life.

That's so standard. "Try to be nice, love your enemies" and whatnot. And they can try, but as machines, it's hard to be the way you really want to be. Either your machine will balance itself which will bring some ''bad'' side-effects with it (which you might not notice, while others might) or you will avoid ''bad feelings expression'' some moments and some moments you will not.

The first step imo is to realize that you don't know yourself, lie to yourself, can't control yourself, that external influences control you etc., ...that you basically are like a complex printer : P. And I don't think ''The Secret'' gets even close to that. Just wishful thinking...

 

[Marcus-Aurelius]

This book is interesting because what's describing, when applied properly, incite one to remember oneself (to be conscious of one's thoughts)

"What else do you want?" said G. "This is a very important realization. People who know this" (he emphasized these words) "already know a great deal. The whole trouble is that nobody knows it. If you ask a man whether he can remember himself, he will of course answer that he can. If you tell him that he cannot remember himself, he will either be angry with you, or he will think you an utter fool. The whole of life is based on this, the whole of human existence, the whole of human blindness. If a man really knows that he cannot remember himself, he is already near to the understanding of his being."

Remembering oneself is not (only) being ''concious of one's thoughts''. I also think that the writer of The Secret doesn't know that humans are basically machines, that they can not ''remember themselves'' the way they think they can. So what the writer describes as ''remembering oneself'' is different than how Gurdjieff describes it. Or so I think.

This also reminds me of this passage:

A. L. Volinsky, whom I had often met and with whom I had talked a great deal since 1909 and whose opinions I valued very much, did not find in the idea of "selfremembering" anything that he had not known before.

"This is an apperception." He said to me, "Have you read Wundt's Logic? You will find there his latest definition of apperception. It is exactly the same thing you speak of. 'Simple observation' is perception. 'Observation with self-remembering,' as you call it, is apperception. Of course Wundt knew of it."

I did not want to argue with Volinsky. I had read Wundt. And of course what Wundt had written was not at all what I had said to Volinsky. Wundt had come close to this idea, but others had come just as close and had afterwards gone off in a different direction. He had not seen the magnitude of the idea which was hidden behind his thoughts about different forms of perception. And not having seen the magnitude of the idea he of course could not see the central position which the idea of the absence of consciousness and the idea of the possibility of the voluntary creation of this consciousness ought to occupy in our thinking. Only it seemed strange to me that Volinsky could not see this even when I pointed it out to him.

I subsequently became convinced that this idea was hidden by an impenetrable veil for many otherwise very intelligent people—and still later on I saw why this was so.

and it describes avoiding bad feelings expression as the most important thing to change one's life.

That's so standard. "Try to be nice, love your enemies" and whatnot. And they can try, but as machines, it's hard to be the way you really want to be. Either your machine will balance itself which will bring some ''bad'' side-effects with it (which you might not notice, while others might) or you will avoid ''bad feelings expression'' some moments and some moments you will not.

The first step imo is to realize that you don't know yourself, lie to yourself, can't control yourself, that external influences control you etc., ...that you basically are like a complex printer : P. And I don't think ''The Secret'' gets even close to that. Just wishful thinking...

All this reminds me one thing: I am still unable to remenber myself. When I posted this, I intended to insert alsopoints inwhich I did not agree with "The secret" particularly its huge materialist and egocentric view and its limitations by the fact one can not violate other persons' free will at will just to bring wealth to one's life. But as I have been distracted by a colleague, I completely forgot to add it in my post. Having remembered this later yesterday, I decided to add it today morning, but couldn't find it where it was yesterday. I succeeded to find it only when I searched for new replies to my posts. So I think moderator should sent a message of whatever to the author of a post when he moves it.

Since this subject is already so abundantly covered here, I should better go to read again G. about self-remembering.

 

[Johnno]

Just a note, one of the experts on the DVD, Bob Proctor has sued another participant David Schirmer in the Australian courts.

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

On 12 February 2008 Bob Proctor's company, Lifesuccess Productions, L.L.C. filed a lawsuit against Schirmer, his wife Lorna, and their several companies (including Life Success Pacific Rim PTY LTD, Schirmer Financial Management PTY LTD, Life Success Productions PTY LTD, Excellence in Marketing PTY LTD, and Wealth By Choice PTY LTC) for "mislead. or deceptive conduct".

 

[mocachapeau]

When my brother-in-law came across 'The Secret' (book) in 2007, he did a little research on it and discovered that it was simply a "modernized", or re-written, version of 'The Science of Getting Rich', by Prof. Wallace Wattles. So he read the Wattles book instead, liked it a lot and recommended it to me.

At first I couldn't even get past the title. I was aware, before reading it, that the book dealt with certain concepts related to "spirituality", a subject that I had decided to start exploring, and that I thought was related to the type of teachings often attributed to Jesus. So I had a hard time accepting that there was anything "right" about trying to understand ones connection to God in order to apply that knowledge to simply getting rich. It seemed shallow, at best.

Then I read, right in the introduction, that not only was it quite normal for people to want to get rich, but that it was abnormal for people NOT to want to get rich. Well, I disagreed with that statement, to put it mildly. Desiring to have all you need is one thing, but wanting to simply get rich is another. That then leads to the topic of letting society tell you what your needs really are. Food, sleep, protection from the elements? Or is it mansion, yacht, private jet?

I finished the book but I really didn't retain much of it, if anything. And when my friend leant me a copy of 'The Secret' movie, I couldn't get through it. The thought of taping some kind of currency on the ceiling over my bed so that money is the first thing I think of when I wake up, and the last thing I think of before I fall asleep, I find quite repulsive and destructive.

Just so you know, the reason I kept reading the book was that I had previously read another book by Wattles called 'The New Christ' that I thought was quite brilliant - very thought provoking.

 

[ava]

Thinking about it, I actually saw/read a whole bunch of this positive thinking new age-y stuff (which for me, not knowing about wishful thinking concept then, just sounded like that old one - if it sounds too good to be truth...).

Anyway, as I see it, even though it can definitely be very harmful, it can also work the other way around - to be able to distinguish afterwords what does it mean when someone, instead of saying think positive, be calm, meditate, say hmmm, and the universe will take care of everything, actually says read, learn, work hard and try to wake up, cause only knowledge protects.
At least for me it did.

 

[ecks-i]

self denial is not a secret. that is how wives get beaten, children molested. thinking positively to a fault creates a schism. it is a type of doublethink. you regular old conscious mind can do little to influence reality. the real secret is in transcendental states. also, using the "methods" in "the secret" (i have seen the movie, btw, the original before all the legal crap) to look out only for yourself is quite sts. health, money, sex, for MEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! nuts to you! at no point do they suggest using this "secret" to help bring the planet's vibratory frequency up. but i'm sure most people here know what's up.

 

[Don Genaro]

Like so many here I'm not new to the new age but I am new to the Cass material and more importantly, critical thinking. Prior to discovering the Cass material I had read all of Castaneda's books but didn't really have a context to put them into- practically everything else I had read was fluff. However I do see now that whilst not being an accomplished critical thinker I was getting there.

A case in point- I was introduced to The Secret about a year or two ago- my neighbour was raving about it. I never could read it nor watch the dvd beyond the first 5 minutes. Part of me was saying, first of all- "that's no secret" in response to the vague truth it contains . Secondly, I remember thinking just how sad it was that people continued to focus on the perfect job, home or relationship. Just as sad was the fact that nobody I knew shared my opinion (until I arrived here!)

Just as I was discovering the Cass material a friend of mine told me about a psychologist friend of hers who practises "reiki" also practises "the secret" and she told me how this guy had decided to manifest the perfect partner- a woman who would be attentive to his every need. Well, he got what he was looking for and according to my friend, doesn't have a moment's peace!!! She's so attentive to everything he does that he feels smothered. My reaction when she told me he had tried to visualise the perfect partner was : "That's wrong!" and when she told me how it had ended my reaction was "That's right!".

So, as has already been mentioned in this thread it does seem to work for many people but I guess it works mostly for those who promote it, for example, people like psychologists who will readily sell it to their patients.

 

[dantem]

Mmm... maybe I've failed to record that, "New Thought Movement", at least as described into an Amazon review of Barbara Ehrenreich's book Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America.

Here's a brief passage where The Secret is mentioned:

[...]Why, three centuries after the Enlightenment, is American culture so bewitched by magical thinking, elevating feelings and intuition and hope over preparation, information and science? Why do so many of us seem so willing to discount reality in favor of vague wishes, dreams and secrets? And has this gospel of good times delivered us not into a life of ease but instead into a worldwide economic meltdown?

Ehrenreich's examination of the history of positive thinking is a tour de force of well-tempered snark, culminating in a persuasive indictment of the bright-siders as the culprits in our current financial mess. She begins with a look at where positive thinking originated, from its founding parents in the New Thought Movement (inventors of the law of attraction, recently made famous in books such as "The Secret") through mid-20th-century practitioners like Norman Vincent Peale and Dale Carnegie, to current disciples ranging from Oprah Winfrey to the preachers of the prosperity gospel.[...]

The interesting part being the 'invention' of the 'Law of Attraction'.

Now here's the New Thought [Movement] on wiki:

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

The New Thought Movement or New Thought is a spiritual movement which developed in the United States during the late 19th century and emphasizes metaphysical beliefs. It consists of a loosely allied group of religious denominations, secular membership organizations, authors, philosophers, and individuals who share a set of metaphysical beliefs concerning the effects of positive thinking, the law of attraction, healing, life force, creative visualization and personal power.[1] It promotes the ideas that "Infinite Intelligence" or "God" is ubiquitous, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, all sickness originates in the mind, and 'right thinking' has a healing effect.

Although New Thought is neither monolithic nor doctrinaire, in general modern day adherents of New Thought believe that their interpretation of "God" or "Infinite Intelligence" is "supreme, universal, and everlasting", that divinity dwells within each person and that all people are spiritual beings, and that "the highest spiritual principle [is] loving one another unconditionally . . . and teaching and healing one another", and that "our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living".[2]

The four but distinct, religious denominations within the American New Thought movement are Unity Church, Religious Science, Church of Divine Science and Jewish Science being the smallest.

 

[Lauranimal]

Thanks for reviving this thread. It's a good read

"Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America." is starting to more and more look like a very good read, to me.

My sister told me she was planning on getting me some kind of book about positive thinking for my birthday, and for some reason thought better of it. (Smart lady... She got me some great Fado music by Mariza.) But it made me think back to when I first came across "The Secret".

I was very depressed ... my life was not going well in any way. Money, job, relationships, health, kitty just died... :(

I was quite lost.

And my friend sends me the link to download the video. (4? maybe 5? years ago?) I was like great! Someone's gonna give me a clue? There is a secret to how to get out of this stinking hell-hole of existing without purpose or meaning other than to suffer without mercy????

Half-way through the video, I just cried. I kept thinking... when will they be done with the tease... the commercial, and get to the point. By the end I was just purely pissed off. I felt deprived. Here they had been offering me a chance at relief and leading me down the primrose pansy path and I realized that I was not capable of any of what they were suggesting. I actually felt like it was me that was flawed because I couldn't make myself dismiss the practicalities of reality.

I even told myself that I was just feeling sorry for myself and that I should at least give this Positive thinking and attraction idea, a sincere effort. Yeah....ummm... it doesn't work. And on a number of occasions, I have found myself attracted to other versions of this... again... with either very temporary effect (placebo?) or no effect.

Reality is a fair bit ugly and painful, but...
... well .... but nothing. Reality is a fair bit ugly and painful. Period.

Much like awareness of consciousness coming in flashes with long periods of being mechanical in between, it seems that moments of true grace, love and happiness are few and far between.

The Secret was a nasty slap in the face.

 

[dantem]

Much like awareness of consciousness coming in flashes with long periods of being mechanical in between, it seems that moments of true grace, love and happiness are few and far between.

The Secret was a nasty slap in the face.

I was really baffled some 8-10 year ago, when I've experienced this 'positive thinking discipline' being utilized by insurance companies and its affiliates, then into political parties too. It was/is a very effective (sic) method to train a weak person in the need for a job in order to do totally crazy and disrespectful things to others, without even thinking twice.

I literally saw the apex of manipulation techniques in there, considering the little I knew back then. Really, really, sad. YCYOR rulez, and now it has ads everywhere, while at the time it was all kept... into gravy secret, that's it.

And, oh! Thanks a lot to Laura that was paying attention in The Wave series!