« Revealing The Missing Keys to Manifesting All Your Desires The Universal Laws »
‘The Secret’ combines spiritual movements, pop psychology
Category: Public
The book and DVD state that your dreams can come true if you unlock the power of your mind.
By HELEN T. GRAY
McClatchy Newspapers
Did you know?
You can change anything in your life.
Your life is in your hands.
The universe will rearrange itself to give you whatever you want.
If this sounds like magic, you haven’t read or seen “The Secret,” the best-selling book and DVD by Australian TV producer Rhonda Byrne that promises to reveal the “Great Secret” that “has been passed down through the ages, highly coveted, hidden, lost, stolen and bought for vast sums of money.”
More than 5 million copies of the book are in print.
“The Secret” is the law of attraction, Byrne says:
“The law of attraction says like attracts like. … The law of attraction is giving you what you are thinking about – period!”
The secret potion is a mixture of several spiritual movements, including a large dose of New Thought, a healthy part of Positive Thinking and a generous sprinkling of Prosperity Gospel. And with a few additives from psychology, philosophy and science – shazam! – you have “The Secret”!
New Thought, which early on was known as mental science, says thought is an energy of the mind that can create tangible results in the world, said Robert Fuller, religious studies professor at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill.
New Thought has many fathers, mothers and forerunners, including author Ralph Waldo Emerson; mental healer Phineas P. Quimby; Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science; and Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, founders of Unity.
Charles Fillmore described it as “a mental system that holds man as being one with God (good) through the power of constructive thinking.”
Orison Swett Marden, a prolific writer of self-help books in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, stated, “Our thoughts and imagination are the only real limits to our possibilities.”
His books “all talked about how to get what you want,” Fuller said. “It is magical thinking to believe that our thought alone is really a force that goes out. It implies that you are responsible for everything in your life.”
Wallace Wattles, whose 1910 book “The Science of Getting Rich” sparked Byrne’s quest, also is out of the New Thought movement.
“What they share in common are techniques thought to reveal the secrets of the mind, ways to unlock the depths of the human mind that is believed to be connected with powerful, spiritual energies,” said Fuller, who has spent years studying these movements.
Mental healing had convinced members of the movement that invisible energy can obtain physical benefits, Fuller said.
“The energy was believed to come from God, and it was further believed that our thoughts controlled the direction of this energy,” Fuller said. “‘The Secret’ picks this up.”
“The Secret” also picks up a basic principle of Unity called the law of mind-action.
“We believe that people can attract positive or negative experiences into their lives by what they think about,” said Paula Coppel, vice president of communications for Unity. “How we view things and how we choose to respond to them shape our lives.
“So if you are a positive person, you will see more good around you and attract more good into your life, and the opposite is true.”
But there is a key difference between Unity and “The Secret,” Coppel said: “Unity is positive, practical Christianity. Our focus is not on manifesting and attracting material things but on aligning ourselves with God.
“We say, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all other things will be added unto you.’”
New Thought ideas flowed into mainstream Protestantism, developing into Positive Thinking.
Its most well-known advocate was Norman Vincent Peale, who in 1952 wrote the wildly popular “Power of Positive Thinking.”
“Peale took the New Thought ideas and tied them to liberal Protestantism, keeping what was recognizably Christian,” said J. Gordon Melton, founder and director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion.
“The message changed the Gospel a little bit,” he said. “For instance, there’s not a great virtue in humility. But there was still a lot of room for most Christian virtues like being loving and kind and honesty and still believing in salvation in Christ.”
Peale wrote: “Through prayer you … make use of the great factor within yourself, the deep subconscious mind … (which Jesus called) the kingdom of God within you. … Positive thinking is just another term for faith.”
He also wrote, “Your unconscious mind … (has a) power that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong enough.”
Robert H. Schuller, who built the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove and a multimillion-dollar television ministry, drew from Peale’s positive thinking to develop “possibility thinking.” These similar ideas are evident in “The Secret.”
Among Schuller’s many books are “Self-Love,” “You Can Be the Person You Want to Be” and “Living Positively One Day at a Time.”
He has said, “The only place where your dream becomes impossible is in your own thinking.”
Many of “The Secret’s” teachers are motivational speakers.
One is Jack Canfield of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” fame, who says:
“Since I learned ‘The Secret’ and started applying it to my life, my life has truly become magical.” And: “Decide what you want. Believe you can have it. Believe you deserve it, and believe it’s possible for you.”
Another one, James Ray, who speaks on wealth, success and human potential, says: “If you think about Aladdin and his lamp, Aladdin picks up the lamp, dusts it off and out pops the Genie. The Genie always says one thing: ‘Your wish is my command.’”
He then says that the Genie is the universe; traditions have called the universe many things, “and you choose the one that works best for you, but every tradition has told us there’s something bigger than us.”
Related Posts -
Daily Positive Affirmations - A Tool for Life Perhaps you have heard of the "Law of Attraction". This law states that you attract to yourself the things that you believe. If you use positive affirmations, good things will follow, and bad things follow negative thinking. So if you want to improve your everyday life, you will want to...... -
Using the Law of Attraction to Attract Wealth The Law of Attraction is a powerful tool that you can use in your life to attract anything you desire. It may seem too good to be true, but this powerful law is in effect whether you believe it or not. In fact, you have used it every moment...... -
Character-Building Thought Power – Part 1 From: What All the World's A-Seeking, by Ralph Waldo Trine, [1896] A thought,—good or evil,—an act, in time a habit,—so runs life's law: what you live in your thought-world, that, sooner or later, you will find objectified in your life. UNCONSCIOUSLY we are forming habits every moment of our lives....... -
The Art of Deliberate Creation When learning about the Law of Attraction, we find that everything in our life has been attracted/manifested by our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. The most common reaction is one of dismay, or denial. Nobody wants to believe that they are responsible for the bad things in their life. However, this...... - Controlling Your Thoughts By Monitoring Your Feelings It has been said time and time again, and yet it's worth repeating. Your emotions are the key to learning to control your thoughts. When you take note of your feelings and then act to enhance or alter the way you feel, you are taking control of your thoughts and......
Related Websites - Weight of our Choices Karma isn’t about what you do to one person. It is about the entire weight of your choices. Do you generally foster well being? This doesn’t promise you will never suffer. But tell me, do any of you know anyone who genuinely fosters the well being of others who seems......
-
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=fd75bcfb-40fa-452f-9a59-118129f946b7 "Reblog this post [with Zemanta]")
Life Purpose What is your nature? Some have said your nature is God. To use quantum theory, your nature is the observer. Have you noticed that sometimes when you’re really upset, you sort of unplug from the situation, and are just sort of an "observer"? People have noticed this even in "episodes"...... -
Obama At House Republican Retreat In Baltimore: FULL VIDEO, TEXT [/caption] Video of President Obama's remarks to the House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 and Q&A With GOP Lawmakers: Complete transcript of Obama's remarks as recorded by the White House: 12:10 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please, everybody be...... - Divination & Positive Thinking Divination is not foolishness. It’s just encoded intuitions about life. You get from divination the wisdom you bring to it. It is not a pointless exercise because the gnosis is there. When the student is ready the master appears. When you have the ears to hear and the eyes to......
- Find Helpful Info About Dating Secrets Do you know what it means when your boyfriend gets quiet, "zones out" and acts like he doesn't want to talk to you? One minute everything feels great and you're laughing and connecting and the next minute some weird "mood" comes over him and he goes off into his own......
