What's your view of "The Secret"

by darth fader 34 Replies latest jw friends

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  Calliope
• 

  poppers

  Does "The Secret" reveal that you remain bound to duality by practicing its tenets? You may get yourself out of an uncomfortable "prison" through its use, but what is gained in exchange remains a prison even if the decorations are more to your liking.
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  Terry

  Terry: Could you run the basics of that "singing bananas" secret past me real quick? It sounds like just what I've been looking for!

  It has a peel, certainly, but; it's a freakin' secret--so, I can't tell, can I? Noooooo.
• 

  zagor

  yes, but you have to admit these things are usually debunked once education comes in to play. It's not the norm for someone so educated to believe in such things. The ones that do are not majority

  I'm sorry when I read what you wrote it reminded me of what you said in that email and I never got a chance to get back to you. I should have asked you then. *Sorry if I hi-jacked this thread*

  What you are referring to was a "private" emil to you from a while ago but never mind now. To answer to your question. I think you first need to see at least the DVD program before you understand why it has such a profound effect on people who see it. But perhaps even just a short list of the names that appeared on the show can give you a hint why people are embracing the idea.

  Dr Fred Alan Wolf	(theoretical physics)
  Dr John Hagelin	(Professor of Physics)
  Dr John Gray	(Author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus)
  Dr John Demartini	(magna cum laude, PhD, one of the top motivational speakers in US and the world)
  Dr Denis Waitley	(PhD in human behavior, graduate of U. S. Naval Academy, and former Navy pilot, helped train NASA astronauts, counseled POWs from Vietnam, and created a mental training program, which enhanced the performance of numerous U.S. Olympic Athletes)
  Dr. Joe Vitale	(PhD, author of numerous books including Life's Missing Instruction Manual and the Attractor Factor)
  Dr Rev. Michael Beckwith	(you probably seen him many times on numerous lady shows from Oprah to Larry King Live)
  Neale Donald Walsch	(Novelist, widely recognized, heck here is his site for you in Polish http://www.rzb.pl/)
  Jack Canfield	Harvard graduate, one of the top American motivational speakers, featured on Good Morning America, 20/20, Eye to Eye, CNN's Talk Back Live, PBS, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Montel Williams Show, Larry King Live and the BBC)

  I'm not trying to impress you with those names but do you see now how it is possible that this idea has such a profound effect on people?

  In fact after seeing the show and the book I think producer Rhonda Byrne made way better job than Dan Brown in his infantile attempt to rewrite history.

  But anyway, I will attempt to explain myself a wee bit better this time, I was really tired in the morning and couldn't go deep into this. I called this pseudo science because it is idea that does not follow scientific method of investigation i.e. does not follow the requirements of the testability and repeatability (though believers would argue otherwise that everything is testable if you only believe in it, of course if you believe in it then you can't test it impartially so it is catch 22 in that sense)

  In fact, I'm not even qualified to call any part of this a pseudo science because this is not my field, and I doubt anyone on this thread so far is a PhD trained psychologist to be able to tell us with any degree of certainty what of that is true and what is bullshit (though we think we got a clue). Science or any academic endeavor are highly compartmentalized, which makes it sometimes hard to distinguish from the outside what is pseudo science and what is science because both use the same language.

  I will illustrate to you in an example, as you know I'm mechatronics engineer however just because I'm qualified in that field doesn't mean I can competently discuss lets say chemistry or biology. Heck, I think I would find difficult to find my way even around other engineering fields such as civil or environmental engineering without some additional training. In fact, deeper you go into your own field less time and space is left for any other and you have to take many things on "faith" that experts in other fields are honest and trustworthy.

  I will give you another example, few weeks ago I hurt my back a bit during my Ninjutsu training, there was someone who people I trusted called a doctor and he used scientific terms and language some of which I understood and some of which I didn't but overall impression was that he was quite qualified in what he was talking about. He seemed qualified because I wasn't trained in medicine so I couldn't argue with him, to be able to argue you would need medically trained doctor. So next day I went to my GP who interestingly enough couldn't tell me either but sent me to a specialist nevertheless. It was only then when I spoken to a specialist that some of that lure of our Japanese "doctor" started to disappear.

  Do you see my point? Likewise, many people, me included, would call tarot a pseudo science, in fact I wouldn't call it even that. Yet believers in it are quite adamant that it works. I don't know if it does, I haven't got any training in it so it will probably forever remain a mystery to me. But someone I deeply trust told me once she knows even some highly educated people who believe in it. I suppose I will just have to take her word for it.

  And that is exactly how many other people see it. They see someone they trust or look up to in other things suddenly say something completely new. I hate to quote dubs in this but, peoples' logic goes something like this. "If someone told me 99 times the truth and suddenly said something completely new to me, will I trust that or will I call him/her a liar?"

  In any case, psychology is still long way from completely understanding human brain and it's potential so I suppose we have to exercise a bit of caution. Some or likely quite a lot of what this show talks about may be bullshit. However,what we have to understand that every new idea goes through similar stages and that often people just have a hit of much bigger picture so they explain things they see in language they understand. Over 2600 years ago Greeks had idea of the atom as the smallest particle. But it was the idea they could not prove or test at the time. They just took it on faith. It took over 2600 years to confirm just how accurate they really were. Of course not everything was true but core idea was, and that is what I'm talking about here

  Likewise, the story that this show and book are presenting are likely to contain a lot of "noise" but there just might be a grain or two of truth in it, I don't know. As scientifically trained individual my training compels me to reject anything that does not satisfy scientific method in the same way it compels me to reject tarot. But even in science, lets say physics many serious and world-renowned scientists believe in, in my opinion even more outlandish theory of parallel universes that is even less testable and is possibly just a mathematical anomaly. Or maybe it is not. The point is just because something seems strange to us personally should not be the basis for completely shutting our mind toward the idea of just about any sort, until proven otherwise, we must be open to the idea that perhaps there may be a hint in it of something. Probably not as people who believe see it, but possibly something even bigger, or not. We don't know. One of my colleague said jokingly today "perhaps it it a hint of parallel universes" lol.

  Now there are of course psychologists who debunk the whole idea of "the law of Attraction" just as they debunk tarot. But the same is all across the other scientific fields; few years ago very few scientists believed in global warming now it is so strong that deniers can't do anything else but accuse "believers" of politicizing science.

  And about this book, there is no harm in reading it at all, it is not a religious text as such but is a collection of quotes from some of the most brilliant minds that ever lived such as Plato, Aristotle, Hermes Trismegistus, Buddha, W. Clement Stone, Isaac Newton, Martin Luther King, Victor Hugo, Thomas Edison, Robert Collier, Winston Churchill, Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Campbell, Alexander Graham Bell, Ludvig Van Beethoven, Carl Jung, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ford and Albert Einstein.

  I don't think there is any harm in hearing what those people had to say, is there? In fact, the only contentious issue is what was that that binds all of them together looking through what they said.

  But whatever one believes in the end or not there is no harm in reading the book just as there is no harm, I hope, in tarot :)

  And by the way, just because majority of people believe or not believe in something should not be a benchmark for accepting or rejecting anything if we want to call ourselves open-minded.

  So yes it is possible for "educated" people to believe in this "stuff" just as it is possible for some of them to believe in tarot.
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  misanthropic

  What you are referring to was a "private" emil to you from a while ago but never mind now

  
  That's exactly what I was referring to which was why I only made mention of the email and didn't post any thing about it.
  Thanks for posting that huge post, I'll read it over later when I have more time.
  But I think you know why I was asking my original question to you. I'm sure sometime in your life you must have played that drinking game called, "Bullsh*t". I just called it a little later than I should have.