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The Secret

10:23 / 26.06.07

I recently saw The Secret, and hated it, has anyone else come across it? I thought it was patronising guff that dressed up visualisation as teh Ultimate Power, vaguely implied a golden-chain style history through the ages, never mentioned sigils or magic or the law of fucking sympathy FFS and was presented by an awful lot of people who called themselves 'Philosophers' and 'Visionaries'. I almost turned it off when the quantum physicist was telling us how positivity was the fuel for success, but I wanted to see what they said about the Emerald Tablet. They had a little clip they showed several times of someone taking a rubbing of the tablet and then running away from Pharoah's troops with it, but in fact at no point did they mention it at all.
I ended up shouting at the TV 'It's not a secret! What secret? Prayer? The law of Sympathy? SHUT UP!'

For those who haven't seen it, it's very Californian in that Bleep way, shiny graphics and faux-deep epigrams and people with great teeth. It's basically saying that you attract what you think about and you should visualise what you want (like a car, money, a house) and ignore and not think about what you don't want (DO NOT WANT!) and then the benign universe will give it to you. It ALWAYS WORKS and will make you rich and attract the lover you want etc. etc. and Einstein and Ford and Beethoven used it so you should too.

10:42 / 26.06.07

Here's some flavour text to give you an idea;

"One spring day towards the end of 2004, Rhonda Byrne discovered a secret - the secret laws and principles of the universe. Almost immediately her life was transformed, as she began to put into practice what she had learned. It seemed to Rhonda that almost no-one knew the things that she had discovered, even though the concepts could be found in almost every religion and field of human endeavour throughout history. And in that moment her greatest wish, and mission, was to share this knowledge with the world."

How did she discover the secret? From an old book called The Science of Getting Rich, 1910, by a guy called Wallace Wattles whom they at no point mention even though the 'Secret' is just his stuff repackaged.
Other books by Wallace include A New Christ, Health Through New Thought and Fasting, The Science of Being Great, The Science of Being Well, Making of the Man Who Can and a novel, Hellfire Harrison.

10:44 / 26.06.07

Hi Quantum, there's already a thread on this here.

For me the biggest annoyance with the whole idea is the suggestion that bad stuff happens to people that are negative, who therefore only have themselves to blame. Think Holocaust or slavery.

Another thing that annoyed me was the constant use of people's titles when introducing them. A blatent attempt to give their opinions greater credability.

BTW, Douglas Rushkoff is thinking about writing a book about it, and the subject was recently picked apart by Ken Wilbur on the Integral Naked Podcast.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

10:51 / 26.06.07

Recent doubts about the acceptability of gratuitous violence on Barbelith mean that I'm reluctant to post in detail about the things I'd like to do to the author whilst reading aloud from the filthy tome and occasionally pausing to whisper "you brought this on yourself, you know," at key moments.

11:32 / 26.06.07

Wow. All this time I had the "Science of Getting Rich" on a book shelf when I could have had "the secret laws and principles of the universe" to bend the flow of currency to my will and into my bank account. Gosh, darn it. Ah yes, money...a principle of teh universe

12:19 / 26.06.07

I'd quite like to tackle it from a Temple perspective if that's OK, I think there's room for both threads. The Emerald Tablet thing really pissed me off, and it's interesting to talk about what they omitted.

13:00 / 26.06.07

How about picking apart the dodgy graphics, shoddy research, over-use of titles and such in FT&TV, and here look more at the self-help movement as it relates to spirituality and magic?

13:29 / 26.06.07

Well, if that trailer is anything to by, or "The Science of Getting Rich", then allow me to quote:

"Everything you see on Earth is made from one original substance, out of which all things proceed.
New forms are constantly being made, and older ones are dissolving; but all are shapes assumed by One Thing.
There is no limit to the supply of Formless Stuff, or Orginal Substance. The universe is made out of it; but it was not all used in the making of the universe. The spaces in, through and between the forms of the visible universe are permeated and filled with the Original Substance; with the Formless Stuff; with the raw material of all things. Ten thousand times as much as has been made might still be made, and even then we should not have exhausted the supply of universal raw material."

Oh, it gets better.

"Original Substance is alive with creative energy, and is constantly producing more forms. When the supply of building material is exhausted, more will be produced; when the soil is exhausted so that food stuffs and materials for clothing will no longer grow upon it, it will be renewed or more soil will be made."

Do those jive with the movie, Quantum?

That is pretty amazing magick. Composting? Can we make some ozone, perhaps, with this amazing Original Substance of all? How did the Original Substance™ become so toxic to our environment - or rather, itself?

13:41 / 26.06.07

They're much less explicit, to appeal to atheist self-helpers presumably. They don't mention Original Substance, they compare the universe to a genie that gives you what you wish for (good or bad). They're very cagey about it but basically they're talking about prayer disguised as New Thought, appealing to a higher power to get you your heart's desire.

"Oh Lord, won't you buy me
A Mercedes Benz..."

Bear in mind I'll be posting in FT&TV about the depth of research;
"For eight weeks Rhonda intensively taught everything she had learned to Paul and Drew. In two short months she had studied the great leaders from the past, read hundreds of books, and amassed countless hours of research."
Two months, hey? Hundreds of books? So, several books a day, plus 'countless' hours of research? Chinny reckon.

13:48 / 26.06.07

How about picking apart the dodgy graphics, shoddy research, over-use of titles and such in FT&TV, and here look more at the self-help movement as it relates to spirituality and magic?

This strikes me as unnecessary, and even counter-productive. Going back to the example of "What the [Bleep]": that film was the subject of threads in both the Temple and FT&TV, and received a far more in-depth and erudite treatment in the latter.

At the very least, a thread there is likely to attract a broader cross-section of opinions and angles of approach.

That said, a new, separate Temple thread on the Law of Attraction in general, might prove a useful supplement to discussion of the film, as well as interesting in its own right.

14:30 / 26.06.07

At the very least, a thread there is likely to attract a broader cross-section of opinions and angles of approach.

OTOH here I can talk about the Emerald tablet and people know what I mean, we can have the discussion about how it relates to practical sorcery, and here it will get more traffic. I think it *already* has more traffic.
For example if I say Wattles is just reframing quintessence or odyllic force through a post-victorian lens and the Secret is just reframing that through a west coast american new-age lens, I think the discussion here would be better informed. I think your average occultist has encountered more than a few californian cults and pre-war pseudoscientists, which your average cinema buff might not have bothered with.

14:38 / 26.06.07

So why not use the FT&TV thread to give those "cinema buffs" a quick primer on the magickal theory behind the film, instead of cordoning off the discussion with ENLIGHTENED MAGI ONLY - NO MUGGLES ALLOWED tape?

14:51 / 26.06.07

Apparently, there is a secret to The Secret.

Although most of us have been taught that we exist in a mechanistic universe, current scientific thinking (in quantum physics) validates that we function more like magnets and radio transmitters than like machines. It’s all about “vibration”. You may consider yourself to be a solid mass moving about through time and space, in truth you are a field of energy which is vibrating at many different frequencies and sending out energetic messages on a continual basis.

I am surprised that there are no threads on the "law(s) of attraction".

This Emerald Tablet of Hermes, Quantum?

14:52 / 26.06.07

Jack what the hell are you on about? What tape? Isn't the whole point of different fora so we can talk about things from different perspectives? I'm expecting both threads to link together, personally.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

14:55 / 26.06.07

So why not use the FT&TV thread to give those "cinema buffs" a quick primer on the magickal theory behind the film, instead of cordoning off the discussion with ENLIGHTENED MAGI ONLY - NO MUGGLES ALLOWED tape?

So why dump a shedload of abstruse magical gubbins on people who might well not be terribly interested in it when there's already a magic forum for that sort of thing?

14:56 / 26.06.07

Medulla, yep that tablet. I was expecting them to at least mention the phrase 'As above, so below' and the vast tradition(s) that have been espousing this stuff for thousands of years, but no, it was just window dressing.

14:59 / 26.06.07

From Medulla's link to law of attraction;

Every thought, feeling, word and action you express carries a vibration and that vibration attracts other like vibrations. This is the principle of the Law of Attraction. Just as the Law of Gravity defines how physical matter will be bound to the magnetic field of the earth, the Law of Attraction defines how energy fields of a similar vibration will be drawn (magnetized) together. “Like attracts Like”. The Law of Attraction is running the show, even in our ignorance of it, you are in every moment, attracting to you based on the vibrations that you are radiating.

Maybe belongs in the pseudoscience thread...

15:16 / 26.06.07

You could be right, Quantum. I don't like the way these things are marketed. The Secret is not really a secret now, is it? I don't like how these things are marketed to appeal to people's egos and greed. Isn't that what got us all in the mess we are in already? By thinking that there is this vast supply of everything and we can just take willy-nilly from it? Seems a bit naive.

From the Phoenician translation of the Emerald Tablet:

2) These things below with those above and those with these join forces again so that they produce a single thing the most wonderful of all.

The Pleroma?

*

15:18 / 26.06.07

it's very Californian in that Bleep way, shiny graphics and faux-deep epigrams and people with great teeth.

Hey don't blame us for that sort of... oh. No, never mind, blame away.

Also, who are the OTOH? Do they know the Secret? Is there an initiation fee?

Hi, Film&TV folks, welcome to Temple. Ask questions here about the occult philosophy behind the Secret, if you're so inclined. We're all so irritated at the movie no one will have any energy left to snipe at you for not having teethed on the Emerald Tablet in the crib. Except for me, because I haven't seen it.

Er, the movie, that is. The Emerald Tablet was, of course, printed on the bottom of my cereal bowl as a child.

15:19 / 26.06.07

OTOH: On the Other Hand

Or, are you being facetious, Zippy?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:23 / 26.06.07

It stands for Ordo Templar Orientis (Hove branch).

15:25 / 26.06.07

Nevermind...I answered my own question, Zip. Duh for me.

So, basically the "secret" is that my thought are actually real things? And if I think about something enough, and clearly, it will materialize?

16:16 / 26.06.07

Zippy, I watched it for free off the interweb, the whole thing- have a poke about if you want to get that dream car, the only thing keeping you poor is your fear of wealth, and of course the machinations of the Hove temple and our mutifarious magical minions.

*

16:59 / 26.06.07

Are you all orientalists? Oriental is a bad word you know.

*

16:59 / 26.06.07

Okay, sorry, I should stop and give this thread back to seriousness.

20:08 / 26.06.07

Oh god.

I had this recommended to me a while ago to watch. When I looked over the website, I queried of the person, "No offence, but isn't this a bit cultish?" to which I was told "No, not cultish, more like cheesy American stuff".

I was not convinced, and hence did not watch it.

And now I'm glad.

20:35 / 26.06.07

I had friends recently gleefully reccommend this to me, seriously. I expressed some doubt, and asked for a summary.

Their description - as with the one here - sounds so basic to me that I wonder how folks who have been at all deeply involved in spiritual and/or magical work would consider it a big deal.

--Ember--

08:01 / 27.06.07

So, the people behind this seem to be mostly New Thought dudes (take a look) and they're implying their 'secret' is descended from occult thought although it's more explicit in the website than the film. The wikipedia entry is pretty good in fact, take the description of the annoying opening sequence for example;

The fast-paced, opening sequences of the film portray the alleged history of The Secret — showing:

In a sequence titled, "The Secret was Buried:"
* The text of the Emerald Tablet being copied on to a scroll and given to a priest.
* The Emerald Tablet being buried near the Pyramids of Giza.[14]
Followed by a sequence titled, "The Secret was Coveted:"
* A Knight Templar giving the scroll to a Catholic priest.
* Scroll with text of the Emerald Tablet being analyzed by alchemist St. Germain.[18]
* A drawing of the Azoth of the Philosophers in the alchemist' shop.[16]
Followed by a sequence titled, "The Secret was Suppressed:"
* A series of brief scenes at a meeting in a contemporary board room.

It really is like a rubbish Da Vinci code compressed into thirty seconds before the self-help new thought stuff starts.

The whole thing smells of pyramid selling to me, the people selling you the Secret to getting rich are getting rich by selling it to you. Sales are worth at least $5,000,000 so far, the film reached number one on the Amazon DVD chart in March 2007, a book version, also called The Secret reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list, etc.

Wait! So it does work even though it's "pernicious drivel", I need to start writing my self help book!

08:43 / 27.06.07

Its not really a secret anymore if everyone knows about it.

09:56 / 27.06.07

I've always thought The Secret was repackaging public domain material and marketing it as something BRAND NEW! in order to make a good, quick buck. Seemed to have worked here.

10:07 / 27.06.07

Ironically, the very reason that these things were considered "secret" is because people start talking about this simple idea, and then try to use it for utter nonsense.

Check out this guy trying to manifest mail by posting his address and begging the community to send him something!

Oh, he's got teh maghiks.

10:42 / 27.06.07

Not a secret? But the credits said "The Secret was Suppressed:" and showed a series of brief scenes at a meeting in a contemporary board room!

11:45 / 27.06.07

Hey everyone, send me a million dollars and a real doll!

123 Iamanidiot St.
Meville, Centre of the Universe
T3H M4J

I hope Oprah seez this!

Gah.

I should have said earlier that "idiocy" is one of the reasons for secrecy, that I was taught, anyway. It is dangerous stuff, considering all the stuff we already have manifested. We need to start wishing for different stuff.