The Secret

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.

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.

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.

Imagine two scenarios. First, a basketball player is on the free throw line. In his mind, he sees the ball going into the basket, traveling in that perfect trajectory - he envisions himself making the shot, his hands performing the perfect movement. Maybe he even repeats in his mind a few times "I will make this shot". He focuses on his confidence. He releases. The ball goes in. Second scenario - now, imagine a kid who wants a red bike. He shuts his eyes, thinks hard of a ride bike with a basket in front. He does this religiously, in fact that's all he does for two straight days - just lays in bed and thinks hard of his bike. After two days, he opens the door and lo and behold the exact red bike with a basket is sitting in the front yard.

Now, come back to reality. Think about these two scenarios and ask yourself "Are these two the same?". Hopefully you answered "NO". Both demonstrate positive thinking - but there is a fine, but incredibly significant line that separates common sense from delirium. "The secret", while containing a few nuggets of truth, comes dangerously close to implying what the second scenario implies. And because of that, in the hands of the gullible and the desperate, this film may have a few positive benefits (hope) but could ultimately be dangerous (inaction, unreasonable expectations). Positive thinking has been proved to help - yes. Focus and concentration on your goals helps - yes. But, to use the basketball analogy, to make the shot you have to take it. "The Secret", with it's slick presentation, almost suggests that if you focus on the ball long enough some magical wind will carry it into the basket. To be fair, the film is not 100% of this - but believe me it comes dangerously close. It doesn't help that they allude to the book as if Thomas Jefferson and Einstein actually owned it and passed it along, that along with the titled people like John Doe, Physicist and John Doe, Author that they interviewed, they included John Doe, "Mystic" and John Doe, "Visionary" (what in god's name is a visionary anyway???). It's slick, over-produced, and will turn-off any sensible, intelligent person looking for an honest eye-opener. Look elsewhere for enlightenment and growth - there are a ton of books, old and new, that are better than this fluff masterpiece.

Honestly, this makes the lowest grade of pornography look like Shakespeare. Just believe and the Universe will do exactly as you command! Hey positive thinking and belief are incredibly important, if they stopped there it would be fine. I'm all for a near-spiritual support for positive thinking. But don't believe you command the world! Believe what you like, and respect the beliefs of others. But here they make the case that your (subjective) beliefs drive the (objective) realities of the universe. They present it as though its a scientific fact. And they imply that this is the true secret of the ages, that all the greats possessed this precious knowledge, and that an evil conspiracy subdues it. That is patently false. It is truly a demented, grade school pseudoscience wrapped in an infomercial. At least Jerry Springer doesn't pretend his show is Cosmos!