Thanks. It does make me feel better. but i still feel that i should have known better. oh well, not gonna happen again!!! hahaha no seriously, thanks for your reply.

the reason I thought about it maybe being connected to Scientology, was the fact that my husband said that it sounded like Scientology. He had a brush with them a while back. He lost an old girlfriend to them. she lived in Chile, and after having joined for one year, they moved her to the U.S. She had basically disappeared for an other year, then one day out of the blue, she phoned him (in Chile) and asked him if he wanted to marry her, but he'd have to join and move to the U.S. too. obviously he thuoght this was really strange, said no and never heard from her again. a few months after that, my husband heard from her brother, that she had married someone from Scientology. and she has been in with them I guess now for about 7 years. poor girl.

Any ways I am glad I found this web site. keep up the good work!

Anticult, thank you for posting the antisecret columns. They are excellent and I'm going to pass them on to my friend who implied, after watching Oprah, that I had attracted, with my negative thinking, harrassment at the airport. Thing is, I was feeling really good that day.

"I attract to me that which occurs" (as I was taught in CONtext Ass.) makes the whole world all about ME ME ME; things outside myself do not factor into the events in my life, and I have total control over the whole world.

THIS IS SOOOOOOOOOOO F-ING NUTTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been getting rid of some of my STOOPID books and have mixed feelings about putting them back into circulation. Some have gone into the recycle bin and some tapes into the garbage.

I spent thou$and$ too. :roll:

Hey, I like that...The Antisecret...

-I have some close work friends who are into The Secret, they are the ones who told me about it. To be honest, I will not get into it with them much. If they ask, I will tell them its called "New Thought" and what my basic views are. But personally I try to keep it very civil, as people can get very offended with religious stuff like this.

-The ME ME ME is basically Solipsism, which literally is insane.

-I would say that we CAN create our own hassles, etc, at the airport. One time years ago, I got impatient with a border guard and told him he was going to make me miss my plane. He then took my luggagesaside, and went 10x slower. So yes, if we act like jerks to other people, they will often act like jerks back to us. But that is not metaphysical, just normal human behavior.

but these days, anyone can get treated like a terrorist at an airport...they train those security guys to intimidate people and push them off balance.

-as far as the books, I agree if the book is really dangerous, then recycle it. But on the other hand, there are infinite books out there already, and getting some money back, feels really good. 90% of people don't read the books anyway...how many books did we buy that we never read? Lots!

-we all spent a fortune on this tripe, that is why so many get rich from it. And we are the skeptical ones, think of the True Believers...

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skeptic
Anticult, thank you for posting the antisecret columns. They are excellent and I'm going to pass them on to my friend who implied, after watching Oprah, that I had attracted, with my negative thinking, harrassment at the airport. Thing is, I was feeling really good that day.

"I attract to me that which occurs" (as I was taught in CONtext Ass.) makes the whole world all about ME ME ME; things outside myself do not factor into the events in my life, and I have total control over the whole world.

THIS IS SOOOOOOOOOOO F-ING NUTTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been getting rid of some of my STOOPID books and have mixed feelings about putting them back into circulation. Some have gone into the recycle bin and some tapes into the garbage.

I spent thou$and$ too. :roll:

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The Anticult
90% of people don't read the books anyway...how many books did we buy that we never read? Lots!

Haha! Very true, good point!!!

And sometimes you get picked out at the airport even though you were doing nothing to "attract" it and were feeling in a good mood. That's just life, and things actually do happen outside of my control (that's another "secret"). I know for some it's hard to believe, but after trying to apply magical thinking for about a decade I have now come to see things in a different way. Shit happens that I don't "create".

Oprah has scheduled another show about The Secret, this Friday Feb 16.
It sounds like its going to be more propaganda.

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One week later…the reaction to The Secret! Your emails poured in and Oprah.com went off the charts! The secret to making more money, losing weight, falling in love, landing your dream job…and you want more! The questions, the successes and the lives changed. Stories you have to hear! A follow-up to the show everybody is talking about! Talk about this show.

You know, Oprah does a lot of good charitable work, and all that. But she also serves as the worlds biggest platform for various cult-related promotions, and scams.

On Thursday Feb 15, she is giving a platform to some basic "Cold Reading" scam artists like John Edward.

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They say they talk to the dead...the rock star of psychics John Edward. And, the real-life psychic behind the hit show Medium. How she sees through the eyes of a killer. See for yourself and then make up your mind. Share your thoughts.

Oprah must believe in all this crud.
Of course, it also gets great ratings. Is it Sweeps week, or something?
I guess no one ever went broke pandering to the lowest common denominator and wishful thinking of the mass public.

I think you guys are onto 'The Secret'! :lol:

Look on the bright side: if you look at yourself 10+ years ago and you had the means to manifest wealth via something like The Secret, you probably would have just bought more New Agey books ...

The moral of the story: why is the magic of The Secret believed by idiots? Yeah, give those fools money so they can do equally stupid things with it!

Maybe it's like The Little Red Train - I think I can, I think I can ...

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skeptic

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The Anticult
90% of people don't read the books anyway...how many books did we buy that we never read? Lots!

Haha! Very true, good point!!!

Sad but true! I went to an Abraham-Hicks/LoA meeting in my town and was shocked at the number of people there who were whining about how they hate to read, and how the A-H book, "Ask and it Shall Be Given" is "really thick", and "is there an easier way to get the information"?

Is it any wonder that the LoA teachings are getting twisted around and oversimplified?

Well, now sadly, they can watch the DVD 62 times, and voluntarily brainwash themselves with sales-propaganda.

Its a good point that the idea of "man is what he believes" is being twisted and over-simplified, simply to market and sell product.

Anton Chekhov said "Man is what he believes".
Shakespeare said...the fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves.
The core of CBT is about modifying our destructive Beliefs.

so there is a grain of wisdom and truth there, that gets perverted into...I CAN HAVE EXPENSIVE GOLD NECKLASSES GIVEN TO ME BY PRINCE CHARMING, AND DRIVE A BIG CAR AND POLLUTE THE EARTH AND NOT GIVE A SHIT, AND IT CAN ALL COME TO BE BY MIND MAGIC.
Rhonda Byrne is really pandering to humans most base instincts, I guess that's why she is selling so much stuff!
She studied commercials for many years, so she knows how to sell junk.

Can anyone imagine an Olympic Athlete "attracting" a Gold-medal? That ain't how it works. They all train all day everyday, work hard, give up a normal life. They all Visualize all the time, as they are taught this in Sport Psychology.
And the reality is that literally ALL of them fail in their objective, most get injured, or quit, or get knocked out, except for ONE person every four years!
So that is not the Law Of Attraction. That sounds like Darwinian Natural Selection, if anything! Not very pretty.

So The Secret is a ludicrous pseudo-philosophy, that does not take into count the realities of life, which are not always so rosey. It also conditions people to avoid the kind of work that is needed to make things happen in this world.

Us humans can be very lazy, and hope that a lottery ticket is going to "change our life". And The Secret is marketed as the worlds biggest lottery ticket.

Here are Rhonda Byne's Advertising claims from her website. Its flat-out false advertising 101, and the reality is that most people fall for it, hook, line and sinker.

-A New Era For Humankind [/color:5bf6d4d692]

-This is The Secret to everything - the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted.[/color:5bf6d4d692]

-In this astonishing program are ALL the resources you will ever need to understand and live The Secret.[/color:5bf6d4d692] (then why are they selling so many other products?).

-For the first time in history, the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it... Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein.[/color:5bf6d4d692]

Its all hyperbole, exaggeration, and outright lies. Einstein had nothing to do with this type of gibberish. She is just using those names as "claims to authority" and its convenient they are all dead, so no one can ask them about it! This Rhonda Byrne is a real piece of work.

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Gulab Jamon

Sad but true! I went to an Abraham-Hicks/LoA meeting in my town and was shocked at the number of people there who were whining about how they hate to read, and how the A-H book, "Ask and it Shall Be Given" is "really thick", and "is there an easier way to get the information"?

Is it any wonder that the LoA teachings are getting twisted around and oversimplified?

The hook is perhaps the truth in these types of things. Our thoughts are powerful. A positive outlook is helpful. The part that troubles me is the idea that it is [u:cc48eec586]all[/u:cc48eec586] under our control.

This philosophy is becoming increasingly popular at a time when the world situation [i:cc48eec586]is[/i:cc48eec586] frightening. It comes when the distribution of wealth in the U.S. has shifted dramatically over the past two decades towards concentration at the top. People may be feeling increasingly powerless to obtain The American Dream. And rightly so.

"The Abundance Course" by Larry Crane of The Release Technique says that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because the rich don't have the sense of "lack" of money. It's just that simple.

Actually, I have seen people go through large sums of money rather quickly because they felt so abundant that they didn't manage it wisely. I have also known wealthy people who didn't feel wealthy. To the extent that the rich get richer I suspect it is primarily because they have sufficient capital to invest and reinvest. Dividends and capital gains are taxed at a lower rate than earned income. Inherited money gives people a huge advantage.

Just by being born in the USA I have greater material wealth than much of the world. In a world where 40,000 people die every day because they don't have clean water to drink and enough food to eat, I would be ashamed to tell them it is because they attracted this to themselves. It's not a level playing field folks.

Attitude does make a difference in playing the hand you are dealt. Oprah herself is a good example of this. Good for her! We do have a lot of control over how we handle what life hands us. And [i:cc48eec586]sometimes[/i:cc48eec586] we do create bad situations for ourselves. It's true. But it's only part of the truth.

P.S. If you've got some bad "self-help" books, Please don't trade them in and pass along bad advice to other people. I bought "What the Bleep . . ." because I kept hearing how great it was. It was crap of course. I usually trade in DVD's I don't want, but I threw that one in the trash.

I do agree that really bad books should be thrown away.

What The Bleep was a horror movie, I got it from the library, and it was one of the worse movies I have ever seen, even the acting was horrible, never mind the new-age nonsense.

But I am just saying, that trading in a number of old junky books, can actually help regain some self-esteem for having been duped, and then getting some money back.
Of course, some other sucker is going to buy the book, but at least the only person making money is the used-book store owner, which is ok, as used bookstores are a good thing.
I figure the people will get the book anyway, so I might as well get some money back!
And the scammer author doesn't get paid, as this person is buying a used book, instead of a new one.

That's my view. If the book is not too evil, then getting some $ back can be helpful.

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question lady

P.S. If you've got some bad "self-help" books, Please don't trade them in and pass along bad advice to other people. I bought "What the Bleep . . ." because I kept hearing how great it was. It was crap of course. I usually trade in DVD's I don't want, but I threw that one in the trash.