The Secret

As a student of metaphysics, and as one who has practiced the Law of Attraction successfully for many years, I heard The Secret talked about on Oprah and purchased it. I'm always looking for new "takes" on the concept, if you will. If this has helped some people change their lives, that's great, and for that I will give it a 4. However, for anyone who has studied and practiced metaphysics, it's not really quite there, and I would urge people truly interested in the law of attraction, the one universe-one mind theory, etc., to go well beyond this CD.

Oprah says she practices The Secret, and she does, but not in the way it's practiced here. Oprah comes from a much more spiritual mindset, and that's what The Secret is missing. It's not about getting stuff. It's about developing a sense of true identity and being unafraid to go after what you feel you are meant to do in life and being open to many possible ways of achieving it. This idea is much better stated by Tracy Goss in "The Last Word on Power," by "The Science of Mind," the works of John Randolph Price, by "In Tune with the Infinite," by Ralph Waldo Trine, and by any number of other books.

One of the more vicious comments on the board said if Bill Gates told him that he got rich by imagining it, he'd believe in The Secret. It doesn't quite work that way. Jim Carey is a great believer in metaphysics and the law of attraction, and he did more than imagine his way out of living in a van with his family. Oprah is a great believer in this philosophy as well. So in fact was movie star Ginger Rogers, Georgia Engel from "Mary Tyler Moore" who is now on Broadway, actor Val Kilmer, Broadway star Carol Channing, Carol Burnett, actress Angela Lansbury, the current Miss USA, and more than likely Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and millions of other people. And millions more practice this philosophy every day without realizing it.

The problem with a DVD like this is that this is not a concept that people can decipher easily. How do I know that? I've read the comments here. People think it's about positive thinking and visualizing, which is a pity. Instead of helping an age-old theory, I think The Secret has set back a powerful philosophy thousands of years.

I encourage anyone who sees a grain of something salvageable in this DVD to carry your studies a little further.

At the beginning of this movie, one person says that we know, "like, attracts like." One person mentions magnets as a paradigm. The other man says it's a law of attraction. But we all know that with magnets, we are given the universal belief that it's opposites that attract. So, right away, I was a skeptic. And whenever I see pyramids in a film like this, I'm even more skeptical.

You'll have to watch this to see if it "attracts" you.

Unsurprisingly many are those who can find this documentary as some attempt to brainwash or involve you in some kind of cult following so to speak. Meanwhile this documentary has changed many people's lives no doubt.

I do not usually comment on films I watch but I could not resist doing so on this one because I feel many are missing the point.

Personally I do not believe that simply by thinking positive you are having some 'magnetic' effect within the universe to attract exactly what you want in a spiritual or superstitious or scientific manner.

The underlying truth in my opinion is that negative thoughts will attract negative actions/reactions, whilst positive thoughts will enhance positive actions/reactions. Those of you out there complaining that you don't have enough opportunities to make your life or career any better should wipe out all these negative thoughts and should begin to think positive. Once you have a positive outlook you will then be able to 'see' all the opportunities out there that exist for you and which have not been noticing. And then you can grab those that fit your goal.

The documentary presents the above in a more sensational way by claiming that positive thoughts WILL, almost by some form of electromagnetic waves, attract positive things into your life. Well for those of you who are not superstitious or who are not into some scientology stuff, this is if anything stressing the importance of wiping out all negative thoughts and expectations which will hurt your ability to recognise positive opportunities and to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. Of course this does not mean you should be so positive to the extent of not being cautious. You can't leave your bicycle unlocked on the street in Amsterdam simply because the documentary seems to suggests so. What the documentary is really trying to do is yes..brainwashing you..but not in a way to make you selfish, egocentric or start acting in a irresponsable manner as though crime did not exist around you, but in a way to ERADICATE those negative thoughts which inhibit your ability to recognize your opportunities or which are bad enough to effect your health.

The documentary is being truthful in suggesting that the mind controls the body and yes to a great extent the mind controls the healing of the body. It is all about the power of the sub-conscious.

Those of you who are very religious or who believe in faith-heeling will find this hard to believe of course!

I am so glad to know that all those soldiers returning home from Iraq are going to be able to regrow their limbs and reverse their post-traumatic stress syndromes just by thinking positively! Yay!

Starving child in Africa? Hey kiddo, turn that frown upside down and it's Manna from Heaven time!

Hey Katrina victims - those must have been some pretty dark thoughts you were putting out. That's how hurricanes form, you know, from the whirlwinds of negative-thinking energy!

New Age rhymes with Sewage for a reason.

This is basically "What the bleep do we know" redux. I was always astonished to see the book version of this film in the #1 spot at Amazon for so many weeks. But the popularity of such crap helps mitigate my astonishment at the fact that Bush won a re-election (He must be the world's mostest positivey thinker!) and that people believe that creationism can be taught as science.

Thank you japonaliya and GreySphinx. I love your reviews but I do not have the patience to deal critically with pure crap and the people who eat it. I hope the Mothership comes and takes all these "believers" away soon.

This little movie has three parts. Two are suicide-inducingly depressing.

But before we get to that, there's always at the beginning the adjustment; you have to know what you are entering.

I'm particularly fond of Christian movies. The very idea of them is so intriguing, quite apart from the fact that they are dreadful movies and full of repellent ideas. What makes them so seductive is that they usually depict some fight with the devil, and they are made with the intent of fighting the devil. Its my favorite narrative fold. Entering it is entering an adventure on perhaps the wrong side.

Documentaries are boring in this regard: they present, you receive. I like to stay away from them because a large part of the experience for me is the engagement with the weaver of the narrative. Fiction is where it is at. So there's a sort of intrigue with this because it is in a sense an engagement of wills, where they try to convince you that convincing isn't the way of the world.

The three threads of this are:

— Some business about "attraction" as the way the world works and how you can use it. More about this spread in future comments. Its a good notion if you ignore how it is presented.

— Some significantly worse, even smarmy business where they try to make this sound scientific. Its such a depressing enterprise. Its not just that they get the science all wrong, so twisted and goofy. Or that the peddlers of this are so soft you want to cry. But why? Why should it be important to take something that if it works, it works outside of the logical tools we have. Its a bit like explaining with a lawnmower why a house feels good. Quantum mechanics is the current bucket that hacks like to carry their notions in. And its so entirely inappropriate it makes one cry. Why? Why, try this?

— But the third part is perhaps the most discouraging. I think it is possible to build a notion that works; you'll have to do it by weaving in and around the knuckleheads of various stripes. Its fairly easy to filter out the pseudoscience. But then they pile on a conspiracy theory. You see: not only is there a simple law, and not only is it manifest science, but it has been known for thousands of years by a select few and kept secret!

Never mind that we've been told it isn't a zero sum game and people have to lose for others to win. And that selfishness fights the law. And that good results cannot be bounded. There is only one reason to have this notion here, and that is to create a more intriguing story, to make us more likely to buy the "law." But if the law works, they wouldn't need such tricks. Would they?

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.