I saw The Secret once about two years ago, maybe a little more. Slick production, thus lots of money behind it--why? to sell books, DVDs, etc., I guess. As to the message, it is very, very old. And it is combined with other truisms that are also not in the category of secrets. One need only go back to Napoleon Hill with his Think and Grow Rich, which is far back enough, the early part of the 20th century.
You need to have a clue (thought) before you can realize (manifest) in physical reality. A lot of stuff just does not happen without some sense of "this is what I want" plus "now I will have or do it." The result is something. If you keep the idea, now purpose, in mind, you will approximate what you set out to make real.
No big secret. And it does not have to do with a law of the universe. The secret's law is just the "magic" someone "sees" when something roughly or even precisely anticipated happens as a result of their intentions and what they do. There is not some cosmic attraction behind this, or show me where or how?
The other side of the so-called secret is accounting for attracting all the bad stuff. A poor person somewhere on the street is not, I would surmise in most cases, saying I want to attract poverty and homelessness. Rather, their thoughts and actions, to the limits of luck and chance and forces much, much larger than him or her are acting to keep 'em there or help 'em, or not, move beyond to better. You can say, they are trapped and no law of attraction as such operates for such tragic conditions as this.
I still maintain that it is the entitled (read Baby Boomer) preaching pseudo cosmology, effectively their selfishness/schtick to the people who would make them rich by buying that c$%p. Is that too harsh or pessimistic? Naw!
[Since I posted this, another response to what I was responding to was posted by Richard Kent Matthews. I couldn't resist. See https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20048226&postID=2603336406552529867.]
A blip aside
I still believe we create our own experience of reality. If we don't then there really is no hope.I believe you have side-stepped the point a bit about all this Secret stuff. Can't let you off that easy after such confrontational words, but I won't go so far as to sue you.
You'll think I'm wrong. So sue me.
First, I think what you have said is partially right. You are not wrong. You don't need to take it personally.
Next, no one is going to sue you. Your inviting suit must mean you feel so strongly about being right that winning would produce some gain. Strong words. Empty by The Secret's own precept.
Consider. In a suit for gain, who wins? Both parties have the future reality of winning in mind. They each are magnets. But we know that magnets have opposing poles. If you or someone opposing you loses, does that mean that their practice of The Secret was somehow flawed? or not as pure? or that it was not in keeping with the highest and best good for all as determined by the universe? But that means I can't have everything I ever wanted. What kind of belief system is that which promises this but has such obvious exceptions?
In the spirit of partially right, I will agree with the point about creating one's own experience of reality--if we don't there really is not hope, but no consciousness at all! There is no secret to this.
Now, this is the side-step. The Secret is not so much about creating our own experience of reality as much as it is about creating observable realities in a proven, cause-effect manner.
You are a magnet attracting to you all things, via the signal you are emitting through your thoughts and feelings.In the case of the impoverished sweat shop worker, or anyone less fortunate, s/he creates a personal, private experience of reality AND there are conditions and circumstances much larger than him- or herself placing challenges in the paths to wealth and abundance. That this worker experiences the life s/he does is undeniable, and again no secret. We assume consciousness/awareness of what is happening with most people. We can assume this with our sweat shop worker. That s/he also might benefit from a change in magnetic forces is also undeniable. As I said, and The Secret creates a false mystique around,
I am a money magnet and money comes to me effortlessly and easily.
http://www.thesecret.tv/top-secret-summary-of-teachings.html
You need to have a clue (thought) before you can realize (manifest) in physical reality. A lot of stuff just does not happen without some sense of "this is what I want" plus "now I will have or do it." The result is something. If you keep the idea, now purpose, in mind, you will approximate what you set out to make real.But that does not mean that the sweat shop worker will rise out of poverty, or that I will become president of IBM, or the world. That this worker can change the conditions and circumstances with which s/he must cope is quite something else. That I can change the world by changing myself, you must grant me as I do for myself. If I see it differently, it is different, for me. That I can change the situation in sweat shops around the world is quite something else.
As you dismissed a number of the mainstream religious and spiritual traditions, you called on your readers to mind what the Buddha was purportedly to have said. "Whatever resonates with your sense of reason, accept it and reject the rest." I guess Buddha holds some truth even though you have also said, "No one knows the truth of anything really." This blip aside, and again focusing on what was said, what does your sense of reason tell you about what we should believe about The Secret, or any necessary palliative to death's inevitability?
May a fellow preacher suggest to another: "The one [at life's end] with the most toys wins" is an empty philosophy or religion--because it only lets us temporarily, if that, set aside contemplating why we are here and what will, for sure, happen one day. This is your alternative, which leads to compassionate action, and it is surely not nihilism, or worse--The Secret's materialism.
