"The Secret": How to take it apart

[whitebreadmike]

The last month I've watched "The Secret" on DVD, and I also just finished reading "The Law of Attraction" by the Hicks. I found both very inspiring.

Now I just stumbled over this article in the washington post:

Self-Help's Slimy 'Secret'

The author, Tim Watkin, makes some good points. Here are some of them for those of you who don't want to read the whole article:

What's missing from this recycling of an old egalitarian ideal is the Protestant ethic and Enlightenment beliefs. Hard work, talent, education, even luck go unmentioned. As "The Secret" puts it, all you have to do is "put in your order with the universe." Ask. Believe. Receive. That's the mantra.

(...)

In February, Los Angeles Times editorial writer Karin Klein reported that local therapists were seeing "clients who are headed for real trouble, immersing themselves in a dream world in which good things just come." Klein told me in an e-mail that she had heard from readers who were worried about friends who "suddenly start buying things, certain that the money to pay for them will just show up."

Still worse is the insidious flip side of Byrne's philosophy: If bad things happen to you, it's all your fault. As surely as your thoughts bring health, wealth and love, they are also responsible for any illness, poverty or misery that comes your way.

That isn't just implied, it's spelled out: "The only reason why people do not have what they want is because they are thinking more about what they don't want than what they do want." By this logic, Holocaust victims brought it on themselves, as did those who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina. Come on, New Orleans, get over it! Think positive!

(...)
One recent weekend, the show featured a skit about a man in Darfur being interviewed by Winfrey and Byrne. They scolded him when he lamented that his people were starving, saying it was all the result of his lousy attitude.

Many of these things are also stuff I found problematic when reading the book. It seems a bit cynical - like we should not feel sorry for people, because everyone we previously looked upon as victims really aren't - they invited their suffering.

.. and also, we should not get involved in their suffering - because that would be inviting suffering ourselves.

So, no empathy for people with problems, and also no involvement with them, since that would be bad for us.

Surely not a way to create a better world?

What do you guys think?

[Erin Pavlina]

I think there are a lot of people out there who don't understand The Secret but who think they do. And yeah, that is dangerous.

[torilink]

The reason we do not acknowledge suffering, illness, and pain in others is because when I acknowlege such things in YOU then I reinforce YOUR belief in them and I reinforce MY belief in them at the same time.

If you hold a belief in illness, you cannot hold a belief in perfect health at the same time. They are two opposing thoughts. Either you are perfect or you are not.

You must believe one of those, not both at the same time.

So, if you believe you are ill - that is your belief and your experience. I cannot acknowledge it, because I know it isn't THE TRUE STATE of your being - nor mine. I am loving you by not reinforcing your belief in an illusion.

That is love - you empathize with their miscreated state - but you do not make the miscreation real for either of you.

[Dharma]

Originally Posted by from the article

What's missing from this recycling of an old egalitarian ideal is the Protestant ethic and Enlightenment beliefs. Hard work, talent, education, even luck go unmentioned. As "The Secret" puts it, all you have to do is "put in your order with the universe." Ask. Believe. Receive. That's the mantra.

Does anyone realize how much personal process you have to do to make "Ask. Believe. Receive." happen with any sort of ease? Many people will be disappointed. And to counter this guy: who the hell wants to work hard? Not me.

Well, one caveat, I know if you go walking in the woods for 6 months amazing things start happening without doing any personal process work. So working on your stuff is not always necessary, but sooner or later you'll want to take a break from the woods.

Originally Posted by from the article

In February, Los Angeles Times editorial writer Karin Klein reported that local therapists were seeing "clients who are headed for real trouble, immersing themselves in a dream world in which good things just come." Klein told me in an e-mail that she had heard from readers who were worried about friends who "suddenly start buying things, certain that the money to pay for them will just show up."

And this is different from credit cards or the mortgage on the McMansion?

Originally Posted by from the article

Still worse is the insidious flip side of Byrne's philosophy: If bad things happen to you, it's all your fault. As surely as your thoughts bring health, wealth and love, they are also responsible for any illness, poverty or misery that comes your way.

That isn't just implied, it's spelled out: "The only reason why people do not have what they want is because they are thinking more about what they don't want than what they do want." By this logic, Holocaust victims brought it on themselves, as did those who lost their homes in Hurricane Katrina. Come on, New Orleans, get over it! Think positive!

Again. Personal process and much more in depth learning has to go on here. It's not for everyone. The Secret people give you no tools to work this through. (Well maybe they'll create a 4-DVD set on how to deal with your process for $99. But by then they will have figured out that thoughts don't create anything and will sell you The Secret Part Deux: we mean it this time!
I think the purpose of the Secret is to just get the ideas into the mass consciousness. It's not a manual on how to create things.
= = = = = =

Many of these things are also stuff I found problematic when reading the book. It seems a bit cynical - like we should not feel sorry for people, because everyone we previously looked upon as victims really aren't - they invited their suffering.

They created their suffering. The book says you shouldn't have compassion for others? Wow, feel their pain and let your heart break and let the tears fall - that does help them. Maybe the book is warning you not to get caught up in their illusion or confusion. If you can help them, help them, they are parts of all of us.

[Akashic_Librarian]

Ignorance is a dangerous thing. The world just wasn't ready for The Secret.

[BelleEnchanted]

The Secret is just a very very basic introduction to LOA. So hopefully people who like what they hear in the Secret will want to learn more about it.

Taking responsibility for your life has nothing to do with either laying fault or finding blame. According to LOA, if you start laying blame or handing out fault, whether it's directed at others or at yourself, you AREN'T taking responsibility. What is past is past. Your past is irrelevant to your tomorrow, unless you choose to dwell on it in this moment.

LOA is about letting go of judgment and criticism. Including self-judgment and self-criticism.

Taking responsibility is simply recognizing that in every moment of your life, you always have a choice regarding how you feel about something. You may not be able to control your current conditions or situations, but you can always control how you feel.

Anyway, that's my understanding of it.

Belle

[dorothy hanna]

It is my understanding of the secret, that to have feelings of blame/fault of those sufferring, therefore a chosen judgement of a lack of comppasion/withholding compassion, then you bring that same judgement upon yourself, and it will come around to you.
You will bring about, to yourself, suffering, and you will find no compassion given to you or your circumstances.

It's one thing to see the sufferring of others, and feel compassion for their circumstances. This is called understanding. And another thing to see the sufferring of others, and have no comassion, meaning you are misunderstanding. One leads to an action, based on these feelings of lack, and the other leads to a different action, based on feelings of compassion.
Two different outcomes.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by whitebreadmike

The last month I've watched "The Secret" on DVD, and I also just finished reading "The Law of Attraction" by the Hicks. I found both very inspiring. [...]

Many of these things are also stuff I found problematic when reading the book. It seems a bit cynical - like we should not feel sorry for people, because everyone we previously looked upon as victims really aren't - they invited their suffering.

.. and also, we should not get involved in their suffering - because that would be inviting suffering ourselves.

So, no empathy for people with problems, and also no involvement with them, since that would be bad for us.

Surely not a way to create a better world?

What do you guys think?

I think this thread should be called "The Secret - How to take it too far". (I'm just poking fun, by the way. )

But seriously, it's pretty easy to interpret things as "bad" when you take them to the extreme. Take water for example. Probably one of the most important things to the health of a human being, but intake too much of it, and apparently you can die (or so I've read... you'll understand if I'm not keen to test out that theory myself ).

Now you may think that the moral of the story is “balance”, but I’d rather call it “intelligent balance”. “Balance” implies that an even split is always optimal, which is far from the truth. “Intelligent balance” is more about harmony and synergy. Life is far from black and white and when you reduce it to a matter of “good” vs “bad”, “right” vs “wrong”, black vs white, you lose touch with various subtleties that give life a sort of depth; a depth that makes the idea of an even split balance system seem a little too simplistic and inadequate to the task.

The same principals in apply to The Secret, the Law of Attraction, etc. Which leads me to my next point. Like Erin said, ignorance can be a dangerous thing, and it seems to me that a lot of people really aren't putting the LoA/The Secret to the test like they should be before going ahead and applying such ideas and concepts with no rhyme or reason.

For example, I'm a pretty open-minded guy, but before I make use of any new ideas, concepts, or beliefs, I have to have a relative understanding of how these things work, why they work, how I can consistently apply them, and how they relate to the other knowledge I’ve acquired. If I don’t understand something, I have an intense urge to gain greater clarity, and before I start taking massive amounts of action based on concepts that I don't fully understand, that is what I will do.

Now that doesn’t mean I’m skeptical and quick to dismiss things, nor does that mean I’ll never take any action before I have a full understanding, as that would be impractical, and from my experience, suboptimal. What it means is that I work with what understanding I do have, and I test, evaluate, and question whatever it is I don’t understand until I do understand it to a degree that satisfies me.

I think the problem with those who are applying the ideas from The Secret/the LoA and not getting the results they are wanting is that they don’t respect the magnitude of the ideas/concepts. If you don’t respect the power of a car when you are driving, you’ll probably drive into a wall. If you don’t respect the power of gravity, you’ll probably find yourself flat on the floor. And if you don’t respect the implications of what it means to be able to influence your reality by your thought alone, you will end up misusing that “power” and, like with the car and gravity, life will let you know you aren’t on the right track.

My only hope is that those who fail with the LoA and the ideas from The Secret don’t just throw in the towel and revert to the comfort and “security” of what has worked for them in the past, since that’s a good way to pass up many good opportunities. Don’t get me wrong -- you shouldn’t continue to use something if it isn’t working for you. But there’s a difference between using something blindly without taking any time to make improvements to your execution, and making an effort to find out why whatever you are using isn’t working, what you can do to maybe improve it, and really putting it to the test to the best of your ability before you count yourself, and whatever concepts/ideas you are working with, out. To paraphrase Thomas Edison's thoughts about trying to create a lightbulb:

“I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work”

Wise words indeed.

[Acting Like Godot]

You people should not be so harsh with Whitebreadmike.

He is asking the basic kinds of questions that most people would ask when they first hear about the Law of Attraction.

If he continues to be curious, if he indeed has a genuine desire to know the answers, then by the Law of Atttraction, he will soon draw unto himself the answers.

[whitebreadmike]

hehe, I can take it

Bruce: I agree with you on balance. That's what I've been doing all this time - taking what I believe is right from Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Steve, etc.etc. and integrating it in my life .. and that's also most likely what I'll do about LoA.

The book made me feel good, and I take comfort in the belief that I create my own experience here on earth.

It also made me feel better not watching the news, like Steve suggested. Not hearing about people getting tortured in other parts of the world. I know it's still happening, I just don't hear about it any more - and that helps - since it made me extremely upset (couldn't sleep).

If my higher goal is to feel good, I'll exclude all negative influences from my world.

.. but at what cost? Ignorance? Ok, but I feel good so that doesn't matter. A worse world? Ok, but I feel good (that sentence feels a bit less powerful now...)

[ludlow]

I think it's time for intelligent people who are genuinely interested in the Law of Attraction, and who feel it has value, to abandon their support for The Secret. (Some of the participants in the DVD have distanced themselves from it.) It's clearly a cynical work of commercial exploitation. I really think too much effort is being expended trying to defend a pretty indefensible marketing phenomenon.

That doesn't mean you have to reduce your commitment to the LoA. Not one bit.

[Anima]

Originally Posted by ludlow

I think it's time for intelligent people who are genuinely interested in the Law of Attraction, and who feel it has value, to abandon their support for The Secret. (Some of the participants in the DVD have distanced themselves from it.) It's clearly a cynical work of commercial exploitation. I really think too much effort is being expended trying to defend a pretty indefensible marketing phenomenon.

That doesn't mean you have to reduce your commitment to the LoA. Not one bit.

Why would we want to abandon support for The Secret?

[Acting Like Godot]

Since you sincerely wish to know, I will answer some of your questions.

Originally Posted by whitebreadmike

It seems a bit cynical - like we should not feel sorry for people, because everyone we previously looked upon as victims really aren't - they invited their suffering.

This is a mistaken understanding. Firstly, they did not merely invite their suffering. They created their suffering.

Secondly, the fact that they created their suffering does not mean that we should not feel compassion for them. You see - they did not intentionally, consciously create their own suffering. They never knew about LOA, and never knew what they were creating. That is all.

Thirdly, from the LOA perspective, the advice for us is not to be caught up in the suffering of others. Because if we focus on such suffering, then by the LOA, with such thoughts, we merely create more suffering. Which does nobody any good.

This does not mean that we do not help others. I will give you another example below.

Not hearing about people getting tortured in other parts of the world. I know it's still happening, I just don't hear about it any more - and that helps - since it made me extremely upset (couldn't sleep).

This is how you go about it.

If you know of a "bad" thing, you have a choice. Either you try to do something about it, or you don't.

If you choose the "do nothing" approach, then drop the "bad" thing completely from your attention. Do not even think about it. For the more you think about it, the greater it grows. And you don't want bad things to grow bigger, do you.

If you choose to do something about it, then as you go about it, be mindful of the direction of your thoughts. Make sure that they go in the right direction.

Let me put all this in the context of a realistic example.

Suppose the woman living next door is always getting beaten up by her husband. What might you do?

(a) Don't do anything about it, but keep thinking about it, feeling sorry for the woman, feeling angry with her husband, visualising all that violence in your mind, imagining how frightened and helpless the woman must be feeling (BAD --> your thoughts are only creating & attracting more and more unfortunate circumstances)

(b) Don't do anything about it, don't even think about it. (NEUTRAL --> You aren't helping the woman, but you aren't worsening her situation and you aren't attracting any bad stuff for yourself).

(c) Do something about it, but in a fearful, negative state of mind, eg directly confront her husband, when you are feeling pretty weak yourself (RISKY --> Due to your fearful, negative state of mind, you might well be attracting something negative for yourself that helps no one - eg a box on your nose)

(d) Do something about it, while ensuring that your thoughts are going in a positive, happy direction (eg "Isn't it WONDERFUL that our city has an EXTREMELY reliable police force? I can call them right now and I'm sure they will RESPOND effectively. I am CONFIDENT that they will know exactly how to help my neighbour. And isn't it MARVELLOUS that I just happen to have a friend who is a VERY GOOD lawyer? I'm sure he will be HAPPY to help my neeighbour.").

The same applies to your own personal problems. As a LOA practitioner, you have two strategies. One is to stop thinking about the problem - it may fall away altogether. The second is to intensify your focus on all the positive things, people, events, opportunities, resources and circumstances in your life that could possibly solve your problem.

The problem for us lesser mortals is that we have limited ability to control our thoughts. All too often, we allow negative things to push our thoughts in negative directions, and thereby create even more negative things. If we are not skilled enough to consistently use positive thoughts to eliminate negative things, the next best thing we can do is simply stop thinking about negative things.

Hope that clarifies .

[Anima]

Originally Posted by Acting Like Godot

Since you sincerely wish to know, I will answer some of your questions.



This is a mistaken understanding. Firstly, they did not merely invite their suffering. They created their suffering.

Secondly, the fact that they created their suffering does not mean that we should not feel compassion for them. You see - they did not intentionally, consciously create their own suffering. They never knew about LOA, and never knew what they were creating. That is all.

Thirdly, from the LOA perspective, the advice for us is not to be caught up in the suffering of others. Because if we focus on such suffering, then by the LOA, with such thoughts, we merely create more suffering. Which does nobody any good.

This does not mean that we do not help others. I will give you another example below.



This is how you go about it.

If you know of a "bad" thing, you have a choice. Either you try to do something about it, or you don't.

If you choose the "do nothing" approach, then drop the "bad" thing completely from your attention. Do not even think about it. For the more you think about it, the greater it grows. And you don't want bad things to grow bigger, do you.

If you choose to do something about it, then as you go about it, be mindful of the direction of your thoughts. Make sure that they go in the right direction.

Let me put all this in the context of a realistic example.

Suppose the woman living next door is always getting beaten up by her husband. What might you do?

(a) Don't do anything about it, but keep thinking about it, feeling sorry for the woman, feeling angry with her husband, visualising all that violence in your mind, imagining how frightened and helpless the woman must be feeling (BAD --> your thoughts are only creating & attracting more and more unfortunate circumstances)

(b) Don't do anything about it, don't even think about it. (NEUTRAL --> You aren't helping the woman, but you aren't worsening her situation and you aren't attracting any bad stuff for yourself).

(c) Do something about it, but in a fearful, negative state of mind, eg directly confront her husband, when you are feeling pretty weak yourself (RISKY --> Due to your fearful, negative state of mind, you might well be attracting something negative for yourself that helps no one - eg a box on your nose)

(d) Do something about it, while ensuring that your thoughts are going in a positive, happy direction (eg "Isn't it WONDERFUL that our city has an EXTREMELY reliable police force? I can call them right now and I'm sure they will RESPOND effectively. I am CONFIDENT that they will know exactly how to help my neighbour. And isn't it MARVELLOUS that I just happen to have a friend who is a VERY GOOD lawyer? I'm sure he will be HAPPY to help my neeighbour.").

The same applies to your own personal problems. As a LOA practitioner, you have two strategies. One is to stop thinking about the problem - it may fall away altogether. The second is to intensify your focus on all the positive things, people, events, opportunities, resources and circumstances in your life that could possibly solve your problem.

The problem for us lesser mortals is that we have limited ability to control our thoughts. All too often, we allow negative things to push our thoughts in negative directions, and thereby create even more negative things. If we are not skilled enough to consistently use positive thoughts to eliminate negative things, the next best thing we can do is simply stop thinking about negative things.

Hope that clarifies .

Very nice, Acting Like Godot!

[thestral]

LoA is a really deep concept. The Secret barely brushed the surface of it all. It seems this has made two camps - the people who jump on the bandwagon without reading more into LoA, and the people who automatically dismiss the subject altogether, again without reading more into LoA. Neither camp is "wrong," it simply means they are not ready yet to wrap their minds around this topic. It took me several months myself before I could digest LoA myself.

[whitebreadmike]

Thank you for taking the time to write that intelligent post, Acting Like Godot

It did absolutely clarify and helped remove the doubts I had about LoA and the ethics of the approach I have taken.

Again, thanks for the enlightenment!

[drkirby]

I don't believe any human can understand the law of attraction so fully that he could explain the reasons why Katrina, 911, people starving in third-world countries, and the such happen.

Law Of Attraction is spiritual in nature, and resides in the non-physical realms. We perceive reality in the physical world, and one can only master metaphysical concepts through reading, feeling and experimenting.

With the exception of Abraham-Hicks, no human mortal can claim to understand how the universal laws operate at the levels of these tragedies.

A lot of it I believe has to do with the collective unconscious of the human race.

And, perhaps in the grand scheme of things everything in the universe balances.

It does seems to be very unfair to us at this physical level of perception that people have to starve and have to die so cruelly every day. And this is exactly why, through our physical perceptions we cannot intellectually see and understand how this can possibly be balancing the universe, or a response to the law of attraction.

It lies in a perception that cannot be perceived through our physical senses, just as we cannot "see, hear or feel" how the earth spins around the sun at incredible speeds, we cannot "see" how the law of attraction works.

We can only logically rationalize and fancy intellectual concepts that make sense to us. There are limits to the mind. There are a lot of spiritual principles that the mind does not understand, but this does not take away from the fact these laws still operate.

A lot of people believe that death is a bad thing. But spiritual teachers have taught since the beginning of time that death is only but a continuation of life in another realm. No one ever dies. Yet the mind is afraid to die, and we do not wish it upon anyone. And when it happens we believe it is the worst thing to ever happen.

That is a concept that the mind has a very difficult time to understand and accept, death is spiritual in nature and because it does not make a lot of sense... there are also a lot of emotions attached to it.

If the mind cannot understand death, how can anyone expect to fully understand the law of attraction. Anything that lies in the spiritual is above the mind, and any attempt to describe it constrains it's definition, because words cannot describe them as in this physical plane of perception we simply cannot understand exactly how it works in the grand, grand, grand scheme of things although we always try.

It can only be felt, and known inside ourselves which is the one thing that connects us to everyone.

Everytime we attempt to label and define it, it becomes contradictory with something else.

[escapee]

No I dont feel enlightened at all by the post that suggests all the victims of freak disaster create the problem to themselves through individual LOA alone. It's like saying a rapist has 0% responsibility in the creation of rape for the 6 year old girl.

Check below to see if you can relate ..
Muslim Cleric: Unveiled Women are like Juicy Steak from Planck's Constant

A few months earlier, in Copenhagen, Islamic mufti and scholar, Shahid Mehdi created uproar when – like his peer in Australia – he stated that women who did not wear a headscarf were asking to be raped.

I think many times it's the LOA of the perpertrators that created the problem , sometimes it's collective conciousness of the society that manifested the problem, other times it's the individual thought that created the problem or in combination with the first two conditions.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by drkirby

I don't believe any human can understand the law of attraction so fully that he could explain the reasons why Katrina, 911, people starving in third-world countries, and the such happen.

It's really not difficult to understand. On this forum, I've already previously gone in great detail to explain it to a chap who used to hang around this forum (Markus74). Just don't have time to type it all out again.

[ethereal]

The thing about stuff like this is that it isn't something that can be explained to another.

People live in their own reality, and almost EVERYONE believes that their reality is how reality really is. David Hawkins calls this the problem of res interna (reality of the mind) vs. res externa (reality as it is).

For people like us, who are used to changing beliefs, who are highly self-aware, who are able to digest the implications of something we don't understand, whose egos are humble enough to say "I really don't know -- I will allow God/Reality show me the Truth" -- we can comprehend concepts like LoA and such, and allow it to experientially reveal itself in our lives.

For other people, they can't do it, because their reality doesn't allow for it. Their experience is that things like LoA don't exist. You can't explain or prove it to them. It's the subjective reality lens thing that Steve talks about.

To think that it's easy to switch beliefs is naive. David Hawkins calibrates that 78% of the population lives below 200, let alone the 400s (objective reality). Trying to tell them that another world exists out there will just be a waste of time. Surrender them to God, and let God handle it.

[ethereal]

As for the Secret itself, that's another can of worms, which is why I made another post

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

I think there are a lot of people out there who don't understand The Secret but who think they do. And yeah, that is dangerous.

I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, I daresay that the majority of people who think they understand it, don't really understand it -- at least, not completely.

This is due to the difference between content and context. Truth must include both content and context, because content means different things under different contexts. To distort context will distort Truth, even if the content is the same.

The content provided in The Secret is true -- under the correct context. But most people don't know what that context is. In fact, even the people on The Secret don't even 100% know what that context is, hence the whole controversy reg. Joe Vitale and such. And IMO, even the author Rhonda Byrne does not know the correct context. They all presume to know, however -- which makes things prettttttttty dangerous

For the OP (original poster), I refer you to this article which will tell you why "The Secret" rubs you the wrong way:

Myswizard » The Secret

I think you'll find it quite enlightening. Shocking at first, but once you digest it, it all makes sense.

[Acting Like Godot]

Originally Posted by escapee

No I dont feel enlightened at all by the post that suggests all the victims of freak disaster create the problem to themselves through individual LOA alone. It's like saying a rapist has 0% responsibility in the creation of rape for the 6 year old girl.

This is another mistaken understanding of how LOA works.

Actually the girl and the rapist are co-creators.

A simple, non-emotive example to illustrate:

Suppose my intention is to get a taxi. Somewhere out there, there is a taxi driver whose intention is to get a passenger. Thoughts create reality. I find him, or he finds me. I get a cab, he gets a passenger.

We cannot say that I did not create the taxi's appearance in my life. I DID create this. However, we also cannot say that the taxi driver did not create my appearance in his life. He DID create this.

Going back to the rape example, the fact that the girl created the rape incident with her thoughts does not mean that the rapist did not intend to rape her or is somehow not culpabale.

[torilink]

ok, let me say this:

the girl who is raped is not desiring to be raped. Perhaps she simply has the belief that "Bad things happen" or "men are evil" or "Women can't trust men" or so on and so on. add to that a belief in victimization, and that is the vibe she is sending. The rapist vibration is one of looking for a victim.

there is never any intentional manifesting on the part of the "Victim" just miscreation of thought.

[thestral]

Originally Posted by torilink

ok, let me say this:

the girl who is raped is not desiring to be raped. Perhaps she simply has the belief that "Bad things happen" or "men are evil" or "Women can't trust men" or so on and so on. add to that a belief in victimization, and that is the vibe she is sending. The rapist vibration is one of looking for a victim.

there is never any intentional manifesting on the part of the "Victim" just miscreation of thought.

Its not hard to be vibrating "rape." I mean, its on the news everytime there is one, whether it be a 6 year old or a 36 year old. Not to mention how often we are told that strangers are bad and want to hurt us. Me, being a 24 year old petite woman, I know all to well about being told to not go out at night because I'll be raped, or not to talk to men, or stay out of sports bars because those drunk guys will take out their frustration at their team's loss by raping me. Yeah...

[Dharma]

Both the rapist and the child/girl are playing with the victim/perpetrator polarity. Is either party conscious they're running this pattern within themselves? I doubt it, or they wouldn't be acting it out.

[ethereal]

Originally Posted by Dharma

Both the rapist and the child/girl are playing with the victim/perpetrator polarity. Is either party conscious they're running this pattern within themselves? I doubt it, or they wouldn't be acting it out.

Yup, I agree. All is karma acting itself out, in its infinite complexity.

Human perception can only see so far... thus, "Judgment is mine, sayeth the Lord."