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Washington Post Column Trashes "The Secret"

Dunstan

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy.../04/06/AR2007040601819.html?hpid=opinionsbox2

Self-Help's Slimy Secret

I like the subtitle, Dept. of Snake Oil....

"The Secret," its title proclaims matter-of-factly, as if the slim volume held the answer to life's deepest mysteries. Which is precisely what it purports to do. Written by an Australian television producer, this latest contribution to the bursting shelves of New Age self-helpiana has come out of nowhere to sell more than 1.3 million copies in the United States alone.
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Yet as bookstores nationwide have sold out of it again and again, controversy has begun to swirl around "the secret." Working in a bookstore recently and discussing the book with customers lured by the promise of instant success, I finally delved into its message myself. And where the buyers I talked to hoped to find the path to a better life, I found a disturbing little book of blame.
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After mocking the absurd quasi-scientific pretensions of the book, the columnist argues that it's more than just harmless nonsense:

Yet none of the how-the-Secret-changed-my-life stories on "Oprah" mentioned the dark side of the book's pie-in-the-sky pitch. In February, Los Angeles Times editorial writer Karin Klein reported that local therapists were seeing "clients who are headed for real trouble, immersing themselves in a dream world in which good things just come." Klein told me in an e-mail that she had heard from readers who were worried about friends who "suddenly start buying things, certain that the money to pay for them will just show up."
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Still worse is the insidious flip side of Byrne's philosophy: If bad things happen to you, it's all your fault. As surely as your thoughts bring health, wealth and love, they are also responsible for any illness, poverty or misery that comes your way.
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Apparently even Oprah has started to back off a little in her enthusiasm for the book.
 
If bad things happen to you, it's all your fault. As surely as your thoughts bring health, wealth and love, they are also responsible for any illness, poverty or misery that comes your way.
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Reading this, I can see why Oprah finds the philosophy attractive. From her perspective, The Secret works. She was a poor kid from Chicago who just sort of wished herself famous - and it happened. She must think that all the rest of us whose dreams don't come true are just complete morons.
 
Oprah may have stopped promoting the Secret, but she is still talking about the "law of attraction" as if it is some kind of universal truth and every chance she gets she tries to work it into interviews.

I loved when she asked one accademay award winner, "Just before you won, did you see yourself winning?"

To which the actress said, "No, I thought for sure I was going to lose."

Which made O's face fall a little in disappointment since she couldn't get in another Secret moment.
 
Its strange because from what you have said here. The Secret is a well known tool for success already. If people try to stay upbeat and positive about life. Generaly good things will happen. Conversely if we dwell and have bad thoughts, negative things will happen.

The first step to having success at something is to focus on the dream, then work to making it reality. But simply dreaming it wont make it happen. Part of the dream has to be how you will accomplish it
 
MG1962 said:
The first step to having success at something is to focus on the dream, then work to making it reality. But simply dreaming it wont make it happen. Part of the dream has to be how you will accomplish it
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Quite right, but The Secret teaches that you can skip the 'making it reality' part and that if you focus hard enough, the thing you want will just fall into your lap.

"If bad things happen to you, it's all your fault" is true in one sense, in that if you suddenly start a spending spree or taking crazy risks as a result of reading and believing The Secret, and your life turns sour as a result, it is entirely your own fault.
 
Kudos to Dunstan, I posted a thread on "The Secret" trying to find out more from either side and it was relatively ignored. I guess I just didn't "picture" anyone reading it, so it was difficult to "manifest" the interest. ;)

I frankly think that the only thing behind "The Secret" is that it's positive thinking and behaviorial therapy re-packaged. While I think there is some positive notion behind the idea of making yourself available for success, I don't think it's quite that easy. I found this quote from the link to be particularly telling:

"Everything that's coming into your life you are attracting into your life," Byrne writes. "You are the most powerful magnet in the universe . . . so as you think a thought, you are also attracting like thoughts to you."
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Now, I wonder WHY this isn't working with people who play the lottery? I haven't met one single person who plays the lottery on a regular basis that doesn't believe he/she is going to "win this time."

The sad part about this whole scam is that some people are actually foregoing medical treatment simply because they believe that "picturing themselves healthy," is going to get rid of some fairly dibilitating diseases.
 
Just saw Russell Simmons on Colbert Report hawking his self-help book. He was jabbering on about the energy that connects us all and the law of attraction. Oy.
 
I got myself banned from just about every Secret/Law of Attraction group on myspace just by asking questions about the science. Those people don't like questions.
 
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