Manifesting Using The Secret or Being Present
by AlexDSome time a few months back I got the chance to watch The Secret, a 90-minute feature presentation that claims to teach the secret to manifesting everything – the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, etc. This film lines up a set of interviews with people who explain the law of attraction and how it can be used to improve their lives. This post will discuss how The Secret sometimes contradicts the idea of being still in the present moment just accepting things rather than working to alter them.
One of the main points of the law of attraction has often been called - what I resist, persists. This is true in our world, since so often we talk about the negatives in an attempting to reject them - disease, suffering, crime - but our attempts to reject them just make them into larger problems. However, whether resistance or positive regard, it does not matter. If our intention is focused at something then that thing becomes attracted to us whether our attention was positive or negative.
Those who continue to focus on cancer, and hunger, and disease, are feeding those problems. How does someone get better? Focusing on the problem - or on the solution? The problem with the law of attraction as being presented as something all-positive lies in the failure to acknowledge our attachment to the past as a measuring tool for the present.
The major supposition to look at in The Secret is that Mind over Matter is considered the most important function in the role of The Secret. Can the world – as The Secret suggests – focus on health, love and positives, and in doing so create a perfect existence? Is mental thought the one limitation? I believe our thinking can change our existence in profound ways, but I do not think thought and the Mind are the single components we should be taking into account.
There is something else that participates in the experience of existence that is not based on thought. People can do profound things with the law of attraction to change thinking patterns but The Secret cannot provide the pristine experience of happiness and freedom - that is in the realm of spirit, not of mind.
Pointing outward with our finger and stating what it is we want is another Materialistic notion and even though we might have the power to attract our desires, not knowing the reason we have those desires does not make us much more self-aware. The alternative to manifestation is being still in the present moment to discover how things are rather than shaping them how we want them to be.
I do not have a conclusion about whether self-consciousness is incompatible with The Secret, whether both have an important role in our set of tools for living, or whether consciousness is not required at all and is subject to the intention of the mind. I would like to hear what You think however and what your personal experience has been. Please register and post your comments below.
RonaldoMoon said
September 20, 2008 @ 2:45 pm
I've been avoiding "the Secret" for sometime now as I've always had a sneaking suspicion that it is not something that I would care for. I found your blog via stumbleupon and this post has pretty much confirmed what I was feeling.I actually read this post a few hours ago and since then I've been doing more research on where these ideas come from since it reminded me very much of Theosophy. I'm all for using ancient knowledge to help people and make the world a better place, but that is not what these people are really about at all. But you already knew that, didn't you?
Well from what I've read so far it's starting to look like the reason that it reminds me of Theosophy is because it is Theosophy, just under a different name. I'm going to do more research and see if I can't make a solid connection between 'the Secret' and the Theosophical Society, though as that would essentially open a whole new can of worms.
Either way, though, the Secret comes off like a load of garbage. Children who are starving in third world countries are starving because of their negative thoughts? It amazes me that anyone could actually believe that.
Also - Churchill would be "anti-Secret". The quote from him (in the Secret) was actually mocking the esoteric "hidden masters". Churchill was very aware everything that was going on his time was being controlled behind the scenes by these people. He spoke about it about it quite openly. 'The Secret' even seems to acknowledge this (the existence of a "power elite"…not Churchill's knowledge of this elite) from what I've gathered….but according to Byrne…those people just have power because they know 'the Secret'! Wow. Never mind the genocide…all just part of the plan right?? ….
The author also seems to hope that the reader will not actually know any history concerning physics. Newton and Einstein were both wrong about some things, yet she would have you believe that they were perfect due to their knowledge of "the Secret". Why then did Einstein refuse to acknowledge quantum physics? The same quantum physics that Byrne says is somehow related to "the Secret"….hmm…
Well…I could keep going on and on…but it wouldn't change a thing, so I might as well bring it to a close. Good blog, by the way. I'll be coming back.
RonaldoMoon said
September 20, 2008 @ 2:46 pm
I do believe in the power of positive thinking, though! I just don't believe that people get sick because they don't think properly. Or that you can just think about having money…and it will come to you. Seems a little silly…and totally selfish.AlexD said
September 20, 2008 @ 4:01 pm
Thanks for coming to this blog and posting a comment RonaldoMoon, I think we share a similar point of view on The Secret.