The Secret has sold 500,000 copies in 6 months....

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Out of all the books I've read that discuss intention manisfestation, Murphy's is probably one of my favorite and told me all I needed to know. His theory was also more believable to me, because it had more to do with the subconscious mind, instead of the "Universe energy" bringing stuff to me.

Joseph Murphy was a pastor. His version of LOA practice was all tied up with God and prayer, although he tried to hide that in some books.

[Daffy Duck]

I believe in God and prayer is like my form of meditation, so maybe that's why it works for me.

[Dreamline]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

I had a brief series of exchanges with FAW a while back, and he was, to the best of my understanding, openly scornful of the idea of non-action-based, "wish fairy" IM - See: MacFly.

He had his own equally intriguing out-there ideas, but they didn't resonate with me, so I moved on.

Both LOA and The Secret are constantly made out to be 'wish-fairy" only. THAT is untrue. The teachers in The Secret mention taking action very often, in fact. So maybe Fred never actually watched The Secret.

Originally Posted by McFly

Note that I was talking about the secret, not about LoA overall. The Secret states false things, that's it.

Even if it is an oversimplified version of the truth, it's still not true, as it is said in the movie.

It's a TV-shop version of LoA, and it's about money. If they'd talk about the more difficult, but more real version, it wouldn't sell like that.

Do you think it would be better if millions less people discovered and understood LOA?

When you want to teach a kindergartner how to count, do you toss a Calculus book in front of him and walk away? Or start with the basics, in cute books with interesting shapes, appealing characters and pretty colors? Modern humans were like kindergarten kids when it comes to LOA, when The Secret was released so why would it be better to bust out the Calculus Book of Attracting when first introducing it? The fact that The Secret talks about manifesting money (and health, and general success, and relationships, and world peace, let's not forget) is not a sin. Most people, to quote my local LOA teacher Connie Domino have these priorities: "I want my money, my honey, my job and my health. In that order."

As far as whether it's "true," one would assume that would be a personal judgement and that for as many people that disagree with it, there are probably more that have found it to be perfectly true or the LOA "fad" would have died by now. Yet it's going strong. You can't make a blanket statement that it is "untrue."

Jennifer

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

How many people that are currently pursuing LOA paths would have heard of LOA if it weren't for The Secret? A small percentage, I am certain.

Depends on what your perspective of the LOA is, really.

I think that Buddhism is one of the forms of LOA. And Buddhism has had many followers in the past 2,500 years.

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

Both LOA and The Secret are constantly made out to be 'wish-fairy" only. THAT is untrue. The teachers in The Secret mention taking action very often, in fact. So maybe Fred never actually watched The Secret.

He was specifically criticizing the "wish fairy" aspect. As for the Secret as a whole, he brushed it off as a marketing gimmick (which is not to say that he was dimissing the worth of the other contributors - we never got into that).

BTW, I like your handle - "They travel in the time of the prophets, on a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun [etc.]"

[Dreamline]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

BTW, I like your handle - "They travel in the time of the prophets, on a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun [etc.]"

Oh yeah...

Jennifer

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

When you want to teach a kindergartner how to count, do you toss a Calculus book in front of him and walk away?

The calculus version of the LOA is represented by "The Seth Material". Which unsurprisingly achieved far less commercial success than "The Secret".

[Dreamline]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Depends on what your perspective of the LOA is, really.

I think that Buddhism is one of the forms of LOA. And Buddhism has had many followers in the past 2,500 years.

Ok, you guys are stretching. (not just in this thread)

Originally Posted by Dreamline

How many average people that are currently pursuing LOA paths, that aren't Buddhists, would have heard of LOA if it weren't for The Secret? A small percentage, I am certain. How many people who enjoy the seemingly limitless information that is currently available now re: LOA, would have had access to that amount of material if The Secret hadn't been released?

There ya go..

Jennifer

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

The calculus version of the LOA is represented by "The Seth Material". Which unsurprisingly achieved far less commercial success than "The Secret".

No wonder my brain tried to explode the first/last time I took a stab at reading it

I was fortunate to have discovered the concept of IM/LoA a few years prior to The Secret, as I found the latter experience like eating a jar of cake frosting - very sweet and enjoyable, but ultimately insubstantial and just a wee bit nausea inducing...

Now, let's see about manifesting a right-brain-friendly equivalent to calculus

[Dreamline]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

The calculus version of the LOA is represented by "The Seth Material". Which unsurprisingly achieved far less commercial success than "The Secret".

Then you verify my point...

I personally think we were destined as a species to learn these concepts NOW, for a specific reason probably having to do with survival and/or evolvement. But that is a whole other thread. So how do you get the most people interested in a strange concept as fast as possible? Make it appealing. Big marketing duh. Interestingly, it's release coincides, roughly, with the public-ification of Kabbalah teachings which I also believe were made public for the same reason, around the same time and they are connected concepts.


Jennifer

[Wax Frog]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

public-ification

That sounds like a Waxism!

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

I believe in God and prayer is like my form of meditation, so maybe that's why it works for me.

Ah, but now the interesting question for you is whether God is your subconscious mind.

(See your earlier post, you'll know what I mean)

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

(See your earlier post, you'll know what I mean)

Hmm, nope.

Not sure what you mean. God is something much grander than my personal subconscious mind.

[Lil Chris]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Hmm, nope.

Not sure what you mean. God is something much grander than my personal subconscious mind.

Hmmm... How can god be grander than your subconscious if they are but one...

[Daffy Duck]

Even if we assume We Are All One, God is still the word I would use to define "everything" whereas my subconscious mind would be the definition of a small part of the everything.

[Acting Like Godot]

Well, roughly it goes like this.

1. You find Joseph Murphy's book appealing.

2. You find it appealing because he seems to explain the LOA in terms of your (apparently smaller and more limited) subconscious mind, rather than something much more mysterious (eg a universe that magically reacts to your thoughts).

3. I'm telling you that Joseph Murphy actually works on the basis on prayer and God.

4. You say that works fine for you as well.

5. It's just a little ... noteworthy ... to me that while you shy away from the notion of a universe that magically reacts to your thoughts, you don't shy away from the notion of an invisible, all-powerful, omnipresent deity that magically responds to your prayers.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Hmm, nope.

Not sure what you mean. God is something much grander than my personal subconscious mind.

Well, perhaps not just your personal subconscious mind.

Freud has this concept of mind in several levels, eg conscious, subconscious, unconscious, superconscious. In his framework, superconscious is the level of mind that you share with pretty much the rest of the human race, past, present and future (and maybe more than the human race, past, present and future). Which means that potentially you can have access to a heck of a lot of information and knowledge out there.

[Daffy Duck]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

It's just a little ... noteworthy ... to me that while you shy away from the notion of a universe that magically reacts to your thoughts, you don't shy away from the notion of an invisible, all-powerful, omnipresent deity that magically responds to your prayers.

Just to be clear, I don't think of God as a genie or someone who's sitting in the sky saying Yes or No to prayers. I'm not exactly sure what God is. At best, I just consider God to be some type of "Higher Being." My prayer habits are something leftover from my Christian years. If I'm being intellectually honest (and I always try to be), I really don't know for certain if I'm talking to a God when I pray, or if I'm talking to myself. Either way, I feel good about it, and it seems to help bring results into my life.

Does the universe magically react to our thoughts, or do we magically react to our universe? Did Steve create the opportunity for himself, or was there always an opportunity for a personal development blogger and Steve came in at the right time to fit the bill? Are our thoughts creating brand new realities or are our thoughts bending our own minds to see opportunities that were always there? At the end of the day, I suppose it doesn't matter, but it does matter when we're trying to explain why or how it all works. But as I've said in the past, I think we could come up with many theories, but I'm more interested in turning on lightbulbs than discussing the inner workings of electricity, if you know what I mean.

[Zas]

Originally Posted by Wax Frog

I was fortunate to have discovered the concept of IM/LoA a few years prior to The Secret, as I found the latter experience like eating a jar of cake frosting - very sweet and enjoyable, but ultimately insubstantial and just a wee bit nausea inducing...

Ha ha ha, awesome.

[electric]

I have seen the secret and i really did want to believe in it but i just needed more evidence to convince myself.
There were some scientists in the movie so i looked up them on youtube and i found videos about quantum physics witch really explained how this law of attraction works. link: YouTube - Mind Over Matter
dont be scared about quantum physics it is easy to understand