The "Secret":America's new quick fix to gaining riches

Everything is in your life because:

  • Hard Work
  • Sheer Will
  • God or other religious beliefs/practices
  • General belief systems
  • Positive thinking/belief/visionalization
  • Luck/Fate/etc.
0 voters

http://www.theseceret.tv

One forumosan told me about this. And I did my little research into it, watching the movie and looking at the website before it hit the big O show.

The premise of the seceret is that the universe is at your command-or the law of attraction. The idea is that whatever you want you can have because that’s how the universe responses. So, if you have poverty in your life it’s there because of your desire. If you have a unloving relationship, it’s there because of your desire. If you are rich well it’s there because of your desire.

The entire film seems or harps that you can have that life you’ve wanted, cars, boats, a rich and famous lifestyle (The Universe acting as Robin Leach) if you do 3 things:

ask
believe
recieve

Newsweek Does a nice ‘consumer’ piece on it.

There’s no arguing with positive thinking and behavior, but is it really this simple or just another fad?

By all means be positive, but don’t give that revolting swindler a single cent of your money.

What a fucking bitch. I dare her to go and tell that one to the assembled hoardes in Darfur. No, on second thoughts I’m positively willing it.

Do you think she hoped for that growth in the middle of her brow?

HG

The best “self help” book I ever read was Thick Face Black Heart.

I saw this woman on Larry King yesterday. The point here is that even after visualizing, you actually have to DO something. So 80% of the readers will give up.

Lazy and sheepish people always want an easy way out.

[quote=“jdsmith”]The best “self help” book I ever read was Thick Face Black Heart.[/quote] I’m still getting around to it :wink:

[quote]
I saw this woman on Larry King yesterday. The point here is that even after visualizing, you actually have to DO something. So 80% of the readers will give up.

Lazy and sheepish people always want an easy way out.[/quote]

Very much agreed. The irony of it all, is that what she did but didn’t share that aspect in the video. This is nothing new, but I love how Newsweek comments that its a great marketing ploy, which it is.

That bint is a former producer at an Australian television station. The station bank rolled the film. It is nothing but an extremely cynical marketing ploy.

I’m feeling positively that she should preach her message in Iraq so that we can all enjoy peace.

HG

Well…she certainly does inspire a lot of bitter posts…
…so she got that going for her.

IMO,
Success comes work, determination, timing, visibility, risk, visualization, work, risk, flexibility and the list goes on.

And I am not calling success the accumulation of wealth or money. Success can be different things to different people.

I personally believe there is all kinds of opportunity and wealth surrounding everyone (that has time to read this.) Movies and books like this are merely trying to point this fact out.

Call it the secret, the law of attraction, positive thinking, the UNIVERSE! (my personal favorite) or give it any other such name you like.

Here’s one way to describe how “the secret” works (I got it from a Tantra book I found in my mom’s library on my last trip home.)

Close your eyes. Think about a color (focus on it.) When you open your eyes that color pops up everywhere. The same thing happens when there’s a car you want to get (or you just bought) all of the sudden you see it everywhere.

If there’s something you want to do, if you focus on it, you’ll start “seeing” the trail to lead you there almost instantly. I don’t know what that path might be, but it’s there, waiting for you.

[/corn ball cheesyness]

It’s this very reason a black belt is coming to train in Taiwan. As soon as I told myself “I want to train with a black belt,” I started “seeing” ways to train with one (Japan, Brazil, etc.) Eventually “chance” (UNIVERSE!) put me in touch with one that wanted to come to Asia. I wanted a coach, he wanted to teach. This all began months back, but it’s going to be real at the end of this month.

I mean… it’s not rocket science, but I hear people talk about stuff they want to do (lose weight, get a better job, make more money, be a pimp ass mutha fucka, etc.) all the time and they act like they can’t do it (they need to act like they can :wink: .)

Considering you have the money for it … but wait, in the US you don’t need money to buy a car … there is credit and CC everywhere :slight_smile:

CC… Lemon?

s e

Yes and no. It is (new) to people that aren’t aware of… it.

[quote=“almondbiscuit”]isn’t this esoteric visualisation stuff all recycled from emerson/american transcendentalism?

emerson, in turn, read up on a lot of stuff from hinduism and buddhist philosphy…

the buddha said, ‘all things arise from the mind’…(or something to that effect)

deepak chopra tell everyone to evoke synchronicity in our daily lives…

then there was a bunch of ‘mind science’ or ‘new thought’ thinkers in the 1920s or the 30s, a lot of whom were christian…

it’s nothing new…[/quote]

And you forgot the Bible “ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find”

Success is generally some combination of these things. Imagination however is rarely sufficient to operate directly on the outside world, without some intermediary efforts. And some goals may forever elude our reach. (Britney Spears cannot possibly satisfy all those who desire her–not if she wants her own prayers answered too.)

Anybody read “Chicken Shit for the Soul”? (satire of the Chicken Soup series)

My favorite serious exponent is Robert Tilton’s “Success -n- Life” ministry. Tilton was scientifically proven by “The Door” magazine to be the most venal TV evangelist out there, which is really saying something. Anyway, his pitch went like this:

“Gahaaad wants YOU to RECEIVE! Whatever you GIVE to the Lawd, the Lawd will RETURN to you TENFOLD!” (grimaces, places hand to forehead) “There’s somebody out there having trouble in his business. God wants you to make a VOW OF FAITH, my friend. Somebody out there needs to make a 500 dollar Vow of Faith, somebody needs to make a thousand dollar Vow of Faith. Just put your hand up to your television screen, and let’s pray together.” (Cue music.) “Now let the Holy Spirit guide your hand to your wallet, and open it up…have you got an envelope?”

I also came upon, ‘The Secret’ recently. The buzz is there. Checking it out I ended up listening to a podcast from a website called StevePavlina.com - worth taking a look at btw. Casey, I think, you’ll dig it, especially. The podcast was about the Law of Attraction, and included refs to ‘The Secret’ and a woman called Esther Hicks. (love that name, ha ha) She’s big in the LOA world.

Here was the podcast’s summation of the Law of Attraction. The first two points don’t seem to gel to well, but if I think she’s making the point that words and actions must be in alignment. And that we need be conscious for that to happen.

  1. Make your order ie. Work out what you want before you, ‘place your order’ - the Universe can’t figure out what you want if you don’t actually specify

  2. You get what you really want, not what you just ‘say’ you want. ( like I say, I think this hooks up to point 4, and what your actions are really saying about your intentions)

  3. Be patient. If you really want what you ask for, then be patient. It’ll come. Don’t give up just before it comes along. Don’t confuse patience with hope. When you’re patient, you’re a match for a vibrational desire (damn it hurt to write that), you know it will come, but when you’re in a state of hope, you’re telling the universe you don’t think you’ll get what you want, but you’re sure hoping you’re wrong.

  4. You ask with actions not words. When you place your order with the universe, its watching to see if your words and actions are aligned.

To me none of this is all that remarkable. I think its what we all do when we go seek to achieve something. The only difference is a few painful New Age terms and the recognition that theres a bigger world of energy out there that we can hook into/align ourselves with. All the LOA seems to be doing is asking us to be more conscious in our intentions. Like it or not we are largely creating our own circumstances. I think all acheivement is on these terms whether we see it in these terms or not. Well, my experience at least.

When I look back on my own efforts to achieve my goals, if they’ve failed, its not because of external factors, but far far more due to lack of courage and patience. Faith to stay the course and put up with discomfort, coupled with lack of action, in other words.

And I hear you on Darfur Huang Guang Chen. Totally righteous, I couldn’t agree more. The flip side, is that you’re out there contributing in some way to some thing. I don’t mean Darfur, in particular, just any worthy person/animal/cause/thing that could really use some help. Yeah?

Me, I’m not. Something I’d like to address for sure.

I just went outside and asked a passerby for 1,000 NT$ … he almost kicked my ars … and just last week I spent a whole day searching for gold … nope, didn’t find any …

Did you try taking your head out of your ass?
It helps you see better.

Ass? what is 'n ass?

Looks like you’ve done your homework. All that is pretty much what I’ve been learning in the last ten years. Problem is, that is completely absent from “The Secret” video. There’s also the law of manifestation which is not on there.

I’m reading a book by Hicks now. It’s actually pretty good.

Cool. I listened to a podcast featuring her t’other day. I don’t really know North American regional accents but she’s got one to go with her name. Sort of Little House on the Prairie. (I’m probably way off, but its gotta funny - but not bad funny - twist to it now and then)

That aside, I thought it was pretty solid, (tho, a bit limited in certain ways), and accorded with my own experiences. The clincher for me was her saying that a crucial part of the equation was loving where you are, and what you have, now.

Which is to say that if you’re not happy with what you’ve got, you’re in a state of general resistance, which won’t allow your desires to manifest. Or as Hicks puts it, you’re including in your vibrational field what you don’t want, as well as what you want.

I’m not sure I completely understand it in her terms, but what I do know is that anytime I can fully accept the way things actually are, they seem to transform themselves into something much better: either circumstances change or my perspective transforms.

I really do think there’s a general principle at work: if you can fully be where you are then you free those circumstances, and/or, your mind, to move. Whether that movement is a deepening or a move on to something better, its all good. I think its about giving reality the freedom to simply be. And for reality simply being is a state of moving and becoming. And if we’re in a state of resistance, then this process of becoming is all skewed and effed up.

Whereas, if we combine some decent goals, plus some action, plus fully accepting now, then we’re placing ourselves right at the center of this becoming, both allowing it the freedom to be and move, and giving it some focus and direction.

And what’s cool about her is that she doesn’t say ‘accept’ what you got now, but ‘love it’. As if you could. And I think you can. Even pain and suffering can be totally cool if taken on board fully.

Ok, rave over. Now its time for me to send out the vibes for that blond and Mercedes soft top my spiritual development demands. :sunglasses:

You don’t have a copy of, ‘The Secret’ do you by any chance? I know its pretty much an infomercial, but I think it would be fun to watch it with a group (small or large). We could get inspired and scornful at one and the same moment.

This really sounds to me like the sports coach, “If you can see it, you can be it,” mantra. Ask the universe for what you want with actions not words, eh? Then why not just say, “get up off your dimpled, round ass, and work for it.” These folks got off theirs and started selling books, or vidios, or whatever. Hey! It’s working for them!