The Secret

Just think-- you can have anything you want if you ask for it and believe on an emotional level that you already have it. Anything-- money, health, possessions, love-- you name it! And then, poof!, after a while the thing you wanted shows up magically at your doorstep. Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Thousands of people will tell you that it really works and that you just have to try.

This is the claim of the new self-help rage called The Secret. It's been endorsed by some big names, not the least of which is Oprah. The books and DVD's are just flying off of the shelves. Apparently people are hungry for this kind of stuff.

The Secret posits the believe that if you truly want something (or someone), and if you ask for it sincerely, and if you act like you already have what you've asked for, the universe will adjust itself to give you exactly what you want. How the producers of The Secret convince people of this is by, first of all, playing up the individual existential angst that is prominent in our day. Life has lost it's meaning, God has run out of things to do (and God isn't helping anything anyway), so it's up to you to create your own reality. In fact, as the claim goes, you do create your own reality all of the time. If your life is terrible, there's only one explanation: you keep wanting bad things to go away instead of asking for good things to come toward you. It's called The Law of Attraction, and it states that you attract to yourself things you ask for, consciously or unconsciously. If, for instance, you want cancer to go away, The Law of Attraction says you will continue to have cancer because it is as if you're asking for it to stay. We attract negativity through not wanting something, and it just snowballs the more desperate or angry we get. In order to get The Law of Attraction to work in your favor, you need to start asking for things you want rather than things you don't want. For instance, instead of not wanting cancer, start wanting health. Instead of not wanting depression, start wanting happiness. Instead of not wanting bills in the mail, start wanting checks to come in the mail. See how that works? The Law of Attraction says that you will attract to yourself what you want if you follow three simple steps: 1) Ask 2) Believe and 3) Receive.

So what's wrong with this? Let's start with narcissism, or what philosopher Ken Wilber calls Boomeritis. "I can tell the universe what to do," very quickly becomes "Nobody can tell me what to do!" This kind of thinking leads one to become a miserable cur, and it's one of the many side effects of The Secret. The reports are starting to come out that The Secret is leading people to become more self-absorbed than ever. That was the problem in the first place, and The Secret seems to be compounding the problem.

Now let's go to our relationship with the universe. The universe does not bend to our whims. The belief that it does is nothing more than the primal impulse to project ourselves to the skies. The Secret claims that its wisdom is ancient and was known by some of the great minds of the modern world-- Socrates, Newton, Shakespeare, Freud, Einstein, Edison, Ford-- just to name a few. This may or may not be true. But this, per se, doesn't justify the claims it makes. Many ancient civilizations believed that they could manipulate the gods to bring rain to their crops through fertility rites and offerings. But that doesn't mean they were correct. It just appeared that way because they performed their rain dances, and look!, it rained! Never mind that it happened to occur during the rainy season!! Truth be told, the universe just is. It does what it does without your consultation or permission. Wishing it to be different than it is is insanity. As Ken Wilber so eloquently explained in his critique of the movie What The Bleep Do We Know? (which incidently holds to many of the same principles as The Secret), "People do not create their own realities. Psychotics do."

How does God play in all of this? My recollection is that The Secret makes no mention of God, but has instead made The Universe the unwitting substitute. I would say that this is almost correct, but I believe God is greater than the physical universe. God is the Ground and Source of all Being, physical and non-physical. It is in God that we all live, and move, and have our being. The depths of this are unfathomable, especially for a blog entry. But, as is The Universe, God just is. God cannot be manipulated according to human whim, but instead acts according to divine will. God doesn't ask for permission or consultation.

Well, that's my take on this. In my humble opinion, save your money. If you want to watch the DVD I have a copy. Just ask. I don't mind people watching this. Just don't believe it.