‘The Secret’ is Poison: Part Two

‘The Secret’ is Poison: Part Two

In Part One of ‘The Secret is Poison’ we pretty much just described what is presented in the film ‘The Secret’ and hopefully by now you won’t feel the need to spend any money on it. It asserts there is a ‘Universal Law of Attraction’ and whatever you want and desire can ‘come to you’ by way of simply thinking about it. There is little else to it.
So the first thing I want to do is explain why ‘The Secret’ can accidentally appear to be ‘working’ but its nothing to do with you desiring wealth, happiness or a Universe granting it to you but rather a beneficial side-effect of ‘not’ doing something - namely, when you do not allow negative thinking you can and will experience more alertness, better timing, more energy and often a renewed attitude ideal for taking advantage of new opportunities, working harder and better and being more attractive to others. Let me put it to you with this analogy - imagine someone asks their Physician for some magic formula that can increase their health. The Doctor instructs them to go to the local pool, toss in a handful of pennies, dress like a duck and while quacking out loud, they should dive to the bottom of the pool and collect a coin each time. A few months later the patient is delighted to report they have increased strength and stamina… proof that the duck costume and magic pennies worked? No. The fact is that the patient’s health actually did improve because they were not sitting about eating sweets but instead were exercising their muscles with swimming. Maybe that wasn’t the ideal analogy but it was fun to write and communicates the very real idea that by simply ‘not thinking pessimistically’ you are gaining increased energy, alertness and renewed spirit and confidence…. the duck suit that is the ‘desiring wealth and love’ is not why you are getting more done, thinking clearer and making better choices. Its actually good old cognitive discipline. Simply training yourself to be optimistic while not allowing pessimism is the key. Again, benefits you enjoy are because of your refreshed state of mind and body but certainly not because a ‘Universal Force’ is obeying your commands.
The next thing I would explain would be the ’seemingly convincing’ testimonies that ‘The Secret Sellers’ would give to you with all the same credibility as would your daily horoscope. Statistical probability in its simplest form will have it that, at any given time, as many people who practice ‘The Secret’ will also happen to be receiving wealth, health and happiness in this life. If the economy is on a big upswing for upper-middle class families than just as many who are practicing ‘The Law of Attraction’ will also (coincidently) be experiencing an upswing. Its not because they were ‘attracting wealth’ by some wonderful power of their own willpower but more likely because oil revenues went one way and interest rates another. Just as it will for as many of their economic neighbours who are not practicing ‘The Secret’.  Its just as likely some poor bastard in another part of the economy lost out for what was gain to another.
This gets us all the way down to the Poisonous Secret and why it can and will destroy individual lives but also why it is a poisonous attitude for all of society. Recently, a young woman came to me very distraught. The problem was ‘The Secret’ and having bought into this idea she had been training herself to think of money, an expensive Jeep and money. At first she was thinking about money and Jeeps all the time but eventually she was even ’speaking out loud’ about the money and the Jeep. Unfortunately she had lost her job and her financial situation was becoming increasingly worse. The Secret wasn’t working and the only possible explanation she had was that she wasn’t ‘desiring hard enough’. Doubling her efforts led her down the road to the worst possible conclusion - obsessive thinking. Like night follows the day, Obsessive thinking brought on all manner of anxiety and exhaustion. While she should have been concentrating (not obsessing but careful thinking) on debt repayment or job opportunities, she would quickly put aside those ‘negative thoughts’ and again concentrate harder on visualising more cash and newer vehicles which would never appear. You see here is the ‘inverse’ logical consequence of the ‘Law of Attraction’ because if all the wealth, health and happiness you attain is because of your ‘desire’ and ability to call it into your existence… …then so too all of the poverty, debt, sickness and misfortune you receive a result of your own doubtful and negative thinking. Indeed, everyone who is poor, diseased and unlucky is to blame for their situation. Our girl had invested in this contradicting belief system and as a consequence was obsessing over desires that would not pan out as promised and were to be corrected by more obsessive desiring.. lusting, obsessing which again were contradicted by the lack of production. This, according to Secret Sellers was her own fault. It may seem like a downturn in her field and her lack of seniority put her on the unemployment line but it was her, she did it, her own thinking (or lack of desire) was to blame. She reasoned that something inside her must be wrong, her very mind must be broken, she must have lost the will to desire. In fact, The Secret sets up its successful students to become as smug and superior as humanly possible and allay any sense of social responsibility to they may have for the poor, the needy, the economically disadvantaged, who, by following the logic, are responsible for their own state of affairs. In fact, you may well loan the homeless man your copy of the DVD and inform him he must ‘desire a home’ and should you see him a few years later, still living in a box… wash your hands of it because, after all, you did give him everything he needed for wealth, health and happiness. If he has not attracted it then its entirely his own blame now. He must want to live like that.
Sometimes when i write big rambling articles like this I later learn I did not need to re-invent the wheel when better articles already exist on the interweb. For a truly brilliant deconstruction visit Terry Melanson’s page.