What bothers me most is thinking about the email I just got from a relative with cancer who's all upbeat about the fact that he might be able to eat real food again soon, and the fact that The Secret people would say he drew the cancer to him with negative thinking. Argh.

I'm struggling to understand how someone could believe that.

There was this annoying pseudo-hippy I knew who believed stuff like that. I'd come up with all sorts of extreme examples, like, "What about a two-year-old who has terminal cancer?" and he'd say, "On some level, that kid wanted to get cancer."

I guess I'll just chalk it up to "Many people are stupid."

The Secret wouldn't bother me for the first principle-- even though it's effectiveness is probably marginal, there's no harm in thinking positively-- it's the corollary that's at best eyebrow-raising and at worst evil. The Secret does promote the idea that people deserve the things that happen to them, that people "thought" their way into bad things happening (like genocide, say), and you should avoid such people-- I'm not sure why, I guess their bad thoughts will rub off on you? It shows a shocking lack of perspective and morally suspect level of empathy to publish that and promote it like Oprah does.

The thing about Mormons (and I lived with one) that drives me craxy is the white dress shirts! Shortsleeved white dress shirts, especially.

They blend in better than the Nation of Islam proselytisers. I can't see a black man in the white shirt and black bowtie without wondering if it's a religious thing. Some wait staff become quite confusing.

The Secret wouldn't bother me for the first principle-- even though it's effectiveness is probably marginal, there's no harm in thinking positively-- it's the corollary that's at best eyebrow-raising and at worst evil.

Yeah, exactly. I kind of feel bad for people who think that thinking lovely thoughts is literally all they need to do, but it's fairly harmless.

"What about a two-year-old who has terminal cancer?" and he'd say, "On some level, that kid wanted to get cancer."

Thinking positive thoughts is a good thing in my book, it is the notion of attracting bad stuff that bothers me. I had a "therapist" insist something in me attracted and needed my husband to become terminally ill. Really, not. I'm certain that late DH didn't want to get sick and die either.

But generally speaking keeping a positive outlook and chasing away negative thoughts is a not so secret good plan.

I know I've hurt my neighbors' feelings talking about it. But we also had a religion argument in which I tried to go all Occam's Razor and the response was, "if there wasn't a god, we would already know everything." I wasn't trying to talk them out of religion, they were trying to talk me out of atheism. I said, "wait, if there wasn't a god, we'd know everything...why?"

"Because we'd know."

Then I tried to explain begging the question, which didn't go over well.

At that point, my head exploded and I understood how people end up mumbling to themselves while wheeling around a grocery cart full of cardboard and bits of string.

So God is like The Man, keeping us down and not letting us be omniscient? That's not very nice.

So God is like The Man, keeping us down and not letting us be omniscient? That's not very nice.

That fucker.

Back when I was a kid, I thought one of the coolest things about getting into heaven is that then you'd know everything. Even the most trivial detail of your life you'd suddenly know all about. And everything would just make sense. Hmm... I wonder what that says about me....

There's no secret to The Secret. The book and movie simply state that your thoughts control the universe.

Personally, I'm glad my thoughts don't control the universe. If they did, I'd have a lot of embarrassing explaining to do, the human population would die like unto mayflies, and I'd keep accidentally destroying everything before I got my coffee in the morning.

I just keep wondering why so many people are susceptible to things like The Secret, or The Rules, or any sort of self-helpery that demands Captain Logic and First Mate Reason leave the building.

It's like suspension of disbelief 4EVAH.