Is The Secret Harmful?

Ever since Oprah started promoting The Secret, it seems everyone’s talking about the pros and cons. One question that keeps coming up is whether The Secret is harmful.

Though I’d agree that it’s somewhat deceptive or misleading in its attempts to claim science as its foundation, I don’t think it’s overtly harmful. Yes, the philosophy’s incomplete - and they haven’t spent much time hammering out the specifics - but if you simply take it for a “feel good” docu-drama, it’s not going to harm anyone. As long as you don’t think too deeply about the underlying principle of the law of attraction, the movie’s an inspirational piece to get you to sit up and take notice that you can control your thoughts and feelings.

It’s certainly true that as consumers in a capitalistic society, we’re exposed to so much marketing hype each day - by some reports, over 3000 messages a day. The amount of data on the Internet doubles each year. The US, alone, published 172,000 books in 2005. The UK beat us with 206,000. It’s impossible for us to give each of these things our full attention. We’d go nuts! So we filter out what isn’t relevant to us and focus on what is relevant. For instance, if you watched tv last night - do you actually remember which commercials you saw? Can you name the product or service they were promoting? Chances are, you may remember one or two that stood out but many people don’t remember any.

Those that do stand out are likely to either be entertaining in some way, or relevant to you - such as a character from the tv show you’re watching does a commercial spot, or you see an ad for TurboTax and think that wow, April 16 is just 10 days away - maybe you should get started on your taxes.

We also live in an attention deficit society where we can’t sit still for 5 minutes without an interruption. We’re a generation of multitaskers (though the NY Times reminds us that we’re not as good at multitasking as we may think we are. We’re always available with cell phones, email, pagers, and instant messengers. There’s a distraction around every corner.

So from a psychological perspective, it makes a lot of sense that we don’t notice something until we become aware of it and start to make it a priority. For instance, I only started watching 24 at Season Five. Before that, I was oblivious to Jack Bauer and CTU. Thanks to the constant updates from my family, who were avid fans, I finally caved, watched the season premiere and was hooked. Before this, 24 didn’t matter. After this, 24 became a priority - must watch tv (at least until Heroes came along!)

It’s easy to tell what people focus most on - just take a look at how they spend their days and what they spend their money on. As James Ray said last night on the teleseminar, when people tell you they “don’t have time”, they’re just making an excuse. We always find the time for things we consider a priority. And usually, we find the money.

Can Positive Thinking Cure Disease?
Where The Secret gets a bit esoteric is in its attempt to explain why bad things happen to good people. This certainly isn’t a new question. Countless philosophers and theologians have tried to understand the problem of evil for centuries - or at least as long as ethical monotheism has been around. To frame the question, how can evil exist in a world if there is an omnipotent, omnipresent God? Or, in the language of The Secret, if the universe is a large catalog and all you have to do is pick out what you want, why is it that some of us seem to choose bad things like cancer, rape, and natural disasters? Why is it that some of us never seem to lose weight, no matter how hard we try? Why can’t some of us get out of debt - or at least make enough to cover our monthly expenses?

The Secret claims it’s because we have all these negative beliefs that are poisoning our lives. As we focus on getting out of debt, we filter out all but “debt”. As we focus on curing ourselves from disease, we filter out all but “disease”. It’s these thoughts that are creating the problems in our lives.

Now I admit, from a purely philosophical point of view, this has a tiny bit of weight. If you’re having a bad day, each little annoyance is magnified. If you’re having a good day, a minor annoyance is just a drop in the bucket. It’s all relative. You don’t complain nearly as much about your $35 parking ticket if you just found out you won $10,000. But if you get a parking ticket and your air conditioner dies and you lose an important client account at work, things seem to go from bad to worse.

But from a physical standpoint, there is absolutely no evidence that we attract cancer into our lives - or that negative thinkers are more likely to get cancer than positive thinkers. Yes, positive thinkers tend to fight the disease a bit harder. They’re not ready to quit living just yet - whereas some people give in to the disease. But given the opportunity to have modern medical treatment, most people would choose that AND positive thinking instead of JUST positive thinking.

In other words, positive thinking alone won’t cure disease. Yes, they thought that might be the case in the 1800s. It’s a fundamental principle of the New Thought Movement (of which, Christian Science is a part). But we also know a lot more about medicine now than we do in the 1800s.

One of the biggest debates in medicine during the mid-1800s was how to recognize with certainty that someone was actually dead (so they wouldn’t bury them alive, which was a huge concern at the time). The stethoscope was only invented in 1819 and was extremely rudimentary to the sensitive devices we use today. In other words, medicine has come a long way since the 1800s.

So, in this regard, if people choose to believe in the Law of Attraction over say, getting appropriate medical help because they are certain their thoughts will heal them, then yes, this could be perceived as harmful. (And if you’re refusing medical attention for a child, that’s a legal offense - see Supreme Court ruling on mother who refused medical treatment for her 11 year old son who died because of it.)

What about the Poor and Unfortunate?
Another problem with The Secret is that because it claims we attract our circumstances. That means the people in Darfur attract the violence or that the New Orleans’ people attracted the levies to break.

Or because we want to lose weight, we should not focus on people who are overweight, but turn our thoughts to positive and healthy body images. It’s not food that’s causing our weight gain, it’s our thoughts. (Read Rhonda Byrne’s excerpt from The Secret for more on this.)

While thoughts may hold us back, virtually all physicians and dieticians will agree that if you want to lose weight - or just maintain a healthy weight - you must manage your diet and exercise regularly. Sure, you might know someone that “is thin and eats like a horse” as Rhonda says - but is this really the Universe answering this person’s wish, or simply that she has a high metabolism? I know I could eat all sorts of things as a teen and wouldn’t gain weight. Sadly, now I don’t have that ability - but then I’m also not nearly as active.

What bothers me is her quote

Make it your intention to look for, admire, and inwardly praise people with your idea of perfect-weight bodies. Seek them out and as you admire them and feel the feelings of that-you are summoning it to you. If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it.

There’s not a lot of compassion there. Don’t observe fat people. Look away, because it’s all about you. What other people are going through doesn’t matter. It’s all about you achieving your goals.

This touches on my second biggest problem with The Secret - the selfishness of it. Virtually everything in the movie was about attracting wealth and materialism to you. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, it’s all a bit selfish. There’s no desire to help out your fellow man, to give to the needy or help the sick or suffering because that’s not in your best interest and won’t get you that spiffy new car you’ve been dreaming of. There’s no real desire to genuinely connect with other human beings on a deeper level because how will that help you get that cool new mansion?

Now, I’m not about to get rid of my possessions any time soon - I’m a Taurus, and every astrology profile I’ve ever seen tells me how much I love physical possessions and cash. But money and possessions are not the end all, be all, which defines me and my personality. Yes, I want to be comfortably wealthy, but it’s also important to me to give back.

The Secret seems to ignore this. It seems to say that all you have to do is ask and “receive” - that is, take, take, take! There’s no giving involved.

On a different note, The Secret seems to imply that if we only believe hard enough and put out enough good vibes, we can control our lives. The philosophy is that here is no random chance or coincidence. Everything happens for a reason, so good people attract bad things into their lives.

So, does that mean that we shouldn’t help people because they have specifically brought these unfortunate circumstances? Worse, does that mean that they should be blamed and held accountable for their misfortunes?

I don’t buy that argument. You’d have to be a pretty cold person to tell a parent they were to blame for their child’s death or for their spouse’s cancer or hurricane Katrina.

So, taking all of this into consideration, is The Secret harmful? I guess, like just about everything out there, it could be. But in moderation and with a healthy dose of skepticism (meaning you’ll actually seek out medical treatment, help out a person in need, or take action rather than wishing for something to manifest into your lap), I’d place it squarely within the rest of the self-help/motivational materials out there. It has its good and bad points. And while it’s probably not overtly harmful, it’s not the sole answer or “the secret” to life.