Revisiting THE SECRET

August 1, 2011

How much faith do you put into the Law of Attraction?

Shortly after The Secret by Rhonda Byrne hit the best seller lists, I wrote a two-part post about my views on the book. Called Where is the “Secret” in THE SECRET?, I explored the reasons I thought people were attracted to the Law of Attraction.

One woman wrote to say that she was going to print out my review and carry it with her. Then, when people started talking about the fabulous “fact” of the “law of attraction” that had been uncovered, she would pull out the paper and read them my views.

I don’t know whether she really did that, but I do know that since the book was published, there have been a number of articles and books that have moved closer to my perspective, even if they use the phrase “law of attraction.”

The idea that all we need to do to get what we desire is to think it possible is fading as people discover success with that approach is not as simple as it sounds.

If you haven’t read my articles yet, and if you have some questions about how the law of attraction works, perhaps you may want to read the articles:

Where is the “Secret” in THE SECRET? —- Part One
Where is the “Secret” in THE SECRET? —- Part Two

I would love to get your reaction to this topic.

By the way, since I wrote that book review, my second book, Ask Yourself Questions and Change Your Life, was published. In reviewing my book, John Fabian, Ph.D, author of Creative Thinking and Problem Solving, said that “Harder shows that making changes doesn’t require magic, [like the Law of Attraction seems to imply] just clarity, courage, perspective.”

Check out what others are saying about the book and discover a clear path to reaching your goals.

Delightful Descriptions of “Pigs in Heaven”

March 11, 2011

Enjoy a “novel full of miracles,” according to Newsweek, with a delightfully told tale of ordinary people.

Books on My Shelf Feature: PIGS IN HEAVEN

When I wasn’t sure what topic I could write today, I noticed on my table a book I just finished but hadn’t yet reshelved. This gave me an idea; when I am stuck for a topic, I can periodically select a book I enjoy and share what I like about it, hoping you will like it too.

This series of “Books on My Shelf” reviews will introduce you to books for times when you are waiting for the car to be repaired, when you have to wait for your spouse to finish shopping, or when you are procrastinating a chore you dread. There are, of course, other times a book would come in handy.

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I have just finished reading, for the second time, Pigs in Heaven, a bestseller by one of my favorite authors, Barbara Kingsolver. Set in the southwest, it is a sequel to The Bean Trees but is great all by itself.

Not only is the story of love, truth and family engaging, but the characters are so well-drawn that I am sure I would know them if they walked through my door.

However, it is the author’s talent for describing small events that pleases my heart as I read. Kingsolver’s analogies are so spot on that I know exactly what she means.

Here are a few of her observations that are delightful descriptions of ordinary life:

“Her long hair slides behind her shoulders like a curtain drawn open.”

“Jax would like his own baby. . . . He would wear one of those corduroy zipper cocoons with the baby wiggling inside, waiting for metamorphosis.”

“The brass knocker on the front door is huge, as if to suggest you ought to be a fairly good-sized person to bother those within.”

“Above the roofs, the chimney pipes puff like smoking boys hiding out in the woods, giving away their location. “

“Earlene plumps herself down next to the nursing mother. The baby is making a good deal of noise at his task, sounding like the squeaky wheel determined to get all the grease.”

Annawake sits at the edge of the pond at night and “swirls her legs in the water, watching the reflected stars tremble in each other’s company. The water is warmer than the air, and moves against her skin as if it cared for her.”

When several men watch a pot of oil boiling — in preparation for a hog fest to welcome back a member of the Cherokee nation who had gone away for several years — I think almost any reader would recognize the attitude of the men who have assumed their role in getting food on the table.

“Sugar’s husband, Roscoe, in the company of all the other old men, is standing watch over Letty’s big iron washpot, which is settled like a hen on a white nest of coals. . . . Inside the enormous pot, a thousand thumbsized pieces of what was yesterday a live fat hog swirl upward in the cracking oil. . . .

“Roscoe and his friends are studying the heat of the fire and the level of oil in the pot with the attitude men take on occasions like this, feeling the weight of their supervisory powers. Sugar smiles. A woman knows she can walk away from a pot to tend something else and the pot will go on boiling; if she couldn’t, this world would end at once.”

Sugar and Alice are discussing their husband’s lack of conversational skills. Alice says that she left her husband because she just couldn’t stand the quiet.

“Oh, honey, don’t I know. I think Roscoe used up his whole vocabulary when he asked me to marry him. All that’s left now is ‘Where’s it at?’ and ‘When’s dinner?’ “

Alice breathes a little deeper. Sympathizing over the behavior of men is the baking soda of women’s friendships, it seems, the thing that makes them bubble and rise.

Alice and Cash are in the kitchen of a log cabin.

Cash moves through the kitchen the way a lanky squirrel might, if a squirrel could cook: stepping quickly from sink to stove, pausing, sensing the air. By comparison, Alice feels like the lazy squirrel wife, sitting at the table separating hickory nuts from their crushed shells. . . .  For reasons she couldn’t explain, the naked, curled little nuts remind her of babies waiting to get born.

NOTE: Since I love metaphors, in this post I have shared a few of the many analogies that made the story so memorable. I also encourage you to send me analogies from other books that I can then share with my readers.

Where is the “Secret” in THE SECRET? – Part One

May 20, 2007

What is there about the book “The Secret” that convinces people that whatever they have in their life is something they have caused?

PART ONE OF TWO PARTS

It is not a secret that The Secret by Rhonda Byrne is highly successful, on top of the New York Times Best Seller List. After all, it offers us the chance to believe we can “have, be, or do anything” we want by simply thinking it is so.

The “secret” to the book’s success is undoubtedly because it offers a simple solution in a complex world begging for unambiguous answers.

The Secret is also successful because we like conspiracy theories. When someone says, this is the answer to total success in all areas of life—and that it has been kept from the ordinary person for centuries by a small group of the rich and wise—we feel special. The title is great. We want to believe we are buying an “incredible revelation that will be life-transforming.”

No matter how hard I tried, however, I couldn’t find a “secret” in this popular book. Here is what I did find:

• I agree that we all have the ability to decide how we will respond to events in our lives. I’ve known this for decades, and I’m neither rich nor particularly wise. A common example can be observed when people get together. Imagine you’re having a miserable time at a party because someone you don’t like has been invited. Can you change this other person’s behavior? No. But when you choose to accept him just as he is, you discover that he seems to have suddenly become nicer and the whole atmosphere in the room becomes brighter.

 

• Is the ability to shift your attitude a “secret” known only to a few? No.Imagine you have often done poorly in job interviews. Into every new interview you drag a briefcase full of past rejections. What’s likely to happen? You’re going to have a hard time convincing a potential employer that you’d meet his need for an outgoing and positive employee. However, leave the negative briefcase behind when you go into the next interview, enter the room with conviction that you will be a great asset to the company, and feel confident in your ability to show the interviewer your excellent qualities. What is likely to happen? There’s no guarantee, but you will have a good change of getting the job. Is your ability to shift your attitude a “secret”? No.

 

• If you got the job, would it be because you “thought” your success into existence? Maybe, to the extent that if you believe something is possible, you set the stage for achieving it. But it makes no sense to me to believe that if you think you can that you will. Such reasoning ignores the fact that only one person gets to be president of a company or a country, no matter how many people feel positive about it. “Thinking you can” makes it possible to work toward a goal, it doesn’t guarantee success. “Thinking you can’t” will almost surely guarantee failure.

 

• I believe that even when people have had an unfortunate childhood and live in less than optimal conditions, in every person there is love. In every person there is healing power. In every person there are sources for both serenity and vitality. In every person there is potential for beauty, wisdom and success.That does not mean that within every person is the absolute power to have whatever he or she wants. Our bodies, minds, and the physical world have limitations, no matter how much we may wish otherwise.

 

• Do you want something? All you need to do is remember the “Law of Attraction.” This is a theory that claims our minds act like a powerful magnet to draw to us anything we want, a theory presented on an equal footing with the law of gravity. Merely by thinking you can, you will have unlimited happiness, health, wealth, and success.This promise feeds our ego’s narcissistic need to believe we are entitled to whatever we want. Like a giant Genie with a magic lamp, the Universe will respond to our every wish. All we have to do is ask for what we want.What is missing is the suggestion that the world might be a better place if we were to ask the Universe not so much for what we want, but what it requires from us.

 

• I acknowledge that The Secret encourages gratitude, but even here it is coached in a way that implies we can have more if we are grateful for what we already have. Where is the concept of simply being grateful without asking, or expecting, anything in return?

 

• According to The Secret, your thoughts cause all the good things in your life, and also the bad things. From this reasoning comes the conclusion that if you are a victim of floods, terrorist attacks, rapes, factory closings, and cancer, it’s because you somehow created these negative events through the negative vibration of your thoughts.The logic behind this reasoning baffles me. You see, according to meteorology, as I understand it, the small beginnings of a hurricane can be initiated by a butterfly in Africa. Did the butterfly play a role in all of this or was there a person, or perhaps all the citizens of New Orleans, whose thoughts unconsciously caused the butterfly’s wings to flutter?
• If the latter is true and you live in New Orleans—and if you accept the premise of the Law of Attraction, you may feel more than a twinge of guilt for all the damage your bad thoughts created. On the other hand, if you live where the weather is more benign, you have a guilt-free ticket and can take comfort in believing you cause gentle rains and sweet sun. Too bad that all the people in Darfur just happen to have brought their misery upon themselves. If only they would think more positively, they could wish away the Janjaweed who rape and burn and torture. Unfortunately, when you blame the victim, it is easy to abandon the sick, dying, and less fortunate while you focus on gathering to yourself new toys and bigger houses in which to store them.

CONTINUED IN Part Two — where you’ll find four other reasons why you won’t find a secret in The Secret.

Where is the “Secret” in THE SECRET? – Part Two

May 20, 2007

Continuation of review of “The Secret” and our tendency to want to believe someone has knowledge we don’t have.

PART TWO OF TWO PARTS [See Part One]

The following is a continuation of my commentary of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne:

• The author of The Secret doesn’t read the papers or watch TV because it’s too depressing. She wants to keep her mind clear for positive thoughts. Yet it seems to me that trying so hard to limit your vision to only that which is positive prevents one from understanding what it means to be fully human.The essence of who I am today has been forged from both my many fortunate blessings and my trials and tribulations, which have been more than a few. Since I don’t believe that the pain in my friends’ lives has been brought upon them by their thoughts—even when I can see that a change in their attitude could make their lives easier, I don’t abandon them. By going through their struggles with them, I believe that today I am stronger, more empathic, and more compassionate than I would be if I were given my every wish.
• I agree that sometimes things happen that can’t quite be explained. You think about a person and five minutes later they call. Is that just serendipity or did you cause it? How many people do we think of who don’t call? When someone wins the lottery and says it is because they “knew” in their heart that they would, I’ll almost guarantee you that there are others who also “knew” (with the same intensity) that they would win, but didn’t.
• Unfortunately, there is little evidence in The Secret to support the idea for the “Law of Attraction.” Anecdotal evidence is selective.For example, Jack Canfield has produced many excellent “Chicken Soup” books and has made a pile of money in doing so. In The Secret his story is told as though he went from earning $8,000 a year to almost $100,000 with a lot of luck and fortuitous connections.What wasn’t mentioned is the fact that every day he and his partner would do five things to promote their first book, from signing five books and giving them to people for free, to giving talks at churches and sending out free copies to reviewers, or giving five radio interviews. If that isn’t work, I don’t know what is. His “success” comes as much from what he did as from what he believed was possible.Throughout The Secret there are many opinions given and statements made without citations and proof, such as the quote that “there is scientific proof that positive thoughts are 100% more powerful than negative thoughts.” I would love to read empirical evidence to support that statement, but it was nowhere to be found in the book.
• And while I don’t know the source for some of the quotations, I do know that a quotation by Buddha was taken out of context. Then it was used to support the Law of Attraction.
• There are few specific steps offered in The Secret that one can take to achieve the success that the author, and her supporters, claim are possible for everyone. In one of the few practical suggestions, Bryne recommends that, at the end of the day, you review the events you didn’t like and imagine a different ending.I’m not surprised that it would make you feel good if, for example, you had had an accident because you turned left in front of a line of traffic and then visualized yourself not having an accident. But wouldn’t it be much better, in the long run, if you thought about why you were in such a hurry that you jeopardized the lives of other people? A little self-reflection may help you discover how not to let that happen again.

To the extent that The Secret encourages readers to stop feeling sorry for themselves and to set positive goals toward which they want to move, it can be of value, especially for what some have called the “worried well.” However, the book’s simplistic, convoluted, black-and-white reasoning and platitudes without substance are little help to those who, like homeless schizophrenics, make up the “walking wounded.”

The author accurately recognizes that what you believe influences how you experience what happens to you. Then she extrapolates that observation into a simple, magical theory about cause and effect—a theory that we don’t just influence what happens, we control everything through our thoughts.

Do you want to have whatever you want? Believe it will be possible and you will make it true. Do you have something? We wanted it. Do you not have it? We didn’t want it.

Unfortunately, such circular reasoning can led us into a pile of trouble. Consider the present mess in Iraq. Our president and vice president, together with other true believers, had faith that we could win. They sincerely believed in victory. They had absolute faith. Now millions have suffered, and will suffer, from the hubris of operating from a position that belief without supportive facts is good enough.

If you want to get a levelheaded perspective on why we all (from presidents to janitors) justify foolish beliefs, make bad decisions, and commit hurtful acts, be sure to read Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me). In this excellent book, two well-known sociologists, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, cite many studies and observations of social and political events to explain why and how we can accept inconsistent ideas and not see a contradiction between them. The need to justify our opinions to ourselves, and to others, is particularly important when we hold fairly extreme ideas—and when our identity is tied to those positions—even in the face of glaring evidence to the contrary.

As I read The Secret, I kept coming up with questions I wished the author would address. For example, I wondered whether the thoughts of children created abusive parents. (According to some metaphysical concepts, we choose our parents before our births, so in a sense I guess you could say children are responsible for their unhappy childhoods.) Do genes play any role in who we are, or do we have the power to overcome our genetic makeup with our thoughts? Does a person born with spinal bifida have the ability to think himself onto the Harlem Globetrotters?

I end this review with an observation I would love Rhonda Bryne to answer. Imagine there are two high school football teams. Each has been practicing for many hours. Every member on both teams believes deeply in his heart that their team will win. They imagine the trophy on their shelves. Their thoughts are as positive as thoughts can be. They do everything possible to win. One team wins. One loses. Why? Did one not believe strongly enough? Was one not positive enough? Or is it just possible that there is more to what happens to us than wishing something is so?

365 Ways to Save the Earth

February 15, 2007

Discover 365 ways to make the world a better place.

Ordinarily I don’t recommend a book unless I’ve read it, but two days ago I heard an interview on National Public Radio with Terry Gross and Philippe Bourseiller, an award-winning photographer, who has recently written 365 Ways to Save the Earth. After checking it out on Amazon.com, it sounds like a coffee-table book I would like to own.

For more than fifteen years Philippe Bourseiller has:

… recorded the splendors of untamed nature, from the immensities of the ice floe to the fury of the volcano, from the vast open spaces of Patagonia to the aridity of the Sahara. This experience has given him unique insight into both the richness and the fragility of our environment… .

For every day of the year he presents a stunning photograph and a simple, environment-friendly action that enables the reader to participate in the protection of planet Earth. Philippe Bourseiller is a true field photographer whose talents as a climber, caver, and diver enable him to move easily through the extreme environments that he frequents and, as we see in these pages, return with extraordinary images.

A comment by one of the reader-reviewers says that Bourseiller doesn’t follow one of his own suggestions, which is to recycle. But setting that aside, I believe, based on the interview I heard, that in the book you will find many interesting suggestions and projectsfor healing heal the earth and its people that you may not hear about elsewhere.

Here is my gratitude for today.

I give thanks for life.

I give thanks for having work that uses my talents and can make a difference in the world.

I give thanks for the farmer who grows the wheat that becomes part of my breakfast.

For what do you give thanks today?