So I obviously need to catch up on my Oprah, because she has recently gone ape-shit over this self help book/movie called “The Secret” and although I admit I haven’t seen or read the entire book, I have see enough of it via YouTube to realize it’s a bag of butts.

As Skeptico explains, “The Secret” is what they call the Law Of Attraction – the idea that you become or attract what you think about the most. They explain it as:

“Thoughts become things.”

This is presented as a literal truth – a law just like the laws of gravitation. And it is stated that this:

“Always works every time”

Note: always. And every time. No exceptions. It’s a Law, you see.

Examples are given. A man is shown worrying about being late, and so he gets stuck in a traffic jam. Another man is shown locking up his bicycle, presumably because he is worried about it being stolen; he returns later to find it has been stolen. The absurdity of these examples should be obvious. Are we supposed to believe the traffic jam wouldn’t have happened if it were not for this one guy worrying about being late? And what about the other people in the traffic jam? Were they all thinking negative thoughts about being late? Were there no positive-minded people in the area, thinking about being on time? And if there were, doesn’t that debunk the “always works every time” mantra? And what about the guy getting his bike stolen? Are we to assume that if another guy had left an identical unlocked bike at the same location, the bike thief would still have stolen the locked bike of the person worried about theft? Has anyone done a controlled study on this? (Hey, these were the examples used in the film – don’t blame me if they make no sense.)

Of course, the basic flaw in all this is that the Law Of Attraction is not a Law like the Law Of Gravitation that they compare it to. Newton’s Law’s can be demonstrated by anyone – drop an object and its acceleration will be exactly as the Law predicts. And this really does “always work every time” – that’s why it’s a Law. The “Law Of Attraction” as they call it just doesn’t work that way. Although having a positive attitude, being confident, believing in your own success etc is a definite advantage, and should be encouraged, having positive thoughts will not send out magic brainwave frequencies that change reality around you. This brainwave “magnetic signature” as one person called it, never goes out, any time. Not in the real world.

Thanks to skeptico – Great site!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 3:29 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.