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I was thumbing through a junky old paperback that was in a box of books and came across this startling news from 1978:

"Before Man can progress, he must realize that THOUGHT is a MIGHTY CREATIVE FORCE. Each thought, therefore, ACTIVATED by STRONG FEELINGS of FEAR or DESIRE, is a CREATIVE ACT which seeks to EXTERNALIZE itself in the form of some EXPERIENCE, constructive or destuctive.

There is a UNIVERSAL LAW OF MIND that LIKE ALWAYS ATTRACTS LIKE.

Reduced to utter simplicity: if an individual thinks GOOD thoughts, he will eventually attract GOOD things; if he thinks BAD thoughts, he will ultimately attract BAD things."

(page 13 of "How To Picture What You Want," by some old fool named Harold Sherman. He also wrote such blockbusters as "How To Foresee and Control Your Future," "How To Make ESP Work For You," and "You Can Communicate With the Unseen World.")


WTF. Just out of curiosity I checked Amazon to see what others might have said and surprise, surprise: the cheapest available copy of this out-of-print bit of pulp is $30 plus postage and that's for a beat-up, water-damaged copy. How can this be?


Ellen

Rhonda Byrne must have found the same copy in her attic a few months back!
$30.00 is twisted, and so in character with New Thought marketing schemes and ploys.

Hi

I am preparing a talk on quack cancer cures and psychic healing. Inevitable, I will be talking about the "phenomenon that is sweeping the nation" as Oprah said, namely the movie "The Secret".

In the movie "The Secret", Cathy Goodman who suffered breast cancer, claims that she healed herself by having happy thoughts within a period of 3 months "without radiation or chemo"! This affirmation of course is quite disturbing since it can drive women away from conventional therapy in favor of quack therapies and psychic healing.

However, she didn't mention "Surgery". Does anyone knows if she had surgery to remove the tumor or not? I couldn't find any info over the net.

Thanks.

Midonov

I don't know anything about that woman, but perhaps you can go to The Secret message boards and ask about her? www.thesecret.tv
Of course, one case is meaningless, as there are many spontaneous remissions of cancer, and The Secret won't talk about all the people who refuse medical treatment and then DIE an unnessary and painful death. They aren't going to talk about all the people who die.

But on a related note, I heard a TV show talking about how Oprah had on some woman who did not want surgery for her breast cancer, and was going to use Oprah's Secret to heal/kill herself.
Of course, probably Oprah's lawyers brought this to Oprah's attention, so Oprah supposedly brought her on the show, and if you read what Oprah said, it does sound like something written by a lawyer, to cover her ass in case someone tries to heal their cancer with Oprah's Secret, and then dies from not getting treatment.

Oprah talks real big when she is SELLING the Secret for several hours of TV, and then does a tiny little blurb to "clarify what she meant", to cover her butt legally.

Here is the link to what Oprah said to her, and the woman is NOT going to get medical treatment by the sounds of it. If she dies, no one is going to hear about it, but if she lives, it will be a MIRACLE due to the Secret.

Maybe a family who has someone who dies due to the Secret will sue them over it.

Letters to Oprah
[www2.oprah.com]

Quote
midonov123
Hi

I am preparing a talk on quack cancer cures and psychic healing. Inevitable, I will be talking about the "phenomenon that is sweeping the nation" as Oprah said, namely the movie "The Secret".

In the movie "The Secret", Cathy Goodman who suffered breast cancer, claims that she healed herself by having happy thoughts within a period of 3 months "without radiation or chemo"! This affirmation of course is quite disturbing since it can drive women away from conventional therapy in favor of quack therapies and psychic healing.

However, she didn't mention "Surgery". Does anyone knows if she had surgery to remove the tumor or not? I couldn't find any info over the net.

Thanks.

Midonov

[img:1f2d7a2e61]http://images.oprah.com/images/tows/200703/20070326/20070326_103_350x263.jpg[/img:1f2d7a2e61]

Here is the woman "Kim" who appears to have gone against the advice of 3 doctors, and is going to try to "heal herself" using the Secret. Who thinks that if she dies due to her not getting treatment, that Oprah will publicize that on her show? Not a chance, no one will ever hear about it.
But, if she gets a remission, they are going to have an entire show about it, and claim the Secret healed her.

See how it works?
If you die, no one hears about it, and its your own fault for being so negative.
If you live due to luck, or medical treatment, then the Secret did it.
Intellectually dishonest creeps.

Quote

After watching the DVD and seeing The Oprah Show about The Secret, Kim wrote to Oprah after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Three doctors told Kim she would have to have a partial radical mastectomy of the right breast and treatment. Kim writes that "after much thought, I have decided to heal myself."

http://www2.oprah.com/tows/slide/200703/20070326/slide_20070326_350_103.jhtml

AntiCult,

Thanks! The letter you are pointing me too only confirms my apprehensions. Oprah's Secret IS driving woman away from conventional therapies in favor of quackery. The letter to Oprah also says:

"Although Kim decided not to have surgery, chemotherapy or radiation treatments, she is working with a doctor who specializes in breast cancer to improve her nutrition and outlook while documenting her health along the way."

I would be very curious to now WHO that "nutrition" cancer specialist really is. Chances are he is a quack doctor who prescribes food supplements like so many others out there. We have our own in Canada, Dr. Hope, who runs a profit making company with the deceptive name of Canadian Cancer Research Group (CCRG) was exposed as quackery recently on our national TV ... see

[www.healthwatcher.net]

The problem is that many cancer patients don't make the difference between real and fake specialists and end up paying the price with their own life.

M

The following could be funny, if not for needless deaths of True Believers that declined real help.

For truth in humor:

[www.youtube.com]

Dr. Wolf wrote this on his webpage. He is the quantum physicist who was featured in The Secret.

Writing a Self-Help Book
By Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D.

For those of you who wish to market a new self help book on "the new Secret" of the "law of attraction" I hope you read these thoughts before you go ahead. There are many books out there, even more than I can imagine, written by people who have seen "the secret" or "the bleep" and think they have a unique insight to teach others techniques for personal growth.

I give a lot of seminars, and I personally don't teach people techniques for realizing their potentials and other such ideas as I have found that they simply don't work and are in their own way spiritual "diet books" which may work for a while but in the end fail. Spiritual techniques advocated by people who have never made a serious study of spiritual teaching or base their books on quantum physics principles without studying the subject at length and who really don't know enough to teach others techniques based upon these deeper "secrets" make me really wonder why such people write such books other than the obvious one to make some money. Does your book do other than that? Or are you just another person trying their own hand at writing another imitation "think and grow rich diet book"?

It appears to me that any author who does not understand the quantum field and is only quoting what has been written by others who do understand it and have written for others from the point of view of knowledge, will create a lot of noise and little light. Should your book appear to be written from such a point of view, I would rethink it. Come from your own experience. For example are you a financially successful business person? A book which explains how you made it would be good, but a book advocating spiritual quantum physics techniques based on the quantum field by someone who has no such background in quantum field theory rings a little false to me.

A quantum field consciousness-spirituality and growth book may sound wonderful but it is possibly misleading if you think that this field can give you anything you desire.. First of all the quantum field is not really an energy field and secondly consciousness can not exert a force. Nor is consciousness energy. Consciousness and energy are not the same things at all. Thirdly if everyone could just tune into this hypothetical field and just by doing so create anything they wanted to create, the world would be in a worst mess than it is right now.

For example suppose my neighbor wanted to tune in and create a fence between our two houses higher than my window or have a million dollars appear in his bank account without taking appropriate actions to do so. Innocent enough? But if his wish did create such a fence and the next instant a fence were to appear between our houses or workmen came out and erected one I would lose my view of the mountains. Then I would have to knock down his fence or make a fence low enough to see the mountains and my neighbor would be pissed off at me and on and on our little wish-duel would go. If he just wished for a million bucks to magically appear in his account without appropriate actions, maybe it would appear, but if it did in my account, I would suspect the bank had made a serious error and that someone else was out a million bucks. If I didn't care and only wanted my selfish desires satisfied, the world again would be worse off. Do you get my point here?

The real quantum field has such checks and balances and in fact when it creates from nothing a particle of matter it also creates a particle of antimatter and they cancel each other out in a very short instance. Hence just wishing for things from this field does not make it so.
Our universe works and things are always balancing each other to make it work--such are the laws of nature.

Hence in a world where "wishes were horses" would simply not work. Your creation could very well by an other's annihilation. Let me put this another way.

Reading a self-help book written by someone who really doesn't understand the nature of reality is like listening to someone play a violin who watched a great master play a violin in a silent movie and decided to play for real by just imitating what she or he saw. Undoubtedly it would sound like something near to what the master was playing, but it would give many false notes. Is your book ringing out false notes? Such books appear to me to be like that. Oh by the way, I get a lot of requests to blurb such books, nearly one a day so the field may be getting glutted. Fred Alan Wolf, PhD

Quote
Hope
Dr. Wolf wrote this on his webpage. He is the quantum physicist who was featured in The Secret.

Writing a Self-Help Book
By Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D.

For those of you who wish to market a new self help book on "the new Secret" of the "law of attraction" I hope you read these thoughts before you go ahead. There are many books out there, even more than I can imagine, written by people who have seen "the secret" or "the bleep" and think they have a unique insight to teach others techniques for personal growth.

I give a lot of seminars, and I personally don't teach people techniques for realizing their potentials and other such ideas as I have found that they simply don't work and are in their own way spiritual "diet books" which may work for a while but in the end fail. Spiritual techniques advocated by people who have never made a serious study of spiritual teaching or base their books on quantum physics principles without studying the subject at length and who really don't know enough to teach others techniques based upon these deeper "secrets" make me really wonder why such people write such books other than the obvious one to make some money. Does your book do other than that? Or are you just another person trying their own hand at writing another imitation "think and grow rich diet book"?

It appears to me that any author who does not understand the quantum field and is only quoting what has been written by others who do understand it and have written for others from the point of view of knowledge, will create a lot of noise and little light. Should your book appear to be written from such a point of view, I would rethink it. Come from your own experience. For example are you a financially successful business person? A book which explains how you made it would be good, but a book advocating spiritual quantum physics techniques based on the quantum field by someone who has no such background in quantum field theory rings a little false to me.

A quantum field consciousness-spirituality and growth book may sound wonderful but it is possibly misleading if you think that this field can give you anything you desire.. First of all the quantum field is not really an energy field and secondly consciousness can not exert a force. Nor is consciousness energy. Consciousness and energy are not the same things at all. Thirdly if everyone could just tune into this hypothetical field and just by doing so create anything they wanted to create, the world would be in a worst mess than it is right now.

For example suppose my neighbor wanted to tune in and create a fence between our two houses higher than my window or have a million dollars appear in his bank account without taking appropriate actions to do so. Innocent enough? But if his wish did create such a fence and the next instant a fence were to appear between our houses or workmen came out and erected one I would lose my view of the mountains. Then I would have to knock down his fence or make a fence low enough to see the mountains and my neighbor would be pissed off at me and on and on our little wish-duel would go. If he just wished for a million bucks to magically appear in his account without appropriate actions, maybe it would appear, but if it did in my account, I would suspect the bank had made a serious error and that someone else was out a million bucks. If I didn't care and only wanted my selfish desires satisfied, the world again would be worse off. Do you get my point here?

The real quantum field has such checks and balances and in fact when it creates from nothing a particle of matter it also creates a particle of antimatter and they cancel each other out in a very short instance. Hence just wishing for things from this field does not make it so.
Our universe works and things are always balancing each other to make it work--such are the laws of nature.

Hence in a world where "wishes were horses" would simply not work. Your creation could very well by an other's annihilation. Let me put this another way.

Reading a self-help book written by someone who really doesn't understand the nature of reality is like listening to someone play a violin who watched a great master play a violin in a silent movie and decided to play for real by just imitating what she or he saw. Undoubtedly it would sound like something near to what the master was playing, but it would give many false notes. Is your book ringing out false notes? Such books appear to me to be like that. Oh by the way, I get a lot of requests to blurb such books, nearly one a day so the field may be getting glutted. Fred Alan Wolf, PhD

Here's a famous quote from Richard Feynman (Nobel prize in physics)

“Anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics is either lying or crazy ”

I wonder where Fred Alan Wolf stands?

here's something that you might find interesting: so oprah wants everyone to believe that your thoughts create reality, right? has anybody noticed what her new book club selection is? Cormac Mccarthy's latest novel, "the Road".

"the Road" is a post-apocalyptic story about a father and son trying to survive nuclear winter. all life on earth, except for human beings, who have mostly turned cannibal, is extinct. So, ok, oprah tells her legions of disciples in february that "your thoughts create your reality!" now in april, she tells her followers to read -and think about- nuclear annihilation.

what does this tell us about how deeply the big o believes in the shite she sells?

oh, and by the way, this is no reflection on Mccarthy's novel, a great book IMHO. much better than "the Secret".

That is the most cogent thing I have ever seen Fred Alan Wolfe say. I sadly had the displeasure of listening to an audiobook of him called "Dr. Quantum" and it was really weird.
He was talking about Shaman's, erections, and just rambling on, the guy semi-coherent at best.
Even the Amazon reviews are terrible.
"A Puerile Pseudo-Scientists Rants for 8 hours"
"QUANTUM PHYSUCKS"
"Insufferable"
[www.amazon.com]

It seems that Fred Wolfe is trying to protect his own turf. He is essentially saying, come to HIM to learn about QM and Consciousness, as he sells books, and seminars, talks, etc.

Fred Wolfe is completely without any credibility in the world of real physics.
But in the New Age area, he is treated like a Guru, people listen to him, and he makes a ton of money for blabbing.
Fred Wolfe is not a legit thinker in this area, he is doing Quantum Quackery, and Quantum Mysticism.

Too bad Richard Feynman was not alive so he could speak out against all of this stuff. Basically, they use the word "Quantum Mechanics" to stand for "something we don't understand but use to prove that what we say is true".
Its replaced the word "God" for them. Meaningless.
But 99% of people are not going to spend years studying legit technical writings about this stuff.

That's where Fred Wolfe wants to sell you his products.

Quantum Quackery
[www.csicop.org]