The Secret

[Blackgold]

I am fresh from reading a magnificent and possibly life transforming book; The Secret by Rhonda Bryne!

Wow...   The author sums up teachings from various faiths, teachers, life coaches, businesspersons and religions and came up with: everything in life and the universe is governed by the law of attraction.... as such where ever we are right now is as a result of our thought processes, and we can re-create our present and future using the same processes.

sooooooo..... am wondering did I get HIV from an unconscious or conscious obsession with the condition, and can I 'unget' my status? try not to laugh cos am serious.

Anyway its a very good book and I would like to reccommend you all read it, it could change your life even if it doesnt change my HIV status

On th Ladies forum I passed a comment I will like to rescind; I said straight guys were basically losers (from my personal experience). 'The secret' makes me understand that if I have so far experienced 'losers' then my tot process was simply bearing fruit, So from now I have to build a new pic in my mind of guys being wonderful, patient, understanding, generous, hardworking and good looking, then I have to believe and expect this pic, then and only then will I get such men in my life

  it feels strange to think that my tots have brought me in contact with gay men (all I have met so far!) who have all the attributes listed above, or are they just in touch with their femininity? making gals the better sex?

Do we really get what our minds conjure? if so....,happiness, money, good health, love and family, career success, (the list is unending) are all mine cos am visualizing them right now as the book says.

What a book!!!


 

[skeebo1969]

   I like your spirit and welcome to the forums!

[sharkdiver]

for me the mention of this  book brings up one name in particular

Louise Hay.     

   

[sharkdiver]

  I believe a discussion was started not long ago about the author's new   "book' The Power
http://forums.poz.com/index.php?topic=34073.msg422414#msg422414

   Attitude changes are healthy but I tend to believe most "self-help" gurus are out for profit

[newby05]

Unbelievable! I have always wondered if things happen to us that we obsess about. I had a strange obsession with HIV long before I ever got it myself.  Many years ago in college, a student who had just tested poz spoke to a class I was in. The obsession began.

[Miss Philicia]

Unbelievable! I have always wondered if things happen to us that we obsess about. I had a strange obsession with HIV long before I ever got it myself.  Many years ago in college, a student who had just tested poz spoke to a class I was in. The obsession began.

Do you think that was very healthy?  If not, what did you do to alleviate it?

[OneTampa]

I think that we tend to get involuntary flashes of events to come such as seeing or hearing from someone after years just at the time the person comes to mind with no other preparation or prompting, or thinking/writing a turn of phrase that is quite far removed and not related to anything you're involved with at the time and then rather immediately reading or hearing it from another unlikely source.  Our responses usually are  "Wow!  I just thought about that!" or "I was just thinking about you and how I haven't heard from you in years!"

I don't think that has to do with any "special powers" but I've experienced it and I am sure many of you have as well.

[Blackgold]

Unbelievable! I have always wondered if things happen to us that we obsess about. I had a strange obsession with HIV long before I ever got it myself.  Many years ago in college, a student who had just tested poz spoke to a class I was in. The obsession began.

Newby05, I do kinda agree, to a large extent that obsessions do manifest. I did obsess about HIV, alot!, My undergraduate major was in parasitic and infectious diseases, emphasis on HIV and malaria co-infection and immune response which ended up as my B.Sc thesis Got me an A⁺. Although am sure I wrote trash but cos it was all relatively new, it was the 'in thing' to study.
I later knowingly and with all available information, married HIV himself and so its only fitting that I end up being positive! talk about obsession!!!

I sure wish I could obsess about being negative now

[wtfimpoz]

Unbelievable! I have always wondered if things happen to us that we obsess about. I had a strange obsession with HIV long before I ever got it myself.  Many years ago in college, a student who had just tested poz spoke to a class I was in. The obsession began.

I had an "unhealthy obsession" with it too, and have wondered the same thing.  Most gay men have an unhealthy obsession with HIV.  Unless you went bugchasing to ease your preoccupation, you didn't bring it on yourself by worrying.  I think its more unhealthy to look back with a delusion of control and think you brought it on yourself because of your unhealthy obsession than the original fear ever was.  The delusion of control creates feelings of guilt and invalidates your sense of entitlement to good medical care and treatment by others.  It compromises your understanding that "this is just a virus" which could literally happen to anyone who is sexually active.  Finally, think of the hundreds of thousands who contracted HIV with no forewarning or understanding of how to protect themselves.  Do you think they had an "unhealthy obsession"?  Something which is sorely missing from everyone's collective understanding of HIV is the notion that "shi*t happens".

[mecch]

May I suggest to you a companion volume to The Secret:

http://www.amazon.com/Illness-Metaphor-AIDS-Its-Metaphors/dp/0312420137


Sontag, Susan
AIDS and Its Metaphors 1989
Genre    Treatise (95 pp.)

Summary   
This essay was written ten years after the author's Illness as Metaphor (see this database). Sontag begins by explaining the stimulus for her earlier essay: her own experience as a cancer patient. During that time, she discovered that cultural myths about cancer tended to isolate and estrange cancer patients. They suffered needlessly because of "meaning" attributed to their illness by society. A decade later, Sontag observes that attitudes about cancer have become more open and truthful. However, a new illness (AIDS) has arisen to carry forward the metaphorical banner.

AIDS brings together two powerful metaphors about illness. First, AIDS develops further the theme (seen earlier in cancer) of disease as invader: the enemy invades and destroys you from within. Thus, AIDS strengthens the use of military metaphors in medicine. The war against cancer is reincarnated as a war against AIDS. Secondly, because AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease, it also evokes the theme of plague-as-punishment.

[Miss Philicia]

How would Heidegger deal with HIV?  That's all I want to know.

[Joe K]

Wow...   The author sums up teachings from various faiths, teachers, life coaches, businesspersons and religions and came up with: everything in life and the universe is governed by the law of attraction.... as such where ever we are right now is as a result of our thought processes, and we can re-create our present and future using the same processes.

What I find most unsettling about books like these, is they essentially lay all the blame, for virtually everything on how you think? To suggest to someone, that their disease is a direct result of their not thinking "happy thoughts" is possibly the most depraved thing you could do to person. To suggest that you can instantly change your lot in life, by altering your thought patterns, is ludicrous and patently false. In a way, books like these are a condensed religion between two covers. They offer the path to salvation, one that cannot work and then blame the believer when that path fails. Having looked at some of her other work, this is just another rehash, repackaged to keep those dollars flowing.

[BT65]

for me the mention of this  book brings up one name in particular

Louise Hay.     

   

Yes, I so remember reading her in like 1990.  And Bernie Seagel, who is actually a medical doctor.   But uses a lot of visualization stuff.  I actually went to one of his workshops.  Waste of time.  I'm not saying to not think any good thoughts, but to claim that what you think about actually dictates what happens, well, I don't buy it.  Otherwise, I would have been very wealthy a long time ago.

I mean, I believe that if you think negative all the time, you won't be very happy.  But, to think that thoughts actually cause life events around a person, just isn't washing.

[GSOgymrat]

There is a difference between having a positive attitude towards your circumstances and believing your circumstances are a direct result of your attitude. I am a big believer in in re-framing your perceptions, looking for positive exceptions, etc. but I believe wishing for things, particularly material possessions, without setting goals and taking action is a waste of time.

[mecch]

To suggest to someone, that their disease is a direct result of their not thinking "happy thoughts" is possibly the most depraved thing you could do to person.

Which, Heidegger snark aside, is exactly Sontag's point about AIDS/HIV -- and she wrote it in the midst of the worst, darkest days of the epidemic, but the message rings true today, 20 years later.

[edfu]

Some much-needed rationality on the topic of Rhonda Byrne, published in The New Yorker last month:


http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/09/13/100913crat_atlarge_sanneh?currentPage=all

[Dachshund]

It's a fucking virus, not a self fulfilling prophecy. I've never encountered so much mumbo-jumbo about a disease.

[jcelvis]

There is a difference between having a positive attitude towards your circumstances and believing your circumstances are a direct result of your attitude. I am a big believer in in re-framing your perceptions, looking for positive exceptions, etc. but I believe wishing for things, particularly material possessions, without setting goals and taking action is a waste of time.

Actually that's the underlying message in the secret is that thinking about something causes you to set your actions to achieving your goals, and you should look at mental imagery theories in  sports psychology books it discusses the same phenomenon.

For one example, sports psychologist inform athletes to think about what there supposed to do. I use a volleyball imagery for example. In volleyball you're supposed to bend at the needs and keep your arms straight. Most new people swing at ball, sending the balls in all kinds of directions.  If you continue to tell yourself "don't swing your arms" you'll continue to swing your arms, the human brain doesn't register the word "don't" because it's abstract, but it understands swing your arms because it has a concrete associate. The individual should tell themselves to bend at the needs.

The secret postulates that the items you focus on become your goals, and your brains causes you in act in way that will lead you to that past.

As cooky as it sounds many of our cliche words of wisdom such as "fake it till you make it", or "dress for the job you want, not the job you have" are attached to this theory.

[jcelvis]

What I find most unsettling about books like these, is they essentially lay all the blame, for virtually everything on how you think? To suggest to someone, that their disease is a direct result of their not thinking "happy thoughts" is possibly the most depraved thing you could do to person. To suggest that you can instantly change your lot in life, by altering your thought patterns, is ludicrous and patently false. In a way, books like these are a condensed religion between two covers. They offer the path to salvation, one that cannot work and then blame the believer when that path fails. Having looked at some of her other work, this is just another rehash, repackaged to keep those dollars flowing.

Actually that's not true at all, if you do change your thought patterns you can change the path, it's why sports psychologist make LOTS of money, and no one ever said it happens instantly, and although the secret is cooky new age non scientific research it's holds some truth.

People make there living on encouraging people to think differently to achieve goals.

You may not want to accept it, but we are bound by the limitations of our thought. What do you think AA is?

[tednlou2]

So people in chronic poverty here and around the world should just think more good thoughts?  People being bullied or molested should just think more good thoughts?  If you already have a good education, a support system, and people willing to give you a break, then I can totally see how thinking better thoughts may help you achieve the goals you set for yourself.  If you've grown up in poverty with no support system, then I don't believe thinking good thoughts is going to solve your problems.  It reminds of people who say they made it all on their own.  For some, this is probably true.  For most, they had supportive parents, good role models, a good or decent education, access to higher education, parents who could help them out financially, etc.  If you grew up without these things, then I suppose it wouldn't hurt to think good thoughts.  However, the cards are really stacked against you.

Don't get me wrong, I totally believe in having a positive attitude.  I just believe getting a good job or finding a mate takes much more than that. 

[Lis]

the only thing you willed yourself into was UN protected sex... but yes  self fullfilling prophecy's do happen

[GSOgymrat]

THE SECRET OF SUCCESS
What is The Secret? Pretend you've already achieved it- Then offer to sell The Secret to others.

[Matty the Damned]

Rhonda Byrne (as others note -- mad props to Edfu and Sharkie for their timely linkages) is an appalling charlatan. She ranks up there with Ken Hamm and the red back spider as one of Australia's nastier exports.

Her stuff is utter shite. And (with no disrespect to the OP) anyone who falls for that sort of artificially flavoured, Chopra-esque rot should check themselves into one of those cult deprogramming centres just in case.

MtD

[mecch]

The secret postulates that the items you focus on become your goals, and your brains causes you in act in way that will lead you to that past.

As cooky as it sounds many of our cliche words of wisdom such as "fake it till you make it", or "dress for the job you want, not the job you have" are attached to this theory.

I agree these are good ways to succeed.
 However - life puts lemons in your path so you still have to make lemonade with them, and not think you are somehow responsible for the challenges and roadblocks - a lot of them are totally out of a person's control.  Such as viruses, and accidents, history and events, and the body and brain you are born with, the class you are born in, the country you live in, your family and friends and societies challenges you have to deal with, and so on and so on.

For example, one of the most challenging things about being born American is the contradictory belief that its the land of opportunity and anyone can make it via personal initiative and hard work. Which slams up against a pretty strong class system.  Many systems rigged for the benefit of the rich and powerful.  So you have a good percentage of people against a social safety net - as if being poor, or sick, or disabled is some sort of crime or sign that someone deserves a hellish life because they "couldn't make it".

Oprah touts "the secret" and she is a pretty wonderful symbol of the American Dream but she might think that she's solely responsible for it. Rather than being an accident, a rare exception.  Afterall, she never got busted for using crack.  That probably would have destroyed her assent to the top.  Oprah doesn't often take a really political analysis or socio-economic analysis to "problems" and thats one of the main complaints against "personal empowerment" "systems" like The Secret.

[camille07]

Some much-needed rationality on the topic of Rhonda Byrne, published in The New Yorker last month:


http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/09/13/100913crat_atlarge_sanneh?currentPage=all

Great article that breaks down a very broad exposé of the inception and authors procuring this type of thinking.  Originally rooted in many of the secret societies of the middle ages to the early 20th century, it extrapolates the flaws of this type of thinking, especially for those experiencing a crisis, natural in origin.

 

May I suggest to you a companion volume to The Secret:

http://www.amazon.com/Illness-Metaphor-AIDS-Its-Metaphors/dp/0312420137


Sontag, Susan
AIDS and Its Metaphors 1989
Genre    Treatise (95 pp.)

Summary   
This essay was written ten years after the author's Illness as Metaphor (see this database). Sontag begins by explaining the stimulus for her earlier essay: her own experience as a cancer patient. During that time, she discovered that cultural myths about cancer tended to isolate and estrange cancer patients. They suffered needlessly because of "meaning" attributed to their illness by society. A decade later, Sontag observes that attitudes about cancer have become more open and truthful. However, a new illness (AIDS) has arisen to carry forward the metaphorical banner.

AIDS brings together two powerful metaphors about illness. First, AIDS develops further the theme (seen earlier in cancer) of disease as invader: the enemy invades and destroys you from within. Thus, AIDS strengthens the use of military metaphors in medicine. The war against cancer is reincarnated as a war against AIDS. Secondly, because AIDS is a sexually transmitted disease, it also evokes the theme of plague-as-punishment.

I bought this back in 1991, about 15 years before I was diagnosed. I thought it was interesting, especially since we were in Dessert Storm, and the metaphor of illmess as a war.  Then I reread it about 2 years ago.  Wow, talk about a paradigm shift. 

[tommy246]

mental

[jcelvis]

So people in chronic poverty here and around the world should just think more good thoughts?  People being bullied or molested should just think more good thoughts?  If you already have a good education, a support system, and people willing to give you a break, then I can totally see how thinking better thoughts may help you achieve the goals you set for yourself.  If you've grown up in poverty with no support system, then I don't believe thinking good thoughts is going to solve your problems.  It reminds of people who say they made it all on their own.  For some, this is probably true.  For most, they had supportive parents, good role models, a good or decent education, access to higher education, parents who could help them out financially, etc.  If you grew up without these things, then I suppose it wouldn't hurt to think good thoughts.  However, the cards are really stacked against you.

Don't get me wrong, I totally believe in having a positive attitude.  I just believe getting a good job or finding a mate takes much more than that. 

You don't even understand the process. It's not just just thinking good thoughts to achieve what you want, it's about shifting your perception of reality, and moving away from your social feedback loop which prevents you from moving forward.


"The Secret" is new age mumbo-jumbo, that takes certain scientific ideas and tries to make them spiritual. Meech, I'll agree with you, not everything is in the realm of an individuals control, which is what makes a good portion of "the secret" cooky, however the idea that a shift in perception can change the output as been looked at over several social science disciplines.

There the social construct of reality, international view of communication, and mental imagery (sport psych), and ALL kinds of theories in cognitive psych.


There are all kinds of theories out there that state our reality is constructed by our social environment, and we are stuck in that loop unless we can actively remove ourselves from our participating in it.

[BT65]

You may not want to accept it, but we are bound by the limitations of our thought. What do you think AA is?

There is a lot of soul-searching in AA, and a lot of work on oneself, and one's actions.  People don't just sit around going "I wish I wouldn't drink, I wish I wouldn't drink."  If someone feels the urge to drink, they call someone else in the program, and find out how not to act on that desire.  But, it isn't sitting around, thinking "pretty" thoughts.  If that were the case, there would be a lot more sober alcoholics, and clean addicts.   And even though I only have 5 years continuous clean time, I've been going to meetings since 1989, so you can't change my mind on this. 

It's a mute point, really.  Whoever wants to believe life's course is determined by thinking will believe it, until they find out it's not that easy.