Blog : Liberals Prove That "The Secret" Is "The Lie"

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3/24/2008 4:29 pm

Liberals Prove That "The Secret" Is "The Lie"

Current Events~ Gabriel Garnica

It’s everywhere. You cannot avoid hearing discussions and reports about it. It has flooded talk shows and news programs everywhere. What is it? Well, in case you did not know, it’s “The Secret” that has been handed down for centuries and practiced by many of the most successful, brilliant and innovative people that ever walked the earth.

Apparently, people like Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein, DaVinci, Galileo, Napoleon, Hugo, Lincoln, Edison and Emerson all knew parts of “The Secret”. What is this transcendental, ancient and supernaturally cosmic, brilliant idea? Well, simply put, it is the notion that if you believe in something hard enough, you will get it.

I know for a fact that this groundbreaking belief has worked for at least one person, and that is the author of the book on the subject, Rhonda Byrne who, thanks to the brilliant marketing campaign of a subject that people like Karin Klein of The LA Times, Jeffrey Ressner of Time and Jerry Adler of Newsweek have described as the latest rehashed snake oil packaged in brilliant marketing designed to bait the most clueless, desperate, vulnerable, impressionable and superficial.

It does not hurt that people like Oprah Winfrey have jumped in to champion the cause and the theme, especially since she already has fawning fans who would jump out a window using a napkin as a parachute if she promised them that it would work.

Hey, I’m as firm a believer in positive thinking as the next guy, and I even have some firm thoughts on destiny and fate best left for another day, but I have some major problems with this “Secret” stuff.

Beware Rehashed Cons
It seems that all you have to do these days is slap the label “ancient secret”, “hidden mystery” or “secret conspiracy” on any pile of trash and mobs of people will run to buy a book or watch a movie on the subject. Tons of experts declared The DaVinci Code, for example, a pile of junk history, junk science and junk theology wrapped in Gnostic and feminist fertilizer, yet witness the congregation of clueless conned crazies clamoring for a copy. Increasingly, hordes of people insist that they do not know enough about anything and, amazingly, they prove themselves correct to a far more radical extreme than they realize.

We are told that this “Secret” has been handed down to us through the ages, but so has chicken, diarrhea and athlete’s foot, and I do not see anyone claiming that those things are mystical and cosmic. We are told that, co-incidentally, many of the most brilliant and successful people such as those noted above knew parts of the secret, but they all had teeth, a nose and wore some form of underwear, and I doubt anyone would argue that those things are a ticket to instant fame and power.

Apparently Byrne hit a very tough patch in her life and then read some positive thinking books that transformed her life. She used her job and contacts to latch onto effective and brilliant marketing efforts and, as they say, the rest is smiling all the way to the bank.

By the way, in ancient times people used to believe that a blind man, for example, was blind because he or someone in his family had sinned. I guess the poor guy could not see because there were not enough positive thinkers in his family. Also, I am sure that if he just concentrated on having perfect vision, he would soon make eagles jealous, right?

Beware Irrational Claims
“The Secret” is based on the so-called Law of Attraction, which claims that we attract the things we believe into our lives by our beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and aspirations. While all of this sounds sweet and likely to induce tearful actualization, I have a question. What if A firmly believes and wants B to marry him but B firmly believes and wants A to leave her alone? Both people are passionately focusing on what they most desire, yet the laws of logic and common sense dictate that both cannot get what they most seek. It is easy to say that, should these two end up together “The Secret” worked for A but, what abo