Sunday, May 4, 2008

Laws of Attraction

Last year, I decided to unhinge my analytical mind and read "The Secret", Rhonda Byrnes' book that discusses this "secret" she had discovered at a terribly low point in her life. Supposedly, all the learned people of the past knew the secret...Michelangelo, Einstein, DaVinci...even Jesus.

What was "The Secret"? It was basically the Law Of Attraction. And, according to Byrnes, it totally turned her life around.

Thoughts are energy, and what you concentrate on in your life, you bring into your life. But, the hook is, that goes for negative as well as positive.

Three-thousand people all had negative, life-ending thoughts on 9-11? Sorry, can't buy that one. Won't buy it. More died in a cyclone that hit Myanmar lyesterday. Were they sitting around, worried about the weather before the cyclone hit? My mom feared cancer all her life. It was her obsessive-compulsive niche. Did her thoughts alter her body on a biological level where one day her cells mutated, overran her system and killed her?

I do agree if a person wakes up every morning with anticipation in their heart instead of dread, they may see the world around them in a different light. It's your typical "feel good" mentality. But the idea that if something bad happened to me or someone I loved, I somehow was responsible for that malady just because a thought crossed my mind and I held on to it?

Or to put it in other words...I would have "pulled it in". And, where else have I heard that, the concept that if someone had a headache, or that they failed in business, or that life in general just wasn't going right, they were responsible?

Scientology.

A critic I have mentioned before in my blogs, Tory Christman, while in Scientology was dealing with epilepsy. She began to suffer from worsening seizures, since she was not medicated, as per the churches' beliefs. What was she told by "church"?

You pulled it in. Make it go right. (Go in for more auditing, give us more money). She finally was able to petition the church to allow her to take medication for the seizures, luckily, since anti-seizure medications obviously does not fall under the "mind-altering" category'. But the belief was still there. If there is something wrong with your life, no matter what, it's your fault.

"The Secret" was really big when it hit the media a few years ago...probably like "Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health" was when it was first released many years ago before it morphed into the "church" of Scientology we have today. Now, what would have happened if Rhonda Byrnes woke up one morning and decided, "Hmmm...this would make for a good religion..."?

I mean, what's stopping her? Maybe knowing that a self-help concept does not a religion make.

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