The Secret

I watched the original version of New Age hyped 'The Secret' the other day. What so secret about the Secret, I asked? Turns out, it's about the Law of Attraction, like attracts like. Soort zoekt soort as the Dutch said. They said only few people knows it.

According to the law, based on the what we're thinking and feeling, we attract things into our life. Good or bad. It's like what the Buddha says, 'Mind precedes all phenomena, mind matters most, everything is mind-made.' Millions of Buddhists and meditators know about this. Lots of self help books dealt with this. Paulo Coelho wrote about it in the Alchemist. So the Secret is no secret at all. But since they market it as 'The secret', of course a lot of people wants to know it, after all it's good to be in on a secret, right?

The movie instructs us to Ask, Believe, Receive. Changing our lives by thinking.

There's nothing wrong about its message on positive thinking and feeling, but I have problem the way they watered down wisdom into simplistic pop-culture. Instead of using the positive thinking for a greater purposes, they make it into something very materialistic. At one point they shows a kid concentrating at a picture of a bike and later on he gets it. It's another get rich quick kinda thing. And yes, I know, it sells.

They say, if you truly believe it, the universe conspires to grant your wishes. Sceptical? Just look at Rhonda Byrne, the Australian producer of this movie. She made this $3 million movie last year and managed to sell 1.5 millions of this movie at the price of $34.95 without paying for advertising or theater releases. Not to mention the selling of book, and other things from their website with their aggressive marketing. ;) Although I am not so sure about her disagreement with Esther Hicks, one of the 20 something 'experts' in the original version of the movie. Disagreement is bad vibe. Bad vibe attract bad thing according to the Law of Attraction. I guess she's not always practicing what she preaches.

Another thing that bothers me is the health claim in the movie. It was said that your mind can cure you from cancer without any chemotherapy or radiation, and even regenerate kidney! I mean come on! What if someone using it to cure his disease and not succeed? It will only increase self-blame when it is not working.

All in all, I found this interesting movie very superficial, materialistic and might be damaging for some.