# The Secret, or is it?



## Pollyanna 3098 (Dec 12, 2006)

Has anyone seen or read the book tittled "The secret" ?
I had a look at it yesterday and I am not sure if I buy into the whole "If you think it, it will happen theory"
I am certainly an advocate for positive thinking, but how far can you take it?
Personally think their theory falls over in many ways, if 50% of the worlds population visualised peace etc etc world wide, no war or violence anywhere and the remaining 50% visualized war and violence, what group is going to see their visualizations become reality?

3098


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## monnolith (Feb 21, 2007)

I WAS WAITING FOR THIS TOPIC TO SHOW UP

I saw the 2 Oprah episodes (back when I had a GF...) where she interviewed the makers of "The Secret" - and it made sense _to a degree_. I think that a lot of the time, people sabotage themselves (myself included) in what they think they deserve. That's why an abuse victim will have a string of abusive relationships, or a person will continually be passed over for a workplace promotion.

The Secret (TS) does not, however, go anywhere near people who have emotional disorders. What TS does, is promotes the whole "success through positive thinking" mantra - which works... up to a point. It's like if an unhappy housewife who always wanted to go back to school, but never did because she had to take care of the kids/house/chores, if she finally said "that's it, it's time for me to shine!" and then goes back to school. Voilla... that's The Secret. Hardly a secret - more like an inspirational kick in the pants.

I do think that TS can help DPers, tho. Because how many of us have been consumed with either negative thoughts or depressive episodes where we felt we were "on the brink"? An introspective look inside with a "c'mon, all you have to do is make it through today" attitude may help. Of course, _it will not cure DP_, but it may make things a little more bareable. I've done it myself - although not nearly enough - it's tough to see the positive side of things sometimes.

In all, I feel TS works. BUT, and there's always a "but", I also think that it would be best practised with the tandem effort of therapy, meds, or the expectation that it will not magically "make things better", only "better than they now are".


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## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

Interesting.

I've always been extremely wary of people promoting 'miracle' cures or whatever. They whiff of something nasty to me. As for positive thinking, there is no doubt that there is evidence that it can have a 'positive' effect on some people. But no more than placebo. If you think about it, that's all homeopathy is. They give you a placebo (absolutely no active molecules) and a few people get better, usually because they really believe in the 'drug'. Ditto with positive thinking. Unfortunately, things like prayer, crystal healing, trantric-whatever, have the adverse effect. I think it's something to do with performance related anxiety.


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

I'll definately bite on this one 

What you are talking about is the idea of creating your own reality. Other names for it include "Magick" (with a K, as in MystiKal ) and intent (as in Shamanism).

I can go into the "metaphysics" (more like spirituality) side of how it works if you want, but for now I'll just give a basic run down.

Yes, the power of positive thinking and belief DOES work. Right now we are ALL creating our own realities as we go. Most of us do it subconsciously. We do it on all scales - intrapersonal, personal, interpersonal and on social and global levels.

But it is possible to take conscious control of this process and create a reality that YOU want and that YOU enjoy.

*If you push intent or energy out into the world, you will create whatever it is you intend.*

However, there are a few catches, which other people have mentioned:

1. First of all, you have to actually believe it. If you are "just giving it a go" yet, like Martin, you have strong beliefs that it WON'T work, then the more powerful intent will prevail. Because? You guessed it - you create your own reality. The reality that you will create is one in which intent does not work.

2. It not only works consciously but also SUB-consciously. What does that mean? Similarly to point 1 - the stronger intent will prevail and conflicting intents will conflict. For example, you may harbour a subconscious belief that you do not deserve to be rich. Using this positive thinking process, you will project the intent to become rich. It may work for a while because your positive intent will be stronger than the negative. But if you stop projecting the positive intent, thinking "The ball will just keep rolling now", then your negative intent will take over and send you crashing back down to poverty, or whatever state you fundamentally believe you deserve.

This is similar to the abused woman syndrome. Deep down she believes she deserves to be in abusive relationships and so on. By thinking positively she may see immediate improvement, but if she doesn't keep projecting that intent then she will fall back into old habits.

This will also leave a bitter taste in your mouth and you will probably end up being well against said positive thinking.

There is a way around this however! That is, you must ALSO remove your negative intents and beliefs, so that they do not counteract your positive intent. This can be done through a variety of self-healing methods, counselling and so forth.

3. Your ego is naturally reluctant to give up its control over your life and to begin believing in "the supernatural". If you try to start too large, your ego will automatically shut you down, as if to say "Don't be stupid, that will never work". In that case, you are dead in the water and your intent cannot work.

For this reason, you have to start very small and with things that have no impact whatsoever on your life. For example the intent "I will see a black cat today" is a good place to start. Whether or not you see a black cat has no bearing on your life whatsoever and so your ego will not shut it out as a possibility.

You set the intent and then when you see a result, you MUST pour positive energy into that result. "That's awesome! My intent worked! I am incredible!". Then you can gradually get bigger and bigger, all the time reassuring your ego that its safe and that no harm will come to you by using these techniques.

4. DOUBT! This is a big one and something I am constantly struggling with myself. Just like Martin, if you doubt what you are seeing then you can shut it down with rationality and reason. If you DO see a black cat that day, but then just say "Oh, it must just be a coincidence", then you have shut down your intent.

Everyone will always doubt themselves. That is healthy. The key is to press on in spite of doubt and see just how far you can take it. Today it might just be seeing a black cat in the street, but in the future it may be making real changes in your life. When it gets to that stage it doesn't really matter if its real or not, the fact is you are making positive changes in your life.


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

Pollyanna 3098 said:


> Personally think their theory falls over in many ways, if 50% of the worlds population visualised peace etc etc world wide, no war or violence anywhere and the remaining 50% visualized war and violence, what group is going to see their visualizations become reality?


Pollyanna, you are thinking too linearly and too black and white. There are currently ~6 billion unique realities in this world (one for each person, including you). Some things we create collectively and all agree upon. Other things we create just for ourselves and they can exist even if other people's realities say they can't.

The only reality you can change is your own. But when you change your reality, you change your world. That is because your energy and reality will attract other people's energy and realities that support your own. As your beliefs and ideas change, so will your world. Again I can explain how this works further if you want, but I'll leave it for now.

The answer to your question is that both groups will see their realities come true. That is assuming they are successful in projecting their reality and nothing blocks it. Half of the world will experience a reality which is peaceful and loving, while half the world will experience one which is violent and chaotic.

The two may mingle on the edges or they may not interract at all, but both realities will exist.

But have a look at what we have right now. Why is bad news so popular? every day we turn on the TV and see pain, murder, disasters etc. Then you look outside. Do you see any of that stuff going on? Not me. Our lives are so mundane and peaceful that its exciting for us to see something different (i.e. rape, murder, disasters). When good news becomes fashionable, we all have to start worrying :lol:

We are all collectively focussing on the negatives in our world and pouring our energy into it. Therefore we create more negativity and pain. If we focus on the positive and the happiness collectively, then collectively that's what we create.


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

Martinelv said:


> They give you a placebo (absolutely no active molecules) and a few people get better, usually because they really believe in the 'drug'.


Exactly why medicine began to frustrate me and I left. You have the Placebo effect, which PROVES that belief is at least as powerful as a drug. Btw Martin, its not "a few people get better". The Placebo effect means that 50% of the people who take a placebo will recover on their own. HALF the people given nothing will do as well as if they had taken medicine because they either believe they will or they heal on their own with no need for a drug in the first place. What if everyone who was given a placebo was told they were given the real deal?

Yet what do we do? We sweep that effect under the rug and design our experiments to work around it. In any drug trial the drug has to perform statistically better than a placebo in a double-blind trial. That means that neither patient nor doctor knows if the patient is getting the drug or a placebo. Still, half the people that believe they got the drug when in fact they got placebo do as well as if they'd got the drug.

Additionally, on the same point, a percentage of people who ARE given the drug do WORSE than those given placebo. Is this because they BELIEVE they were given placebo? Is it because they BELIEVE the drug won't work?

I really do liken it to instanity. Why not stop designing drugs and start trying to increase the power of belief in patients? It would be easier, cost a whole lot less and be just as effective.


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

Oh, one last thing (sorry for the rant ).

People tend to think that "Seeing is believing". In other words "I'll belive it when I see it". That is NOT how reality works.

*Believing is seeing.*

If you want something to happen, you first have to believe it. You have to love yourself before anyone else will love you. If you want to be abducted by aliens you must first believe aliens exist.


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## Martinelv (Aug 10, 2004)

> The Placebo effect means that 50% of the people who take a placebo will recover on their own. HALF the people given nothing will do as well as if they had taken medicine because they either believe they will or they heal on their own with no need for a drug in the first place.


Rot. Where do you come across figures like that? Are you saying that 50% of ALL illness disappear on their own, or are you saying that those all profess a belief in god or simply BELIEVE that that will recover? Terminal, incurable illnesses? If so, why hasn't the homepathic or templeton foundation won the noble prize? Perhaps you also believe that with simply the power of the mind (which I'm still unsure exactly what THAT means...could it possibly be another example of semantics over reality? Hmm, yes I think it could.) an amputee could grow another leg, like a starfish?

I'm sorry Cecil, but this is just an example of shocking ignorance. And it's dangerous talk too, I know from experience. My friend who died from cancer had a whole host of parasitic 'healers' descend on him once the doctors had told him his illness was terminal, but these fiends assured him (and his family, and his eight year old daughter, for christ's sake!) that their (delete as applicable) crystal therapy, faith healing, homeopathy...ad nauseaeum, would cure him. And they, as most people in a vunerable and desperate state do, bought it. Result? He died five days later. You can imagine how it effected his daughter. In fact, I had to baby-sit her a few months after his death and she broke down and asked me why her daddy had died after all the 'magic' people told her otherwise.

It makes me sick.


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## Pollyanna 3098 (Dec 12, 2006)

> Pollyanna, you are thinking too linearly and too black and white. There are currently ~6 billion unique realities in this world (one for each person, including you). Some things we create collectively and all agree upon. Other things we create just for ourselves and they can exist even if other people's realities say they can't.


I am not thinking in black and white.
I agree, the only way the theory stands up is if we all have our own reality. So as you say we would have to create that reality, our OWN reality.
Well, let me say when I was a baby I sure as hell didnt create a reality where by crying you were thrown across the room and screamed at.
Why would I create that?
Who's reality was that?

3098


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

Martinelv said:


> Rot. Where do you come across figures like that? Are you saying that 50% of ALL illness disappear on their own


Actually Martin, I learned in university that the majority of injuries and illnesses a human will sustain WILL heal itself naturally without any medical intervention at all. Note this includes everything including common colds and bacterial infections. I'm not only talking about serious or fatal injuries and diseases.



> or are you saying that those all profess a belief in god or simply BELIEVE that that will recover? Terminal, incurable illnesses?


No, I am saying that its possible to move energy and use intent in such ways that illnesses can be healed, whether they be in the body, mind or emotions. I'm not saying I can do this yet, I'm only just beginning to learn.



> If so, why hasn't the homepathic or templeton foundation won the noble prize? Perhaps you also believe that with simply the power of the mind (which I'm still unsure exactly what THAT means...could it possibly be another example of semantics over reality? Hmm, yes I think it could.) an amputee could grow another leg, like a starfish?


First off, like I said, Science acknowledges the existence of the placebo effect but goes out of its way to work around it. i.e. They don't explore it from different angles. Science is designed from the ground up to not acknowledge and explore these things, so in its current state no work like that is going to be done, sadly.

As for growing another limb - perhaps it would be possible with enough knowledge on the way energy works. I don't know. Its an extreme example you threw out there to discredit my idea and there'd be so many factors involved I wouldn't know where to start.



> I'm sorry Cecil, but this is just an example of shocking ignorance.


That's ok Martin, we both have very different views and I really don't expect you to believe anything I say. That's your choice and its a valid choice.



> And it's dangerous talk too, I know from experience. It makes me sick.


I'm very sorry to hear about your friend Martin. I'm sure it resonates with your own experience of illness too and I imagine its very frightening.

The sad fact is that there are lots of "hacks" and "quacks" out there. Another sad fact is that some illnesses are terminal. Sometimes the reason people get illnesses is to die. But we learn from death just as we learn from life.

Sometimes people develop a "terminal illness" and they heal from it. Sometimes people learn from this process, sometimes they don't.

But my belief is that every illness has a meaning, be it rooted in the logical mind or other parts of the human energetic body. They are like your body's way of letting you know where you have a problem that you need to address. In that case, knowledge of those things as well as the ability to use your intent to heal can be very helpful.

However, as for the scope of the original topic its not very helpful to be talking about terminal illness. I believe there are people out there that can work with these illnesses (I have met some but never witnessed it personally) but I also believe there are people out there who have no idea what they are doing and can give false hope to people in bad situations, like your friend. I aspire to be the former.

Anyway, the scope of the OP's post was using intent and belief to shape your reality and on that point I maintain my views


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

Pollyanna 3098 said:


> I am not thinking in black and white.
> I agree, the only way the theory stands up is if we all have our own reality. So as you say we would have to create that reality, our OWN reality.
> Well, let me say when I was a baby I sure as hell didnt create a reality where by crying you were thrown across the room and screamed at.
> Why would I create that?
> ...


That must have affected you greatly Pollyanna  It may be a stupid question but can you remember that at all? I imagine it would be a very hard issue to deal with if you couldn't even remember it. How do you know about it? Did your parents tell you? Sorry, you've just piqued my curiosity.

My belief, which you by no means have to agree with, is that we create our realities on every level. That includes designing the way our life is going to go before we are even born. We choose our parents, choose our place and time of birth and choose what we will experience in life. Why? So that we can learn things that we did not know before. To evolve our consciousness.

At first its a frightening proposition because it means on some level taking responsibility for what happens in our life. Obviously very scary in your case and hey, you might even hate me for suggesting it. That's fine if you do, I can understand why.

Later on its very empowering because it makes it much easier to forgive and be loving and accepting of yourself and other people have hurt you.


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## Pollyanna 3098 (Dec 12, 2006)

> That must have affected you greatly Pollyanna It may be a stupid question but can you remember that at all? I imagine it would be a very hard issue to deal with if you couldn't even remember it. How do you know about it? Did your parents tell you?


My mother told me. She didnt do it, my father did.
Anyway that was just the start of a string of other things that happened, I don't think I would have ever chosen to experience any of them.
Why the fuck would I ?



> you might even hate me


I don't hate you.

3098


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## CECIL (Oct 3, 2004)

So you could learn from the painful experiences you are having now.


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## Pollyanna 3098 (Dec 12, 2006)

What will I learn?

3098


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2007)

Depends on the person... I?ve learnt much myself.


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## Cam (Dec 13, 2006)

> I am not sure if I buy into the whole "If you think it, it will happen theory"


I dont buy it either, I dont want this, I didnt choose this.

Cam


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