This makes me really impatient. You haven’t read the book. Feel free to wade in on what it means, and which interpretations of it are valid, after you have. But since you haven’t, you’re in a damn poor position to argue that those of us who have are misinterpreting it.
I think it’s kind of amusing for someone like Oprah to endorse this kind of crap. What is she trying to say, that if you read this book you can be a multi-gazillionaire like her? Now, that would certainly be nice, wouldn’t it?
The thing about her, though, is that I think she is fairly sincere in her dumbassery. I really don’t think she would endorse something like this if she didn’t think it had value, and it astounds me that someone who is as smart as she clearly is, and as successful, could fall for this stuff.
Oh, you’ve read it? I was under the impression that no one here has. Knowing that now and rereading your posts, I have to agree: Whackadoodle horse hockey.
From a Washington Post article:
*In the book, investment trainer David Schirmer describes his own experience. He used to receive bills every day. “So I got a bank statement, I whited out the total, and I put a new total in there,” he says. “I thought, ‘What if I just visualized a bunch of checks coming in the mail’? Within just one month, things started to change. It is amazing; today I just get checks in the mail. I get a few bills, but I get more checks than bills.”
You’d think an investment expert might be wary of sharing a secret like that. But you can even print out a check from “The Bank of the Universe” off “The Secret’s” Web site. Write in the amount you want. Imagine spending it. Then sit back and watch the cash roll in.*
I agree. I find it hard to get worked up about Oprah, because I do believe she is being sincere. I know people who work very closely with her, and I’ve never gotten the impression that she’s anything but, in the grand scheme of things, a pretty decent human being.
Here is an actual exerpt. I think it’s great to think positively, but this stuff is crazy and hurtful.
Here are some parts I find horrifying, particularly in the context of weight loss:
To put it in the most basic terms, if someone is overweight, it came from thinking “fat thoughts,” whether that person was aware of it or not
The second thing to know is that the condition of being overweight was created through your thought to it. To put it in the most basic terms, if someone is overweight, it came from thinking “fat thoughts,” whether that person was aware of it or not. A person cannot think “thin thoughts” and be fat. It completely defies the law of attraction.
This line of thinking permeates the entire book apparently, if you have cancer, it’s because you had bad thoughts. You can also catch bad thoughts from other people, so avoid people who are manifesting bad thoughts (ie sick). Twaddle - when I was heavy because I ate too much junk every day and didn’t exercise.
*Food is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight.Remember, thoughts are primary cause of everything, and the rest is effects from those thoughts. Think perfect thoughts and the result must be perfect weight.
*
I recognize that some people have deeper psychological issues around food (eat for comfort, eat to hide, eat for stress), but for me…it was the FOOD. I ate pizza and muffins and full fat venti lattes and M&Ms and Taco Bell almost everyday.
*Don’t buy clothes at your current weight. Have faith and focus on the clothes you are going to buy. *
I am a huge fan of NOT putting your life on hold until you are “perfect.” I think this comment is particularly stupid - at one point in the middle of my weight loss, my size 18 pants literally were falling off my body. Should I visualize my pants NOT FALLING OFF or should I buy some pants that fit so I don’t have a Janet Jackson-type wardrobe malfuction at work?
Attracting the perfect weight is the same as placing an order with the catalogue of the Universe. You look through the catalogue, choose the perfect weight, place your order, and then it is delivered to you
Uh huh. I would like to put an order in the catalog to win the 96M Mega Millions lotto tonight.
If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it.
This is particularly horrifying and cruel - what, don’t even LOOK at fat people? Just pretend they don’t exist? What the hell?
In the interest of fairness, I agree with the following:
*The definition of the perfect weight is the weight that feels good for you. No one else’s opinion counts. It is the weight that feels good for you. *
You will never change your body if you are critical of it and find fault with it, and in fact you will attract more weight to you. Praise and bless every square inch of your body.
Thank you for that. I’m convinced that it’s complete and utter nonsense, and probably harmful at that.
Having said that, I absolutely believe that if you want to lose a lot of weight, there has to be a shift in your thinking. But a shift into the Land of Complete Dumbass is going a little too far.
Hint for self-actualizers: you can pick up on the same “secrets” to unlocking your inner powers (while saving over six bucks) by buying Emile Coue’s “Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion”, one of several masterworks by the famous 1920s positive thinking specialist that are still in print. From a description of this book on amazon.com:
“Suggestion, or rather Autosuggestion, is quite a new subject, and yet at the same time it is as old as the world. It is new in the sense that until now it has been wrongly studied and in consequence wrongly understood; it is old because it dates from the appearance of man on the earth. In fact autosuggestion is an instrument that we possess at birth, and in this instrument, or rather in this force, resides a marvelous and incalculable power, which according to circumstances produces the best or the worst results. Knowledge of this force is useful to each one of us, but it is peculiarly indispensable to doctors, magistrates, lawyers, and to those engaged in the work of education. By knowing how to practise it consciously it is possible in the first place to avoid provoking in others bad autosuggestions which may have disastrous consequences, and secondly, consciously to provoke good ones instead, thus bringing physical health to the sick, and moral health to the neurotic and the erring, the unconscious victims of anterior autosuggestions, and to guide into the right path those who had a tendency to take the wrong one.”
I wanna learn more about this business of provoking bad autosuggestions in others. Sounds like a neat way to get ahead in life. :dubious:
“You will never change your body if you are critical of it and find fault with it, and in fact you will attract more weight to you”
WTF? Will wads of adipose tissue fly through the air and attach themselves to your body, like alien life forms on Star Trek??
Well I apologize if you feel that way. When you stated “A valid reason” the first thing I though of was your other threads. I also consider it a bad thing when you judge her to be a horrible person but it doesn’t make me judge you or dislike you in any way. I meant what I said about you getting some closure from this. I take great pride in not being a liar although I freely admit I am human and suffer from the same foibles as yourself.
I’ve actually been a pretty big Oprah fan for a while, but I haven’t had TV in a few years, so it’s hard to judge how nutty she’s become.
The Secret is nutty, but is it any more nutty than the Christian who believes all bad things that happen are a punishment for sin or the Buddhist who believes one’s misfortunes are a result of bad deeds from a past life? (I know not all Christians and not all Buddhists have those perspectives, but they do exist and are somewhat common.)
I do find some wisdom in The Secret, which is also found in cognitive behavioral therapy and Buddhism… that is the wisdom that our thoughts have a whole hell of a lot more to do with our happiness than we’d often like to admit. The idea that I can think myself thin is hogwash, but if I put myself in the frame of mind of a person who is healthy, and learn to have an instinct toward healthy (therapeutically, let’s say we’re challenging negative cognitions, for ex. ‘‘healthy food tastes bad’’ and then systematically refuting that false belief.) So The Secret starts with a common sense idea and somehow goes horribly, pathetically wrong.
But I believe Oprah is sincere in her belief that it works. So she’s about on par from my perspective with someone with religious beliefs I think are weird, like the person who tells you every event in your life is a part of God’s Plan. I mean, if you really sit down and think about that, it can be an insulting idea to those of us who don’t agree… yet it’s a common belief.
I think in most cases you sort of have to give people a pass on irrationality when it comes to religion. I try to be as rational as possible about my own spiritual beliefs, but someone out there thinks my beliefs are wacky, and sometimes I do have to admit, ‘‘This is a belief not based on fact but based on the emotional/spiritual benefit it brings to my life.’’ And that’s totally okay.
Though Jodi given your mother’s experiences with the followers of this weirdness I can’t say I blame you for your rage and disgust.
When I was a SAHM with a sickly infant, I watched Oprah some. Not a lot, but some. I found her show maddening–she would do fairly good interviews (the sickly infant is now almost 10 years old, so bear with me) for the first 18 minutes or so and I’d think: this is ok daytime TV. And then the commercial blitz would start where she would speak a sentence and go to break. Speak another one and go to break etc. Awful.
Anyway, in one of those shows, a woman stood up in the audience and related her problem with her spouse/lover/concubine, whatever it was. Of course it was something painful and hurtful. The thing that got me was what Oprah said in reply. Not looking at the woman, but at the camera, she intoned, “you are what you attract–you all know that don’t you?” The audience nodded as if she had imparted the wisdom of Solomon to the masses. The poor woman sat down.
I cringed. I lost a lot of respect for Oprah from that and have seen no reason to change my mind. Sure, she does nice charitable things, but think about it–what else are you going to do when you have more money than you could possibly ever need? I’m not saying she gives grudgingly–I’m sure she doesn’t. I just don’t think it extraordinary that she gives.
I think her whole “you are what you attract” was a precursor to this Secret thing. It sounds godawful. I thought vitiligo-ish thoughts so that now I have a disfiguring skin condition? I wanted to no longer physically attractive in some dark piece of my psyche? My sisters died from complication of juvenile diabetes from what? craving sugar too much? This is messed up thinking.
I see what Hazel is saying and I agree with her (and Peck). You can influence to some degree your reaction and your behavior in circumstances and how you view yourself is key to those reactions and behaviors. But the rest of this is horrible. I am so sorry, Jodi, that your mother was put through that by (no doubt) people who thought they were selfless and good. Spare me from that goodness, please god.
The Australian satire-comedy show The Chaser’s War On Everything did a great send up on The Secret for their “Nutjob of the Week” segment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usbNJMUZSwo (warning: language)
I haven’t read the book, so I won’t comment on that directly.
I do have something to say about positive thinking. I don’t know that many people that push positive thinking in the way of, “if you wish to not have AIDS, you won’t catch it”. I do know quite a few people that seem to believe in the power of positvie thinking in a different sense though.
The poor people in Cabrini Green probably would do a lot better if they thought positive. The thing is, it is nearly impossible to think positive when you are poor, hungry, stressed, uneducated and overwhelmed by a legacy of poverty. The cream that rises to the top and escape the violence and poverty are the ones that somehow were able to ‘get they heads right’ as we call it, and ‘think positively’.
Where I am from, there are those that do ‘nurse’s aide’* work. When I say ‘those that do’, I mean an entire culture of nurse’s aides. It is a mindset. A mother does it. All of her daughter’s do it. All of their daughter’s do it. It is really weird. Some people seem to genuinely love the work. (my mom is one of those people), and it is honorable work, but many, many women do it because they honestly believe that is all they can do.
Interesting thing though…when someone does break out of the nurse’s aide cycle and decides to say…become a secratary*…that is it. She never goes back to nurse’s aide, and she can’t remember why she ever thought that was all she could do. She makes more money, gets a nicer car, moves to a bigger apartment on a better side of town…her whole mindset changes in such a way that if she gets laid off…she can’t go back to nurse’s aiding! When once, that seemed the only way, now it is unacceptable! Her mind literally blocks the possibility of doing nurse’s aide work. She struggles hard and long until she finds another position that will keep her in the manner of living that she is accustomed to. This is something that doesn’t occur to the nurse’s aide still trapped doing a job she hates. She is beaten down by hard times to the point that she can’t get it together to demand of herself that she ‘follow her dreams’, or whatever.
There are many that fight their way out of poverty and become doctors, lawyers, all that good stuff. I used the secretary example because it is a huge subset, not just a few dots of cream rising to the top. There are thousands of women in my ghetto that struggled their way out of jobs that they hate, and that paid poorly into better jobs, office jobs or whatever. Those women really are separated from their miserable nurse’s aide counter parts purely by positive thinking.
In the interest of full disclosure, I guess I should mention that I LOVES me some Oprah.
*secretary = all kinds of office jobs
*nurse’s aide = home health aide and Certified Nurse’s Aide, personal care assistants…etc.
It’s not at all bullshit, it’s just a way to pay people to hear, “Think positive.” Thinking positively WILL in the end help you get what you want.
Haven’t we gone over this before? Phil McGraw was awarded a PhD as a result of coursework completed and dissertation defended. Even if he never did a day of clinical practice, he still holds a doctorate.
I certainly am of the group that concedes that The Secret has taken a good life philosophy (i.e. “you reap what you sow”) and taken it to a ludicrous literal conclusion (i.e. victims of genocide or famine brought it on themselves).
However, this thread began as (yet another) diss of Oprah by Wee Bairn. It’s a diss that I don’t think is justified. Yes, I am an Oprah fan (I watch occasional shows, when the topic is interesting), so I am biased. But the show on The Secret (some time ago, by the way…she isn’t promoting this now) was typical of her general theme about living life with meaning, and fulfilling your purpose - I realize that this pisses off some people, but I enjoy the meme of living an enriching life.
And, that was it. She didn’t harp on The Secret for weeks at a time. She didn’t promote its over the top conclusions. In fact, in a later show, she made mention of The Secret once more, only to say that she didn’t agree with its literal interpretation.
If you agree with the concept of the power of positive thinking (which Oprah clearly does, judging by her frequent shows on finding your purpose in life), then you may not be offended by the concept in The Secret, even as you dismiss its more ludicrous arguments. If, on the other hand, you are Wee Bairn, you’ll use this as another hollow attempt to get out the vitriol against your arch-enemy.
If the bad stuff happens to you out of mere circumstance, then why not say that the good stuff happens to you out of mere circumstance? Both ideas have their flip side. Do we have control of our destinies or not? Or is our control of our destinies relegated to minor things, the major sweeps being deterministic?
That’s my new excuse for why I’m overweight. 
Who says that some good stuff doesn’t happen by circumstance? Hell, the fact of being born in North America is something good for the majority of people that it happens to, and that’s entirely circumstance.
The entirely depends upon the mood of the subject now doesn’t it? Plenty of Muslims are glad to be born Muslims in a Muslim country and plenty of Americans lament being born in America. It’s all relative really.