My Response to "The Secret"

[thef0x]

I'm buying this film for my little sister for xmas, so don't get me wrong, I liked it.


But I had a lot of stuff to critique. Please give it a good read, it's all posted below but if you go to my site it'll be much easier to read and I also have a few images that you can't see this way!

EDIT: The article is too long to post here, I'll include half of it and then post the other half below.

The site link: The Secret


Here's the article:

Logical Generalization: The Law of Attraction: “The Secret” Movie

I just finished watching the online film, “The Secret.”

As a whole, the psychological behaviors that “The Secret” relies upon are sensible and empowering. There are, however, a few overemphasized pieces of the puzzle that have no logical continuity in my belief system. Phrases like “Raise your vibrations” and “Everything is energy” make my left brain wonder. I think it would be fun to go through the system itself, provide my own analysis of the behaviors and critique of their explanation, which is silly.

First I’ll outline the concepts behind the secret science of the “Law of Attraction:”
The Law of Attraction:

Ask
Believe
Receive

They’re very straight-forward, smart principles (or behaviors); I’ll explain.

1) Ask. You need to know what you want in your life to succeed in getting it.
2) Believe. Know passionately and emotionally that you will get what you wish for.
3) Receive. Receive your wishes.

These steps explain all our mental processes. In thinking, we see visualizations in our heads, and connect emotions to those visualizations. Each day, when feeling badly, when feeling great, or when feeling anything, we attract that state of emotions in our world, caused by our images. The law of attraction says that we should choose positive images to see instead of visualizing the negative things in our life that we don’t want to see, because that in itself is seeing those images and reinforcing them in your reality, and seeing positive things will reinforce a pleasurable reality. What did that last sentence mean?
Examples

I’ll explain with a concrete example. I want to notice more yellow because I like the color. My thoughts dwell on the color yellow and how I’ll notice it. My mind, being on yellow, notices it more often.

Likewise if I’m visualizing myself noticing my happiness, I will be thinking about it in a visual reality (which I tend to partake in), and then I’ll notice it.

And likewise if I’m visualizing not seeing bills in my mail, I’m thinking about bills in my mail in a negative sense, but nevertheless thinking about it, which impacts and structures my reality around the negative emotion of receiving bills.

Not getting it yet?
How Does Attraction Work?

When we attract something, we’re taking active control of the perceptive world we experience, constituting the reality of existence through our emotionally guided subjective lens.
What does this mean in English?

The site link: The Secret

[thef0x]

Our thinking and emotions effect our reality. Choose what to think, choose how to feel. Duh.

But there’s something much more than ‘duh’ here; there is a lot of power in these ideas.

The law of attraction states that whatever we’re feeling, thinking, and seeing, more of it will come out in “the universe” (a term I’d like to de-generalize). This makes a lot of sense. If I am upset because the food I just ate at the cafeteria was horrible, those thoughts and feelings are existing as much in my head as they are in my upset stomach. Walking around, I’ll feel upset because my stomach hurts. This emotion permeates my reality, saturates it, and connects my experiences.

If I feel sad, I’ll be a sad looking, thinking, and acting individual. I will wonder about sadness in the world and I’ll continue to be sad because I’m thinking, seeing, and feeling sad images.

If I feel happy, I will find happiness in my life because I’m thinking about happiness and feeling happiness. It’s circular, a positive feedback loop. The more you feel happy, the more happy things in your life will appear, and the more happiness you will feel.

Knowing that our thoughts and images decide our mood, and that our emotions decide our happiness, if we change our thoughts and images to be congruent with our emotional values, we can choose how we feel.
Let’s Apply the Three Principles.

Ask yourself what you really want. You need to make this as specific as possible.
Believe patiently that you will attract your desire.
Receive your desires.

It is imperative, when asking for something, that you visualize the experience of having that something, and feel the emotions associated with that experience. This means
Examples of these Behaviors

They cite a very convincing example: athlete runners who were trained to run their races in their mind. The runners, while visualizing the race, experience the exact same physically triggered effects as they would while running. This physiological reaction is caused by the minds inability to distinguish mentally true and mentally false images. This can also explain why I wake up after a nightmare breathless.

Another very clear example off the top of my head is me simply reacting to a funny dog with a smile. You see the dog, it becomes part of your experience, and you feel and think a certain way because of it. When you think about the dog again or see its photo, you smile.

This happens to me all the time with music. Certain songs will put me in specific moods and drastically effect my thinking. I often have reoccurring vivid images associated with certain parts of my favorite songs.

The scary part is regardless of the language used, the specific words–these are nouns “A first edition copy of The Old man and the Sea,” and adjectives (”old, softened by dust,) and verbs (”lay there” ) and adverbs (”quietly, as if tired of an old place”)–decide the images we see and the emotions we feel.

You could say “I can’t imagine being rich,” and guess what happens? You see yourself incapable of being rich. If you want to be rich, having the thought of an image like that will only be a detriment. You must take control of your thinking by applying the principles of the laws of attraction.
How Do We Apply The Law of Attraction?

We must change our thinking. So simple and so important.
Instead of thinking about what you don’t want, don’t! Think about what you want, what you want passionately, and imagine the scene with vivid images. Pretend you already have it and you will feel it; try on the suit of the business man you hope to become; really experience the feelings that you associate with being that changed person.

If you are emotionally and intellectually incongruent with your desires, your “asks”, imagine how long it will take for them to actualize.

Make these changes to your thinking and your world will change. Not just, “oh, now my thinking is changed.”

Making these changes in thinking will literally transform your thoughts into things.

Why? Because we are all energy. Hmmmm…
Where does the movie “The Secret” go too far?

This is where “The Secrete” and I begin to devate.
“Everything is Energy”

The reason the law of attraction works is because we are all united as the same substance as the universe, and what we want, the universe wants, because we are everything, energy.
E=mc^2

In physics, E = mc2 is an important and well-known equation, which states an equivalence between energy (E) and mass (m), in direct proportion to the square of the speed of light in a vacuum (c2).

The equation was first derived (in a slightly different formulation) in 1905 by Albert Einstein.

The World As I See It

So… Yes, everything is energy… in the sense that we can measure everything through light frequencies.

Also, Albert Einstein is my man. I highly recommend his book,THE WORLD AS I SEE IT.
Do you feel United or Apart of?

I am not the computer I’m typing on, and I am not my roommate’s guitar. Ultimately I may be made of the same stuff, but right now we exist apart from one another.

When I walk around I’m not thinking that the branch I’m about to run into is one with my energy. While I may be the source of the worlds energy, I try not to get hit by the branches.

My rational for nominalism seems rare in itself: phenomenology (more on this in another post about my philosophy).
Universe as a Competent Being

I don’t buy the idea that the universe wants me to achieve because I don’t believe there are wants, desires, or intelligent things with freewill beyond us meaning-assigning humans. We create these ideas, we apply them to non-human things, we forget there’s a difference between our capacities, and suddenly the whole universe becomes the idea that all things are made of energy. This may be true, but this is just one idea of the universe, and I don’t find this idea to be phenomenologically evident, and therefore I reject it, choosing to focus on my perceived reality for truth.
The Law of Attraction and “The Secret” are Sound Yet

I think the law of attraction has a lot of logical and phenomenological veracity.

Look. The way I feel totally changes the way I see the world, the choices I make, and the feelings I have. If I’m in a bad mood, I’m not going to want to go ice skating when I see an ice rink. But if I’m in an adventurous mood, trying to ice skate for the first time would be a lot of fun.

The law of attraction says,

* Figure out what you want.
* Spend time during your day imagining yourself feeling the way it would feel to already have that desire.
* Write down how it would feel in the present tense.
* Believe with your mind and especially your emotions that this desire will manifest in your life. You cannot waiver in this step, you must absolutely believe in yourself congruently.
* Have the courage to act on those beliefs.

I don’t need a big universal reason to explain why this works. You think happy thoughts, you are in a happy mood!

So figure out what is happiness for yourself, visualize it, and feel it. Do this passionately and you’ll naturally gravitate to those desires. Why? Because you’re thinking about them so intensely!

I’ve admired a lot of people in my life. I have an idea of who they are in my head, just a collection of attributes and, in my case, writing or film directing styles. I look up to these people, and I try to act as they would, because I emotionally value what they offer me. So when I make choices, the ideas of these characters guides my thinking, along with a bunch of other independent effects. They don’t inspire some meaning with me, I value them as ideals and I aspire to be like them.

The universal reason that makes attraction work is your own mind! because it constitutes all of reality.

I have a really great fortune cookie that I loved so much I taped it to the cover of my laptop. It reads:
Change your thoughts and you change the world.
Change your thoughts and you change the world.

I couldn’t agree more.

[thef0x]

Please read my post and give me your comments!!!

[Vanessa]

Originally Posted by thef0x

Please read my post and give me your comments!!!

I would have liked reading about the highlights of your article with a link to the full length article if I wanted to read more. It's daunting to contribute to the topic because you're asking for feedback on your article not opening up a thread for folks to bounce ideas and opinions about The Secret. But you did name the thread appropriately for your content.

Its hard to read through that long of an article --even if its good. I remember reading a thread about this idea..skipping over super long posts because its too hard to get into. As good as your writing may be please let it be manageable for people to digest and contribute back to.

Most people on this forum are subtle in linking to their articles when its relevant. This full length copy split in two posts and linked in your signature is not so subtle.

[TheColonel]

Good post.

The Secret is a good starting point for most, but the LoA will work differently for people depending on the state of their subconscious.

They never mention that fact, and it's the reason why most people will try it for a few weeks, and then give up. But a few weeks of hope and happiness isn't such a bad thing.

Here's what they should have said: Focus on what you want until it feels unnatural to feel otherwise, and then the manifestations will begin to occur.

At that point, your subconscious has made the shift.

But I like your article a lot compadre.

[TheColonel]

Originally Posted by Vanessa

I would have liked reading about the highlights of your article with a link to the full length article if I wanted to read more. It's daunting to contribute to the topic because you're asking for feedback on your article not opening up a thread for folks to bounce ideas and opinions about The Secret. But you did name the thread appropriately for your content.

Its hard to read through that long of an article --even if its good. I remember reading a thread about this idea..skipping over super long posts because its too hard to get into. As good as your writing may be please let it be manageable for people to digest and contribute back to.

Most people on this forum are subtle in linking to their articles when its relevant. This full length copy split in two posts and linked in your signature is not so subtle.

Actually, I think he did link to it in the first post.

[Vanessa]

Originally Posted by TheColonel

Actually, I think he did link to it in the first post.

Indeed, the link is in the first post along with a request to read it on the blog since it has much better readability (awesome headings and pics too).

I meant I would have liked a brief abstract of his article with a link instead of the entire article being posted so that I would know whether I wanted to read the entire post or not.

[Akashic_Librarian]

I really enjoyed this Article. I think its good that people devote so much thought to this type of thing and you wrote it so elegantly. I also liked your no bullsh** attitude towards it.

Lets here it for thef0x

[thef0x]

Hey wow,
Thank you so much!

Haha, honestly, I really appreciate the comments, thank you!

[Andrew Brunelle]

Why don't we all go out and have an intention-manifestation party? I'll bring the intentions.

[Akashic_Librarian]

I bring the Cola and Steve Pavlina!

[thef0x]

I'd love to hear from others about this!

Please let me know!

[Maxwell]

Thank you for writing this, I am going to watch the movie shortly because of your post. I am still very curious about the relationship between subjective reality and the laws of attraction. I am having some major problems with the concept and its validity.

[thef0x]

Originally Posted by Maxwell

Thank you for writing this, I am going to watch the movie shortly because of your post. I am still very curious about the relationship between subjective reality and the laws of attraction. I am having some major problems with the concept and its validity.

Maxwell, how philosophically inclined are you?

[Maxwell]

I have no idea how to answer that question. I have studied some philosophy, a few college courses in addition to whatever reading I have done that may be considered philosophy.

What exactly are you asking? I am probably more logical than philospohical in my reasoning but who isn't?

[Mark Lapierre]

Originally Posted by thef0x

The law of attraction says,
* Figure out what you want.
* Spend time during your day imagining yourself feeling the way it would feel to already have that desire.
* Write down how it would feel in the present tense.
* Believe with your mind and especially your emotions that this desire will manifest in your life. You cannot waiver in this step, you must absolutely believe in yourself congruently.
* Have the courage to act on those beliefs.

The very last point is the primary distinction between those who believe in the power of IM and those who don't, and the difference between the LoA and IM. Some believe that IM works without having to actively do anything but hold a conscious intent, and others, like myself, believe that without action anything that does manifest is mostly fortunate coincidence (and that the attraction part of the Law of Attraction requires action).

However I do believe that those coincidences are more likely if we believe they're likely, because we'll do things that make them so. And so by asking for what we want and believing we will get it, it may be received, not because the universe gives it to us through some vaguely defined metaphysical route, but simply because we're much more likely to end up in a situation which provides, through our own conscious or unconscious actions, what we asked.

PS: I think your article was good, and made a number of good points which I agree with, but I think the salient points could be condensed into a shorter article, increasing the readibility and impact without losing the message.

[Maxwell]

That seems very reasonable to me, Mark.

[Acting Like Godot]

Mark & Maxwell:

I invite you to meditate regularly. I mean basic, straightforward meditation - getting in deep, just focusing on breath or candle flame or your own mind - and without any attempt to manifest anything whatsoever or having any goal whatsoever.

Then you will discover the true nature of coincidences, for yourselves, through your own experience.

[impaul99]

I do not believe action is required, at least not in the sense most people think. For example, if I wanted to manifest milk in my fridge, people would say that I need to get in my car, drive to the store and buy some milk. That is one way of getting the milk, but via IM there are other ways. Those ways might or might not require you to take action, but if they do the action will in most cases not be associated with the standard way of getting the item.

For example, one way to think about it is if you're a sales rep who gets paid a commission. You know that your list of 100 clients makes you $1000/m in commissions. Lets say you want to manifest $10,000/m in income. The standard way of doing it would be to try to grow your client base from 100 clients to 1,000 clients as an example. This is where people apply positive thinking, motivation, feeling happy, etc. in order to get themselves to get on the phones, and get themselves to take massive action to get their client base up from 100 clients to 1,000 clients for example by multiplying their efforts tenfold. If they used to make 25 prospecting calls a day, they would now try to do 250 for example. This is the "standard" way of using personal development to manifest things. All roads leading towards getting yourself to DO things, to take ACTION to achieve results. You can mix in working SMART vs working HARD, but it still requires action.

With LoA and IM, I believe you can achieve your desire, such as $10,000/m without any extra action you took making $1,000/m for example. It's hard to explain, but IM definitely is NOT just a motivational tool, although if that's what it does for you, that's great!

I just wanted to comment on that part.

Thanks.

[Mark Lapierre]

Acting Like Godot: I've been practicing Vipassana meditation (as per Mindfulness in Plain English) for about a year. It hasn't led to any experiences, or revelations about experiences, which have changed my opinion about coincidence. If anything it's re-inforced my opinion. Though this is fodder for another topic which I'm happy to discuss in another thread if you'd like to take it further.

Paul: AndyMartin has a great response regarding the need for explaination of LoA and IM. I agree with him, though he states it better than I could.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Mark Lapierre

Acting Like Godot: I've been practicing Vipassana meditation (as per Mindfulness in Plain English) for about a year. It hasn't led to any experiences, or revelations about experiences, which have changed my opinion about coincidence.

Go to Chapter 16 of your own link. There is a stage in the meditator's development which the materials describe as follows:

"As meditative mindfulness develops, your whole experience of life changes. Your experience of being alive, the very sensation of being conscious, becomes lucid and precise, no longer just an unnoticed background for your preoccupations. It becomes a thing consistently perceived.

Each passing moment stands out as itself; the moments no longer blend together in an unnoticed blur. Nothing is glossed over or taken for granted, no experiences labeled as merely 'ordinary'. Everything looks bright and special."

This is the stage (for myself, at least) when I began to discern something about the nature of "coincidences". They are truly non-random. Little coincidences that in the past you would have missed or dismissed - now it becomes impossible to gloss over them or take them for granted - there is nothing merely "ordinary" about their nature. Every moment, and every coincidence looks bright and special.

When you leave aside your own interpretations and judgments of events, the events (including coincidences) can be perceived with a kind of clarity that would startling to the you, before you were a meditator. The true meaning jumps out at you, quite unmistakeably.

I should add that I was a meditator before I ever heard of the LOA or IM. And that I started to perceive coincidences in such a way, before I ever heard of LOA or IM. Therefore it cannot have been the subconscious influence of anything I'd heard about IM which led me to perceive coincidences in such a way.

Later in your meditation, you may have the experience (if you have not already had it) of sensing the interconnectedness of all things - then it will become quite easy to understand that coincidences are not random. All things are connected.

On a separate note, in the context of this kind of discussion, we should perhaps drop the term "coincidence" and use the more precise term "synchronicity" - coined by the 2nd-most famous psychologist in the history of the world.

Synchronicity is a word that Swiss psychologist Carl Jung used to describe the "temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events." Jung spoke of synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle" (i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality). Cause-and-effect, in Jung's mind, seemed to have nothing to do with it. Jung introduced the concept in his 1952 paper Synchronicity — An Acausal Connecting Principle, though he had been considering the concept for almost thirty years.[1]

Put plainly, synchronicity is the experience of two or more occurrences (beyond coincidentally) in a manner that is logically meaningful- but inexplicable- to the person or persons experiencing them. Such events would also have to suggest an underlying pattern in order to satisfy the definition of synchronicity as developed by Jung.

It differs from mere coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic that is being expressed through meaningful relationships or events.

It was a principle that Jung felt encompassed his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious [2], in that it was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience and history — social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual.

Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were due not merely to chance, but instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic.

Here is one of Jung's accounts of a synchronicity - related in his paper "Synchronicity, An Acausal Connecting Principle".

Introduction to Carl G. Jungs Principle of Synchronicity; synchronicity, synchronicity, synchronicity, synchronicity