# I put the author of "The Secret" and everyone who quotes it. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 8, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183 "2012-04-08T16:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/141 "2012-04-10T19:29:43Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > I wish to be an authority on the subject; I believe that makes me an authority on the subject, no? > > I think you have to _believe_ that you’re an authority on the subject. Ah, but note that I _believe_ that wishing suffices, which means wishing suffices. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/142 "2012-04-10T19:39:18Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > You seem to feel that a value judgment automatically attaches to this. I don’t understand why you would think that, I only understand that it doesn’t. To desire something is a value judgment. To decide how to act requires desire. Hence, to decide how to act requires value judgment. If the Secret is supposed to be anything, it is supposed to be a guide to action. Hence, if the Secret is supposed to be anything, value judgments must attach to its recommendations. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/143 "2012-04-10T19:47:30Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > You seem to feel that a value judgment automatically attaches to this. I don’t understand why you would think that, I only understand that it doesn’t. You keep saying this, but it makes no sense. You say that people are choosing to experience loss and pain, that they are attracting tragedy into their lives through their fears, that they are the cause of their own miscarriages and their children getting cancer: > [@Stoid](#): > > If one believes in the view that we come into this life to experience things, then one would believe that your spirit chose the experience of loss through miscarriage. If one believes simply in the law of attraction without some larger design of the spirit at work, then it would appear to someone outside your mind, who can only guess, that you manifested what you feared, that your fear was the most powerful emotional vibration, so the universe responded to that by manifesting it. > [@Stoid](#): > > You appear to be asking if, according to the law of attraction, someone’s child contracting cancer and dying is a direct result of that person expecting their child to get cancer and die, the answer is likely not, because people don’t generally expect their children to contact cancer and die. But that isnt’ the only way that the law of attraction would operate to lead to that result. The most obvious way it might is through fear, and there are others - if one embraces the law as true, it becomes a matter of searching one’s own thoughts, feelings, speech, focus, fear, emotion to see where connections might lie. How is that not assigning fault and blame? If you accuse others of bringing negative things on themselves, how is that not a value judgment? Now, you can keep insisting that it’s all just neutral and there is no good and bad and we’re all just dust in the wind and all, but that doesn’t square with your laws of attraction theories at all. Either good and bad things happen to people because bring them onto themselves somehow (and therefore there are good and bad ways to act), or things just happen randomly and none of it means anything (and therefore the universe is neutral, but there are no laws of attraction at work). The whole theory of The Secret seems to be an oversimplified ‘meaning of life’ thing for people who are, let’s say, less than all there intellectually. If you give it more than a moments thought it doesn’t make any damn sense. Essentially it’s religion minus god, and it just highlights how little sense religion makes. Of course one can work hard and make good choices and achieve the things they want in life, but the world can also fuck one over in monumental ways that have absolutely nothing to do with what someone wants or fears or deserves. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/144 "2012-04-10T19:48:46Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > To desire something is a value judgment. > > To decide how to act requires desire. > > Hence, to decide how to act requires value judgment. > > If the Secret is supposed to be anything, it is supposed to be a guide to action. > > Hence, if the Secret is supposed to be anything, value judgments must attach to its recommendations. Okay, I wrote all that but you said it more concisely. But I’m still leaving my post there! You and your negative energy can’t stop me! ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/145 "2012-04-10T19:58:16Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I have no point, I am not saying anything. Repeated without comment. > [@](#): > > I am not promoting or defending, remember? Yes, you are. Quite stridently, I might add. Your assertions about your behaviors do not change your behaviors. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/146 "2012-04-10T20:15:07Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > Don’t forget religions, too - when something good happens, they praise God. When something bad happens, well, they don’t praise God. Well, I was mentally including that under the heading of philosophies. Every time I think about posting something even vaguely anti-religious, I get hit with the “Don’t Be Like Der Trihs” bat. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/147 "2012-04-10T20:40:31Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Then how is it they don’t “make” everyone believe everything they say? > > Because they don’t make anyone do anything. Books present ideas. People can believe them or reject them, in part or in full, as they choose. If you honestly believe that books “make” people believe things, then you have very little respect for people’s ability to think and decide for themselves and a frightening faith in the power of books, to such a degree I would avoid them were I you. Being able to think for yourself is two things (both of them, not either/or): Knowing how to let reality shape your beliefs rather than desires (your own or those of others) and Knowing how to be creative. When it comes to being creative, nothing can make you do anything.\* But when it comes to knowing how to let reality shape your beliefs, once you’ve habituated yourself into that very laudable and necessary way of doing things, then the information found in reality _does_, in a real sense, force you to believe things. (There’s a seeming paradox here–it seems like the person who has the greatest amount of understanding, who is as free as possible from error, is in a way _least_ free because there’s only one thing he can believe–namely, the truth. But if having the ability to unerringly hit on the truth every time is a lack of freedom, then who needs freedom?) A good book presents realities to you. If you know how to let reality shape your beliefs, and you read a good book, then precisely _because_ you are free to think for yourself, you will be made (in virtue of your rationality and the book’s truth-revealing properties) to believe what the book has presented to you. If, instead, you are _not_ free to think for yourself, if instead you think for others or fail to think at all, then you may indeed reject what the book says. But this doesn’t mean you’re free–it means you’re either “slave” to someone else’s intentions, or else lack a degree of coherence in your mind in the first place. \*In any way that is simple enough for us to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Deegeea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Deegeea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deegeea)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/148 "2012-04-10T21:26:20Z")
Stoid seems to be trying to explain something (law of attraction) which Stoid is being neutral about Stoid’s own belief in or subscription to. Other people seem to be trying really hard to get Stoid to admit Stoid believes in or subscribes to this law of attraction. They seem to be wilfully misinterpreting what Stoid very clearly disclaimed, several times. For the record, I think this Law of Attraction is nonexistent in reality and does not accurately describe the universe. However, they do have some amount of interest to me as philosophies, and I found Stoid’s explanation clear and comprehensible. So no more of this “no one understands what you’re saying Stoid” please. At least one person (me) does. The Law of Attraction would, it seems to me, require a solipsistic universe for each person, or alternatively, that each person’s attraction exerts influence on everyone else’s (so that the Positive Parents/Negative Daughter scenario above simply wouldn’t be possible as Positive Parents would influence daughter to be Positive as well, unless they were focusing on their daughter being Negative which would make them incompletely positive). In my personal experience, the things I focus on seem not to be at all related to the things I attract. If there’s any relationship, it appears to me to be an inverse one, where things I focus on tend to be repulsed from me rather than attracted. Finally, I think the reason that the “Secret” type of book seems not to create self loathing is that it is selectively believed by readers. That is, readers who are influenced by it at all, tend to believe they’re making good things happen to themselves, but not that they’re making bad things happen. If a person really believed in good things happening, and then bad things did, it is way more to be expected that they’d simply stop crediting “The Secret” than that they’d continue believing it but blame themself. That’s how our brains work. A depressed person might blame themself, but the depression would be causing that, not the book. Books do not make people believe things or feel certain ways, but they do influence us to believe things or have feelings. ---
**Author:** ![living\_in\_hell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@living\_in\_hell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/living_in_hell)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/149 "2012-04-10T22:31:50Z")
It seems to me it would be more productive/realistic to encourage people to take all that energy they’re investing in having the universe hook them up and instead focus on, “help me learn to trust that I have the ability to handle whatever comes my way the best I can, at that time.” That came out oddly but you get my point–sounds more healthy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/150 "2012-04-10T22:55:45Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Wikipedia on Law of Attraction: "…a pseudoscientific belief or theory, that “like attracts like,” and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results.[1][2][3][4] > > For example, writer Lisa Nichols suggests that if a subject opens an envelope expecting to see a bill, the envelope will “confirm” those thoughts and contain a bill when opened. A person who decided to instead expect a check might find a check instead of a bill." [Law of attraction - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Attraction) OK, but what if it’s a cat, in a box with a poison-gas feed activated, or not, by a random-number generator based on isotopic decay . . . But you’re really **expecting** a check . . . ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2012, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/151 "2012-04-10T23:17:05Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > The Law of Attraction would, it seems to me, require a solipsistic universe for each person, or alternatively, that each person’s attraction exerts influence on everyone else’s (so that the Positive Parents/Negative Daughter scenario above simply wouldn’t be possible as Positive Parents would influence daughter to be Positive as well, unless they were focusing on their daughter being Negative which would make them incompletely positive). And the theory seems to have some pretty good evidence against it right here, because in the first case, it’s clear that we do not live in our own bubble and other people’s actions DO affect us, and in the second, if it was impossible for positivity to breed negativity, there’d be no such thing as the Black Sheep of the Family. > [@](#): > > Finally, I think the reason that the “Secret” type of book seems not to create self loathing is that it is selectively believed by readers. That is, readers who are influenced by it at all, tend to believe they’re making good things happen to themselves, but not that they’re making bad things happen. > > If a person really believed in good things happening, and then bad things did, it is way more to be expected that they’d simply stop crediting “The Secret” than that they’d continue believing it but blame themself. That’s how our brains work. A depressed person might blame themself, but the depression would be causing that, not the book. I think what most people are having the biggest problem with here (aside from the fact that the concept is rather absurd) is that those that believe in The Secret may stop crediting it when bad things happen _to them_, but given the examples earlier in the thread, they don’t give any sign of disbelieving it when bad things happen _to other people_. There is no dream you can have that a good attitude and positive thinking is going to sabotage, but believing the converse, that other people get hurt because they in some nebulous indeterminate way invited their own pain, is a poisonous way to think. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/152 "2012-04-11T01:36:27Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > Stoid seems to be trying to explain something (law of attraction) which Stoid is being neutral about Stoid’s own belief in or subscription to. > > Other people seem to be trying really hard to get Stoid to admit Stoid believes in or subscribes to this law of attraction. They seem to be wilfully misinterpreting what Stoid very clearly disclaimed, several times. > > For the record, I think this Law of Attraction is nonexistent in reality and does not accurately describe the universe. However, they do have some amount of interest to me as philosophies, and I found Stoid’s explanation clear and comprehensible. > > So no more of this “no one understands what you’re saying Stoid” please. At least one person (me) does. Thank you. 🙂 > [@](#): > > If there’s any relationship, it appears to me to be an inverse one, where things I focus on tend to be repulsed from me rather than attracted. Well, we could talk about a related belief regarding being willing not to have something in order to have it, but that would REALLY complicate things… oy. > [@](#): > > Finally, I think the reason that the “Secret” type of book seems not to create self loathing is that it is selectively believed by readers. That is, readers who are influenced by it at all, tend to believe they’re making good things happen to themselves, but not that they’re making bad things happen. Yes, certainly. But I’ve also known a lot of people whose embrace of the belief system means they don’t judge themselves when bad things happen, they just look for the reasons or the hows. Rather than turn unpleasant results and experiences into things to either feel guilty about or reject as something they had no part of, they look closer to see what they can learn from it, often seeing it as exactly that: something they created _specifically_ to learn something from. It’s certainly an excellent exercise, even if there’s nothing to it in the supernatural sense: start from the belief that whatever is going on in your own life specifically, you created it for a reason. Then consider what the reasons could be. It can often unearth some previously unexamined thoughts, feelings, beliefs and attitudes that it might be very good to examine. Even if the law of attraction has nothing to do with any of it. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/153 "2012-04-11T03:19:35Z")
I feel ok that I don’t know what the hell any of you are talking about, and I feel no desire to fight my ignorance on this one. Is it worth it? Perhaps tomorrow. but I’m not reading 4 pages of rants. My theory is correct! Ignorance IS bliss! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/154 "2012-04-11T17:09:28Z")
> [@Stink Fish Pot](#): > > I feel ok that I don’t know what the hell any of you are talking about, and I feel no desire to fight my ignorance on this one. > > Is it worth it? Perhaps tomorrow. but I’m not reading 4 pages of rants. > > My theory is correct! Ignorance IS bliss! 😃 Same. But I do know at least enough to say that I think the underlying implication in Byrne’s works being discussed here, that humans get to choose their thoughts, feelings, and emotions, is wrong. > **[Law of attraction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction)** > > Law of attraction may refer to: > [@](#): > > The law of attraction is a pseudoscientific belief or theory, that “like attracts like,” and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results.[1][2][3][4] > > For example, writer Lisa Nichols suggests that if a subject opens an envelope expecting to see a bill, the envelope will “confirm” those thoughts and contain a bill when opened. A person who decided to instead expect a check might find a check instead of a bill.[5] Ok, so I’ll never have to pay for anything again. Seems like a very poor economic model. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/155 "2012-04-12T09:12:23Z")
> [@Jenaroph](#): > > If the universe is neutral and does not give a fuck, and attracting things into your life is as cause-and-effect an activity as turning a car key and having the engine turn on, isn’t it amazingly fortuitous for us that positive thinking and emotions attract positive things, and negative thinking and emotions attract negative things! Aha! It was positive thinking that caused me to never have to perform a synctactic analysis on that sentence in 12th grade! The facts that the class where we performed synctactic analysis was about Spanish rather than English and that the sentence above did not exist yet (or perhaps it protoexisted but had not solidified, due to its carrier idea particle not having collided with **Jenaroph** ’s brain) are completely irrelevant, it was my positive thinking. Absolutely. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/156 "2012-04-12T09:30:45Z")
> [@Deegeea](#): > > Stoid seems to be trying to explain something (law of attraction) which Stoid is being neutral about Stoid’s own belief in or subscription to. And, by doing so, she flat out admits that she believes it is accurate, as, otherwise, there is no reason to not say “I don’t believe in it, but here is what is says.” We don’t have to try to get her to admit anything. She already did so by not admitting the opposite when it would clearly be advantageous for her to do so. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/157 "2012-04-12T12:27:50Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > The law of attraction is a pseudoscientific belief or theory, that “like attracts like,” and that by focusing on positive or negative thoughts, one can bring about positive or negative results.[1][2][3][4] > > > > For example, writer Lisa Nichols suggests that if a subject opens an envelope expecting to see a bill, the envelope will “confirm” those thoughts and contain a bill when opened. A person who decided to instead expect a check might find a check instead of a bill.[5] > > Ok, so I’ll never have to pay for anything again. Seems like a very poor economic model. I’ve said it before – and it may have come across as a joke, but I’m entirely serious: who _ **cares** _ that you expect to see a check instead of a bill? I expect you’ll see a bill instead of a check! I painted your house; you owe me money; I _ **believe** _ a letter to that effect is in the envelope I mailed to you; you can try to wish it away, but I’m going to wish it right back at you! ---
**Author:** ![Mince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Mince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mince)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/158 "2012-04-12T17:41:56Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I’ve said it before – and it may have come across as a joke, but I’m entirely serious: who _ **cares** _ that you expect to see a check instead of a bill? I expect you’ll see a bill instead of a check! I painted your house; you owe me money; I _ **believe** _ a letter to that effect is in the envelope I mailed to you; you can try to wish it away, but I’m going to wish it right back at you! Right, right. That person may expect it’s not a bill, but you expect it _is_ a bill. Where does that leave us, according to this nonsense? What is actually in the envelope? I mean, if this positive thinking force is true and you have conflicting positive thoughts. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/159 "2012-04-12T18:05:35Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > there is no reason to not say “I don’t believe in it, but here is what is says.” Of course there is: to preclude making it about _me_ in any respect. I shared my _knowledge_, which is all I was ever interested in sharing. What you assume or think you know is entirely about _you_, and I’m not interested in discussing _that_, either. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2012, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183/160 "2012-04-12T18:17:26Z")
> [@Mince](#): > > Right, right. That person may expect it’s not a bill, but you expect it _is_ a bill. Where does that leave us, according to this nonsense? What is actually in the envelope? A cat that is in a superposition of dead states and alive states. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-put-the-author-of-the-secret-and-everyone-who-quotes-it/618183.md?page=9)