Submitted by charliehiphop on Mon, 2007-08-27 17:33 –
3 comments
(Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, meaning I stand to gain financially if you click and buy.)
I never had any intention of reviewing The Secret. In fact, I didn't even intend to read it. My wife made me do it. She makes me do all kinds of stupid things. You want to know a secret? I'll tell you a secret, the secret to a happy marriage: Do all the stupid things your wife tells you to do (or not).
Anyway, back to the book review...
The Secret
It does contain some fundamental truth though so, who knows, maybe this will end up being a timeless classic like How to Win Friends and Influence People
Two 30-minute subway rides were all it took to blaze through the entire book, if that tells you anything. That's one of the best things about The Secret -- it's mercifully short and sweet. It's not like suffering through Critique of Pure Reason or anything. (Sorry -- much as I love some of Kant's ideas, I hate reading them as written. Just give me the Cliff Notes on that one.)
Also unlike Kant, The Secret basically says the same thing over and over again: Think positive thoughts, feel positive feelings, and all that you desire will be yours. The Universe will deliver all your wishes on a silver platter if only you ask politely and with the happy knowledge that what you desire shall be yours. Focus on what you want, not what you don't want. Yadda yadda -- nothing that How to Win Friends and Influence People and The Power of Positive Thinking and a jillion other kazillion-selling self-help books haven't already delineated ad nauseum. These books sell well because they give the people what they want. But what the people want is not necessarily good for them.
That being said, I have to say that I agree with the central premise of the book: Your consciousness manifests things into your life. Controlling this energy is indeed the key to bringing about your desired outcomes. Twenty years ago, Robert Anton Wilson (now there's a writer who didn't insult anyone's intelligence!) introduced me to "The Secret" in a roundabout way by leading me on a quest to learn as much as I could about quantum mechanics.
Look away from the monitor for a second. No "thing" you see is actually a solid thing. You perceive it as a thing, but it's really just a blob of energy. In any given atom, there is far more space than mass, and that space is charged. Things are made of atoms. Atoms are made of space/energy. Through some quirk of consciousness, we perceive things as solid, but they are not, strictly speaking. Even in a completely Newtonian world, flows of energy rearrange mass. It's all about energy. Dig.
Consciousness is a form of energy, maybe the most powerful form and certainly one of the least understood. It stands to reason that consciousness acts upon other energy, sends ripples out into the multiverse. Consciousness does manifest reality, absolutely, and we can control our reality to some limited extent through controlling our consciousness. The Secret has that right. If a meteorite crushes your house tonight, though, all the happythink in the world isn't going to prevent it.
More importantly, The Secret does not shed light on the real secret and completely misses three critical points:
- It requires a tremendous amount of discipline to control one's consciousness and direct one's reality. Kung-Fu masters, monks, and yogis devote lifetimes to the practice, and most never fully get it because we are, after all, human.
- We're not here just to be happy and get the things we "want." We're here to learn, and learning is difficult. The word "disciple" means student, and studying is discipline (same root as "disciple"). "The Universe" (as The Secret annoyingly calls it throughout the first half of the book) is not some Santa Claus that wants to deliver toys, it's more like a strict teacher who kicks your ass and makes you better. That, I think, is a big part of why we're here. Wealth is relatively easy. Wisdom is not. More often than not, blessings come disguised as curses and vice versa.
- Some of the greatest people in history, those who gave us the greatest works of genius, the greatest lessons, lived lives full of hardship and misery: Jesus, Beethoven, Emily Dickenson. Not all of them sat around idly manifesting joy and wealth, certainly not for themselves..
Sure, you can get what you "want" by focusing on it in a positive way and by taking steps toward it. I have no quarrel with The Secret on that count. But sometimes it's not about what we want, it's about what we need, and sometimes we need to experience loss and hardship. Wouldn't life be a little boring and empty if we all just sat around bringing Ferraris into our lives all the time? What would the point in that be, exactly?
That's what The Secret promises, though, a world where you can always get what you want -- forget what you might need. It's very id-centric which is why it has sold so many copies, including the one I bought. P.T. Barnum couldn't have done it any better, right down to the cheesy jacket with its faux Rosicrucian/Masonic/Illuminati wax seal graphic. Trust me: If this thing revealed any real secrets, you wouldn't find it on the best-seller rack at Barnes and Noble -- possibly at Conspiracy Theorists R Us, but definitely not at the mainstream chains.
This book will not make anyone wiser. It might help make a few people happier or wealthier, though, so I guess that's a good thing on net. Chances are, though, that "The Universe" won't transform into some sort of Aladdin's lamp for you after reading this book, and that's ultimately a good thing.
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Wow, this one had a really good run!
Maybe more people will find it someday. I just read through a whole bunch of reviews of this book and didn't find any better than the above, not to brag or anything.
Well, I found it one day.
Agreed that your review is the best that I've read. I think that's because most reviews either focus on trying to prove or disprove the authors "secret," which doesn't really act as a review, but another piece of the conversation. Very few agree with the general concept at a level you (we) do: that while the power of positive thinking works, the secret to success isn't getting what you want, but in what the energy in the mulitverse wants us to have.
To not sound like a nodding yes man to your opinions, let me say that a book that "make[s] a few people happier or wealthier" does make a some wiser. Those with more happiness and wealth will affect both their own lives and those that touch them differently that if they didn't read the book, and those like you who read it and perhaps come to a better understanding of your own position (and not to mention understanding where others are at, given the number of people who have read this book and are now devotees), are perhaps wiser for the actions. Everything has a reaction, and some people/things effect us in larger ways. Perhaps more diluted, but larger than, say, a shopkeeper selling pizones in Italy.
Of course, the book doesn't succeed in radically changing everyone's lives. But for those who do read it, and expect radical change in the form of Ferrari's raining down around them as they lounge by the champagne and caviar pool at their newly raised McMansion, these unfulfilled desires are a pretty concrete step toward the wisdom of the pointlessness of material things. Those that accept the book as gospel are (I'm guessing here) stretching their intellectual muscles in order to first accept, and then find creative ways to utilize this newfound tool. Their goals not achieved, the kick in the ass they receive in the form of rejection confounds, and then those who are at the point of accepting the real lesson being taught, are capable of accepting it.
That's a relatively important lesson, don't you think? Finding ways to have people be both discouraged from material possessions and ready to accept that the point of living is not wealth but wisdom is acting upon wisdom's behalf.
One last thing about the book's popularity: It is precisely because it sold a bazillion copies that it was in mainstream bookstores, not because the "secret" is pedestrian. If you had proof that the world was being run by an intelligent ferret and its cabal of Illuminati posing as circus clowns, wrote it in a book and presented your case in a completely unrefrutable way, despite the complete insanity of the proposal, you would get great shelf space at Barnes & Noble because everyone would want a copy (given its crazy, yet proven, concept).
Conspiracy theory book stores are for dangerous, unprovable, and unaccepted ideas. If the author's concept was the power of positive thinking and that wealth was evil, thus throw away your material possessions and destroy the rich class, where do you think the book would end up?
You are wise but for one point...
The truth is not dangerous? (It's true that you can build a bomb from common household items! It's true that what they tell you on the TV news is not always true.) Not -- quite often -- unprovable? (Did OJ really do it? Were you there? Can you prove it?) Not unaccepted? (How dare you suggest that the Earth revolves around the sun! Heretic! Heathen! To the gallows with you!) That must be a nice planet you live on.
I'm not saying that conspiracy theories are good, but if one were to find the bare-naked truth, I believe it would be likelier found in a dangerous and unaccepted place like a conspiracy theory bookstore than on the best seller rack.
Other than that, I loved your comment.
You have mastered your native tongue! I like you very much. Come back any time and drop more wisdom.