The Secret… Negative Thinking
I’m most definitely no expert on “The Secret“, though from what I’ve heard about it, it’s just a load of crap thought up by some motivational speaker. For those that don’t know what “The Secret” is, make sure to watch the Chaser segment below.
Milton keeps complaining about Oprah having some love affair with stupid cults, first it’s the scientologists and now it’s “The Secret“, Chaser had a great segment on “The Secret” the other week. Slate has a great writeup about how the world actually works.
Have you ever heard of these things called “Affirmations“? They’re basically little phrases that are overly positive like “I am beautiful and everyone loves me” (for someone that is butt ugly and has no friends), these phrases are then read out over and over and over and over and over and over… the idea being that you will be beautiful and have lots of friends. I have family members who swear by affirmations, though in my mind they’re doing nothing more than trying avoid reality. The Secret sounds AWFULLY similar to affirmations, the sole difference being that you don’t say anything, you just think it… WOW!
I should mention that I’m all for positive thinking, though more as a method of aspiring to something and keeping sanity in check. Personally I always try to analyse what might go wrong and develop a plan how to deal with it when it happens. The Slate article raises an interesting point, do people that believe in The Secret pay insurance?
Filed by Popeye at May 31st, 2007 under Nut Jobs