For the record, I don’t hate. It’s just not in my repertoire of feelings. And if it were, I would never find it fun.
Just sayin’.
Sorry if it wasn’t clear - the “sickened by fellow humans” part is about the people who write, market, and sell those types of books.
All of those people posting reviews are so happy and thrilled = and they all got sold a bill of goods. They are all being taken for a ride, and they’re happy about it! And the people who sell them this crap are getting rich off of them.
It just makes me really unhappy. I don’t blame the people buying it - people are gullible, and people want to find something to make them feel happy and secure. That’s great.
What isn’t great is taking advantage of that urge and selling people something false.
Every one of those happy reviews is just making me feel worse that someone else got taken in by this crap, and will potentially end up blaming themselves if the universe doesn’t comport with their newfound knowledge of the secrets to control it.
If it makes them feel happy, then great - but it’s not going to make their lives any better for them to “feel happy.” It’s false advertising with a really huge potential for negative repercussions, and that makes me really angry with the fraudsters who are peddling it to people.
Benjamin Franklin famously said “God helps those who help themselves”. I believe that if he were alive today and were to meet Rhonda Byrne, the author of The Secret, he would say say something similar. Or he might just say “I’d tap that” because, you know, he is Benjamin fucking Franklin.
Well, it makes me think that maybe someone you know got taken in at some point and now you are hypersensitive to the possibility, because I can’t understand why you’d be so invested otherwise. I’ve been around the general ideas underlying the secret for most of my life, and I haven’t observed that it led to misery and self-lothing in anyone at all. At the most some people ultimately reject it, that’s all.
HA! He WAS the man, that’s for sure.
It is not a new idea at all. Ancient Hindu texts tell of the kalpa-vṛkṣa, the wish-fulfilling tree. The metaphor that the universe is a tree and whatever you wish for, it will bear that as a fruit for you to pick.
About 28 years ago I was dating a New Ager girl who had picked up the belief that everybody by their thoughts brings upon themselves whatever befalls them, good or bad. I had a problem with that and asked “What about the Jews in the Holocaust? Did they bring that on themselves (and therefore ‘deserved’ it)?” She insisted, “Yes, absolutely.” I was so disgusted that I quit dating her and ever since then have felt a visceral aversion to where this doctrine can lead if unchecked by reality.
I think the essential problem with The Secret is not that it’s false, but that it’s true in certain respects. The problem lies in how humans can’t handle how frickin complex reality actually is, and constantly wish to oversimplify it to gain a grasp of it all. So people find some truth in just one aspect of reality, and totally run with it, blowing it up into the be-all and end-all of everything. While ignoring all the respects in which it isn’t true. Way to take something that’s kind of good and by abandoning all perspective distort it into something very wrong.
My own philosophy is based in accepting that the universe is unimaginably complex and can’t be summed up in a pat scheme, so you just have to roll with it and stay on your toes, and above all use your frickin brain.
I opened the thread because I was curious to see what new outrage had inspired the resurrection of an old thread 
Anyway, I consider The Secret to be perma-pitted since co-author Joe Vitale, on Larry King Live, essentially said that 9 year old murder victim Jessica Lunsford was abducted from her home, raped and buried alive because she attracted her own fate by negative thinking.
Huh? Is it 2006 again? 
This isn’t even a zombie!
Yeah, that was my thought, too.
It is a combination of my reflecting on my coworkers (see assholes vs idiots) and the talk about Kinkade. Together these threads manifested this thread.
Ugh.
Having met some dumb bitch that cheerfully informed me that people only got what they wanted (explained to me while driving round a blind bend on a cliff edge without looking, but that’s ok, she didn’t want to crash, and I didn’t think to ask ‘what if I did’), who happily told me, amongst other things, that my Grandfather only got Alzheimers because ‘he wanted the attention’, and people only miscarried because they secretly ‘didn’t want the baby enough’, anyone telling me any of this shit must have really been dreaming of getting my fist imbedded in their face.
Sure, confidence can help massively in some circumstances, but dumb hippies are not important enough to make the universe bend to their will, regardless of what glurge they read.
So who is?
And this is why I find the idea behind The Secret to be so abhorrent. It’s also why I have a problem with dharma. (Greg is okay though.)
I have a friend who believes in The Secret. She cheerily explained all about it the day after she said that she and her husband were going to be miserable after they got married. I do think it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy sort of thing in that if she thinks she and her husband will be miserable, they will be. It’s a shame, because she doesn’t actually deserve that.
It’s unfortunate that this idea gets dumbed down to such a degree that it does appear to be so insensitive. But if you know the larger ideas behind it, you may still not buy it, but it isn’t quite so hideous.
What about the people who turn into self-righteous assholes, like Johanna and Filbert talked about?
A friend of mine (back around 2006, which is why I had the same reaction as some other posters!) had been dealing with bizarre health problems for friggin’ years, seen tons of doctors and no one could figure out what exactly was wrong. Tons of different theories and treatments, some of which would help some symptoms (but not all, or others would crop up) or help for a bit and then stop working. She really could’ve been on that “Mystery Diagnosis” show.
Anyway, I clearly remember the day she was absolutely furious and ranted about the multiple people who had just read that fucking book and “helpfully” explained that basically it was her fault that she was sick because she was being negative about it and obviously wanted to be sick (because if she really didn’t want to be sick, DUH! She wouldn’t be sick anymore!).
Thanks to Johanna and Filbert with their stories of similar assholes, I can continue having the same gut reaction I’ve had since that day (where whenever I hear about “The Secret”, my first reaction is wanting to punch a “Secret asshole” or the author in the face).
Upon further thought, there’s another reason I loathe that bullshit so much. Its primary purpose is really to serve like a child’s security blankie for supposed adults. As long as you follow what this says, everything will be okay. There, there. :: softly strokes hair and tucks you into bed ::
Humans, as a whole, hate the idea that they are at the mercy of outside forces (more accurately, that they cannot completely control what happens to them). It’s a terrifying idea that can leave one feeling very vulnerable. But life’s a bitch, and one day she can randomly decide that you, yes, you are the one she’s gonna take a dump on, no matter how hard you work, how positively you think or how intensely you try to determine the outcome.
It’s crap like The Secret that furthers selfishness and indifference towards other people. Someone lost their job, is in danger of losing their house and on food stamps? “Wow, sucks to be them, but that won’t happen to me, since I’m hard working, responsible and plan ahead!” Fact of the matter is that you can be all of those things (and more!) and still get fucked over. But we like to pretend that’s not true, so we reach for that security blankie.
Mommy, the big meanie is saying things I don’t like! I’m special right? Bad things won’t happen to me because I’m a good person, right?
Did you ever hear about the epilogue to that one?On September 23, 2007, hundreds of people gathered at Reverend Thomas J. Williams park 42.39561°N 71.13051°W, in North Cambridge, Massachusetts whose coordinates were mentioned in a strip, #240.[‡ 4] Munroe appeared, commenting, “Maybe wanting something does make it real,” reversing the conclusion he drew in the last frame of the same strip.
I think it’s more often the case that people hate thinking that they ARE responsible for their lives, and they’d much rather blame things on fate, other people, bad luck, anything but themselves.
So for all the downsides, I think taking responsibility for your life, however you do it, is probably a net good.