"The Secret": sequel to "What the bleep!.."?

[Bone_Vulture]

Seriously, what the hell? It just gets crazier as it progresses.

First 20 minutes available at Google Video. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1279084763732767570&q=law+of+attractions)

Grade A woo entertainment for masochists.

[Upchurch]

First two minutes made me wonder if was a sequal to The Di Vinci Code.

[Apathia]

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=73527

[Mark A. Siefert]

You know, what is called for is a movie, that refutes, claim by bloody claim, the nonsense this movie foists. Of course, that requires money which is something we don't usually have.

What does J. K. Knight/Rathama have that we rational people don't?

Oh yeah, scores of mindless followers willing to fill our coffers to fund "bleep" like "What The Bleep..."

[Kage]

My aunt gave me this dvd for christmas. I really wish my relatives didn't look at gift giving holidays as opportunities to preach woo to me.

I would be interested in doing a movie--however I think that one example is really all that is needed:

"What about people in africa? Do they want AIDS?"

Also:

"Muslims seem pretty intent on destroying Israel. How does the law of attraction apply to the mideast conflict? Why hasn't muslim will destroyed Israel yet?"

[Bone_Vulture]

First two minutes made me wonder if was a sequal to The Di Vinci Code.

I was waiting for Ray Comfort to pop up, going "the ans'er my friend, is Jeysus!"

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=73527

Yeah, I figured this had been posted before. Couldn't find anything with the search function quickly, though. :)

"Muslims seem pretty intent on destroying Israel. How does the law of attraction apply to the mideast conflict? Why hasn't muslim will destroyed Israel yet?"

I was thinking of conflicting wishes when the film displayed alternatives, like the guy who has his bike stolen. What if there's a bike thief who's projecting strong positive thoughts in the area, like "today I'm going to steal the best bike ever!"? Who'll win over the woo powers?

[The Mad Hatter]

"What about people in africa? Do they want AIDS?"

Oh, there's always away around it. In the beginning of that 20 minute segment, when they're talking about traffic jams, they say something like, "The Law of Attraction doesn't know if you want something or not, it just knows if you're thinking about it." So I guess since the Africans are thinking about AIDS, they're getting it as a result.

Naturally, the solution must be to stop thinking about AIDS completely!

"Muslims seem pretty intent on destroying Israel. How does the law of attraction apply to the mideast conflict? Why hasn't muslim will destroyed Israel yet?"
;) Because the Israelis focus their thoughts on stopping the Muslims

[Garrette]

Oh, there's always away around it. In the beginning of that 20 minute segment, when they're talking about traffic jams, they say something like, "The Law of Attraction doesn't know if you want something or not, it just knows if you're thinking about it." So I guess since the Africans are thinking about AIDS, they're getting it as a result.

Naturally, the solution must be to stop thinking about AIDS completely!


;) Because the Israelis focus their thoughts on stopping the MuslimsI hope they hung the SOB who thought it up first out of whole cloth. What kind of sick imagination did HE have?

[Apathia]

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/journal.php?journal_category=14

Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Here Abraham, the so-called channeled entity of "The Secret" (not to exclude Ramtha) repeats his teaching that smoking can only give you cancer if you believe that it can.

Here is where "The Secret" ceases to be a harmless motivational platitude and becomes a dangerous scam.

[bonnie]

When I saw The Secret, I couldn't get Billy Mumy's character out of my mind, from the 1961 movie, It's a Good Life....

A young boy with the power to read minds and alter reality terrorizes a small town, after making it disappear from the world (or making the rest of the world disappear). He hates singing, and anyone who thinks bad thoughts. At his birthday party, Dan Hollis receives a Perry Como record. Unable to play it in front of Anthony, he begins to drink heavily. Suddenly he bursts into song. Hollis pleads with the other adults to kill Anthony while he's distracted. Afraid, none of them move to help, and Anthony turns Dan into a giant jack-in-the-box, and sends him to the cornfield. Anthony then makes it snow outside, which will kill off half of their crops. His father, half-hysterically, tells him it's good that he made it snow.

[Arg9]

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/journal.php?journal_category=14

Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Here Abraham, the so-called channeled entity of "The Secret" (not to exclude Ramtha) repeats his teaching that smoking can only give you cancer if you believe that it can.

Here is where "The Secret" ceases to be a harmless motivational platitude and becomes a dangerous scam.

Oh, man. Yeah, that's really bad. I can't believe that. So I guess smoking 4 packs a day won't do harm- as long as you don't resist it.

Thaaaat's great. And we get labeled as the negative ones for logically trying to protect people.

[Alan Heap]

great quote at around 13:30: "no one even knows what electricity is"

[sophia8]

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/journal.php?journal_category=14

Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Here Abraham, the so-called channeled entity of "The Secret" (not to exclude Ramtha) repeats his teaching that smoking can only give you cancer if you believe that it can.
George Ohsawa, the guy who developed the macrobiotic diet, was a chain-smoker for most of his life - up to eighty a day. He apparently believed that he had no need to give up the smokes, as the macrobiotic diet and lifestyle would be enough to keep him healthy. He died of lung cancer.

He obviously didn't believe hard enough.

[Cuddles]

When I saw The Secret, I couldn't get Billy Mumy's character out of my mind, from the 1961 movie, It's a Good Life....

A young boy with the power to read minds and alter reality terrorizes a small town, after making it disappear from the world (or making the rest of the world disappear). He hates singing, and anyone who thinks bad thoughts. At his birthday party, Dan Hollis receives a Perry Como record. Unable to play it in front of Anthony, he begins to drink heavily. Suddenly he bursts into song. Hollis pleads with the other adults to kill Anthony while he's distracted. Afraid, none of them move to help, and Anthony turns Dan into a giant jack-in-the-box, and sends him to the cornfield. Anthony then makes it snow outside, which will kill off half of their crops. His father, half-hysterically, tells him it's good that he made it snow.

Suddenly that Simpsons halloween special makes a lot more sense.

[I'll_buy_that]

www.stopoprahwinfrey.com (http://www.stopoprahwinfrey.com) how about it Robert?

[I'll_buy_that]

Wait,

We landed on the moon? who are these conspirators? :)

[c4ts]

"We can build spaceships with no trouble at all."

They make it sound so easy, like the Apollo program was a no-brainer. If it's no trouble, what are all these dead astronauts for?

[Bubblefish]

You know, what is called for is a movie, that refutes, claim by bloody claim, the nonsense this movie foists. Of course, that requires money which is something we don't usually have.

What does J. K. Knight/Rathama have that we rational people don't?

Oh yeah, scores of mindless followers willing to fill our coffers to fund "bleep" like "What The Bleep..."


Nah, you guys got a movement too, with I'm sure hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers. C'mon, james randi runs on donations too you know! And HBO/Showtime funds Bullsh*t.

so no victims, please. Everyone has a right to create and fund media.

[Apathia]

Nah, you guys got a movement too, with I'm sure hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of followers. C'mon, james randi runs on donations too you know! And HBO/Showtime funds Bullsh*t.

so no victims, please. Everyone has a right to create and fund media.

That reminds me. One of the other convenient ideas of New Age carpetbagging is that "There are no real victims."

And yes, the best of scam marketing plays and preys on common garden variety greed. In a sense the marks do attract the cons like flies.

Akso it's true that if you focus your full attention on getting money and are welling to do anything you need to to get it, you will suceed at obtaining it.

[Whiplash]

When I saw The Secret, I couldn't get Billy Mumy's character out of my mind, from the 1961 movie, It's a Good Life....

A young boy with the power to read minds and alter reality terrorizes a small town, after making it disappear from the world (or making the rest of the world disappear). He hates singing, and anyone who thinks bad thoughts. At his birthday party, Dan Hollis receives a Perry Como record. Unable to play it in front of Anthony, he begins to drink heavily. Suddenly he bursts into song. Hollis pleads with the other adults to kill Anthony while he's distracted. Afraid, none of them move to help, and Anthony turns Dan into a giant jack-in-the-box, and sends him to the cornfield. Anthony then makes it snow outside, which will kill off half of their crops. His father, half-hysterically, tells him it's good that he made it snow.

Wasn't this a Twilight Zone episode? That's exactly how one goes that I remembered, but it wasn't a seperate movie of it's own that I remember.

[Mr. Scott]

Wasn't this a Twilight Zone episode? That's exactly how one goes that I remembered, but it wasn't a seperate movie of it's own that I remember.

It's a Good Life (http://imdb.com/title/tt0734580/) was apparently the premier eposode of The Twilight Zone (http://imdb.com/title/tt0052520/). It was remade as part of the anthologyTwilight Zone: The Movie (http://imdb.com/title/tt0086491/). Both are on DVD.

Summary excerpt from The Internet Movie Database (http://imdb.com/):

We are introduced to a little town; a town with no cars, no machines and it's in a world with no cities or other settlements. We are told that this town is the victim of a monster who controls it with his mind - and just wait until you see who the monster is! The best episodes of The Twilight Zone are the ones that combine mystery with intrigue and ingenuity; thus making this one of the best episodes. It's a Good Life is also very humorous, and when the characters say everything is 'good', it's hard not to at least crack a smile.


I think followers of The Secret have an impared ability to distinguish fact from fiction. Compare The Law of Attraction to Star Wars' The Force.

[Whiplash]

It's A Good Life was apparently the premier eposode of The Twilight Zone. It was remade as part of the anthology Twilight Zone:The Movie. Both are on DVD.
Ahh, that is very interesting. I did not know this. Thank you!

[immaterial]

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/journal.php?journal_category=14

Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Here Abraham, the so-called channeled entity of "The Secret" (not to exclude Ramtha) repeats his teaching that smoking can only give you cancer if you believe that it can.

Here is where "The Secret" ceases to be a harmless motivational platitude and becomes a dangerous scam.

Well it's a fact that some people chain smoke their whole life and never get lung (or any other type of) cancer. While others who never have smoked do.

Which means that because a person who smokes gets lung cancer, it's not necessarily because he smokes. He might have got it anyway.

And if everyone is told that smoking causes cancer, and they believe it, it is obvious that smokers statistically will have a higher rate of lung cancer than non-smokers, if these principles here are true.

So the statistics that seem to indicate that smokers have a higher rate of lung cancers actually supports both the claim that smoking causes cancer, as well as the claim that it's your belief that smoking causes cancer that causes it.

This is the tricky thing with this belief thing - there is always an element of belief involved in whatever you do, and if beliefs can do what is claimed here, it's very difficult to do objektive and neutral research.

Also check out the "nocebo effect", which is quite well documented. It's quite interesting what beliefs actually can do to your body:

"Japanese researchers tested 57 high school boys for their sensitivity to allergens. The boys filled out questionnaires about past experiences with plants, including lacquer trees, which can cause itchy rashes much as poison oak and poison ivy do. Boys who reported having severe reactions to the poisonous trees were blindfolded. Researchers brushed one arm with leaves from a lacquer tree but told the boys they were chestnut tree leaves. The scientists stroked the other arm with chestnut tree leaves but said the foliage came from a lacquer tree. Within minutes the arm the boys believed to have been exposed to the poisonous tree began to react, turning red and developing a bumpy, itchy rash. In most cases the arm that had contact with the actual poison did not react."

http://www.skepdic.com/nocebo.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A2709-2002Apr29&notFound=true

[Apathia]

Well it's a fact that some people chain smoke their whole life and never get lung (or any other type of) cancer. While others who never have smoked do.

Which means that because a person who smokes gets lung cancer, it's not necessarily because he smokes. He might have got it anyway.

And if everyone is told that smoking causes cancer, and they believe it, it is obvious that smokers statistically will have a higher rate of lung cancer than non-smokers, if these principles here are true.

So the statistics that seem to indicate that smokers have a higher rate of lung cancers actually supports both the claim that smoking causes cancer, as well as the claim that it's your belief that smoking causes cancer that causes it.

This is the tricky thing with this belief thing - there is always an element of belief involved in whatever you do, and if beliefs can do what is claimed here, it's very difficult to do objektive and neutral research.

Also check out the "nocebo effect", which is quite well documented. It's quite interesting what beliefs actually can do to your body:

"Japanese researchers tested 57 high school boys for their sensitivity to allergens. The boys filled out questionnaires about past experiences with plants, including lacquer trees, which can cause itchy rashes much as poison oak and poison ivy do. Boys who reported having severe reactions to the poisonous trees were blindfolded. Researchers brushed one arm with leaves from a lacquer tree but told the boys they were chestnut tree leaves. The scientists stroked the other arm with chestnut tree leaves but said the foliage came from a lacquer tree. Within minutes the arm the boys believed to have been exposed to the poisonous tree began to react, turning red and developing a bumpy, itchy rash. In most cases the arm that had contact with the actual poison did not react."

http://www.skepdic.com/nocebo.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A2709-2002Apr29&notFound=true

Are you our new spokesperson for the Tobacco Industry, Abraham-Hicks, or both? That some people who have physical circumtances that mitigate the effects of smoking on the lungs in no way supports the notion that cancer is caused by belief.

Anyway, thanks for the alternative though faulty position. It will liven up the thread.

[Apathia]

The "Nocebo" effect is pretty interesting, but it doesn't boost the Placebo effect into someting you can bet on to cure or prevent illness.

My grandmother was an extreme hypocondriac (Munchausen's Syndrome) who could manifest partial symptomologies of illnesses.
She was alwys telling us she was at death's door, yet lived to age 97.

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Seriously, what the hell? It just gets crazier as it progresses.

First 20 minutes available at Google Video. (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1279084763732767570&q=law+of+attractions)

Grade A woo entertainment for masochists.

Typical newage male cow defecation.

I noticed that Winston Churchill showed up in a backround picture. Churchill, who suffered for his entire life from great bouts of depression. He knew and applied the SECRET?

If any of what is claimed is true. how come nobody remembers Émile Coué?

Coué published Self-mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion in English in1920 and it's theme ("All is possible with that which believes ") was taken up by hundreds of thousands in the UK, the US and the rest of the English speaking world. They repeated the mantra, "In every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" as frequently as they could get it out of their mouths.

And we all know Coué today is respected more than Jesus Christ because it worked for everyone. Err, what? Oh, sorry, wrong Universe.

'Tis to cry.

[Axiom_Blade]

If any of what is claimed is true. how come nobody remembers Émile Coué?

Coué published Self-mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion in English in1920 and it's theme ("All is possible with that which believes ") was taken up by hundreds of thousands in the UK, the US and the rest of the English speaking world. They repeated the mantra, "In every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" as frequently as they could get it out of their mouths.

And we all know Coué today is respected more than Jesus Christ because it worked for everyone. Err, what? Oh, sorry, wrong Universe.

'Tis to cry.

Mmm...excellent point!
It's sad, I used to be one of these guys. One day, I realized you can't just THINK yourself out of a hole...you have to, y'know, do stuff. Also, if you believe that thinking about cancer will actually give you cancer, then you can go crazy pretty quickly.

[Ladewig]

IYeah, I figured this had been posted before. Couldn't find anything with the search function quickly, though. :)

And a different thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=74995) in the Latest Commentary Forum.

[parrotslave]

The Secret is now a pyramid scheme.

theofficialsecretseminar.com

(It won't let me post links yet.)

[Apathia]

http://theofficialsecretseminar.com/

No surprise.
Many fools and their money will soon be parted, and there will be no power of attraction strong enough to reunite them.

[Axiom_Blade]

http://theofficialsecretseminar.com/

No surprise.
Many fools and their money will soon be parted, and there will be no power of attraction strong enough to reunite them.

But I thought all you had to do is visualize the money, sit back, and it would roll in?
Now they want me to DO STUFF? Sheesh!

[Apathia]

But I thought all you had to do is visualize the money, sit back, and it would roll in?
Now they want me to DO STUFF? Sheesh!

Not do stuff, buy stuff!
It's not just visualize, You have to have the right attitude and intent. Only these mavens can tell you how to make the magic work. It takes pyramid power.

[Prospero]

I mod at a private torrent community of about 15k members and someone posted this a few days ago.

Without bothering to watch it, I assumed it was the typical self-help malarchy that basically taught how to take advantage of self-fulfilling prophecies. Kinda lame, but if that's what floats people's boats, more power to them. The guy that posted it (I later learned) is apparently in the business of promoting the video and said I was being incredibly close-minded for judging without having seen it first. So, being the open-minded and ridiculously skeptical person that I am, I downloaded the movie.

And I quote:

I watched it and you're right. It was much better when I thought it was just self-help video teaching how to take advantage of self-fulfulling prophecies. Instead, it's the biggest load of psychospiritual bullcrap I've ever seen. The video tries to twist historical figures' words to parrot the producer's ideas and some of those interviewed don't share the terminology of the narrator, which makes me wonder if their interviews were shown out of context as well.

I'll summarize the movie for those that (wisely) don't want to watch it:

Step 1: Pick something you want.
Step 2: Think about it really hard.
Step 3: Magic.
Step 4: You get it.

I probably shouldn't mention that Christianity offers the same magical power where you pray to a giant invisible man in the sky and he'll magically give you what you want, but it's pretty much the same thing.

This is no different than any other religion, except instead of offering salvation, it appeals directly to greed and self-indulgence. There's no pretence about helping your fellow man. It's all about you, you, you. Why exactly is this "secret" worthy of anything but scorn? I'm an atheist and generally opposed to organized religion, but in this case, I'll take Christianity hands down.

Suffice to say, I single-handedly killed all future discussion. :)