"The Secret" is a Scam

Haha. I had a coworker recommend this book to me. She said it would "change my life".

I may read it just to see what the hype is all about.

haha, what am i thinking. I already know it's bs. I have a million other books to read first!!!


I'll stop now

Anyone with a basic concept of rationality and science knows its bogus, its absurd to see charlatans making so much money from the ignorant and gullible.

I dont think it is all that bad. People think in terms of mass psychology and the prevailing idea of society tends to come through. Even if it offers this then it isnt all that bad. The world needs a little direction.

Wizkid007 wrote:I dont think it is all that bad. People think in terms of mass psychology and the prevailing idea of society tends to come through. Even if it offers this then it isnt all that bad. The world needs a little direction.

Does the world need a direction based on a lie? I don't think so. Do you really think that telling people that positive thoughts alone can effect the world and universe around you and bring you your desires? (Not in the ordinary sense of having positive thoughts and striving towards a goal) but that it actually works as some kind of universal magnet for good things?

Surely such deception cannot be for the benefit of society. I've never seen so much support for consciously decieving the public as I have on psychology forums. What is with that!?

I can't even express how insane it is that people believe it and that people who don't believe it support it. Real nice suggesting that 'the power of thought can cure fatal illness'.

I have an idea instead of saying a direction is good for people and pointing to X deception, why don't we suggest that people are better off given the education to critically think evaluate information. Because i'm pretty sure if that was the case people would be able to make better decisions and choices in their lives concerning their own self-interest. BY definition they would be able to best attain their goals.

I volunteer at a partial care and group therapy center.
A lot of clients at the centre are quite impressed with this book / DVD.
actually, we had a discussion about this today and someone said that if one is careful enuf to get the meaning right , it is a great self -help tool.
the client said that, she understood that the author/s wasnot trying to claim that good things happened just out of good thougths , its purely an inspiration to look in the right direction and have the right attitude.

i havent read the book or seen the DVD. just some hear say.
what i want to know is, if this is really a scam, i'd want to know more. So, that i can warn people against using it or atleast show them the other side.
just cos, lot of people at our centre are using it.
[to clear things a bit, its not recommemded at our centre, its just tht the clients spoke about it among themselves..]

The Secret's David Schirmer exposed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icklckUsOGM

The Secret's David Schirmer exposed part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8roWvmwuu7w


"...the marketing idea behind it -- the enlisting of that dream team, in what is essentially a massive, cross-promotional pyramid scheme -- is brilliant"
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/0 ... ex_np.html


And another article, interesting comments / discussion thread at the bottom:
http://diannesylvan.typepad.com/dancing ... ired_.html

i dont think the secret is a scam.. ive applied it in my own life and its made the world of difference.. the problem i think is that, if you seeing the secret as a solution to your problems, its not.. its just a bit of consciousness that you can use to get more conscious about your life.. if you haven't....everything they talk about in the secret is true, but if you aren't matched up with yourself spiritually and if you think everything is about positive thoughts.. you are wrong, its much deeper than that, the secret opens you to a concept but its goes much deeper than that.

We have already had this discussion before!! but what the hell lol!!
The organisation of the secret could well be a scam, it is a buisness proclaiming they have all the answers.

The main problem is that the thing they preached is not actually a secret it is fairly common knowlege. If you concentrate on your goals and apply you concentration and focus you can achieve alot!!

The problem comes where they preach that all you need to do is project your positivitiy and your wish to the universe and it is given, this is really bad because it implies that all you need to do to get your goal is to wish for it.

For example, if I wanted to become a rich buisness man and I just basically sat in my armchair projecting my wish to the universe. Will I become rich? Will I hell. I would have to get out of my chair and do something that will make me rich.

The thing that is useful is by telling you to focus on your goals and affirm a positive outlook on your goal. With out this your goal seems unreachable and you will never reach it. however the same goes for if you just sit in your chair wishing it isn't going to help you.

Apply a positive approach and focus on your goal and have the get up and go attitude along with actually getting up and go and you can achieve anything.

It is no secret, its bloody common sense for god sake!!

if it was such common sense, everyone would be applying it isn't it?

what interests me most is that when a tool comes along to help ppl, how so many ppl want to put it down..

i think the secret is a great tool if you know how to use it.. in the secret they are quite that is isn't all just about goals. however ppl's filters filter that information out..

its all about perception.

No, it's all about how people take advantage of others... which personally I am not a fan off.

Please read http://blog.hyperdeathbabies.com/religion/the-secret-scam/


Simply put: The Law of Attraction is just another marketing scam. Its a self-help scam. Call it what you will, it is most obviously a scam. It makes people feel good about themselves. Something they feel they couldn’t have done without the video. But they can. Because all the video is telling you is how to relax. Its a scam because when the process fails you (and it will fail you when you wish for something outside the bounds of a statistical possibility), it doesn’t matter to them. Because you have already paid for the seminar ticket, book, movie, etc. You get your disappointment, and they get their money.

So why is The Law of Attraction so popular if it is so silly? As much as I hate to say it, people are just that gullible. The video markets itself towards material gain, like most marketing scams do. People want more money, women, power, etc. in their lives but they don’t want to actually work for it. It isn’t enough to simply wish for something to happen. Sure, a positive attitude helps. But greatness in any task takes hard work as well.

Hi,

I think anything can be used and then judged by some people as "good tool". Mostly anything can be used to create placebo effect. But it depends on current knowledge of individual, or in this case mass.

Some people will find "The Secret" helpful, because almost all information provided in the book won't go against their knowledge - no cognitive dissonance (fits their knowledge, makes current believes much stronger, etc). On the other hand some will find it irritating because the information provided in the book seems so easy and not scientific.

It won't change anything, that is the truth. All it does is that it makes some (well, some?) people feel better for some time (can we call this placebo effect? ).

I think there's more truth to it than a glossy film gives credit to.
My belief is that we're mostly visually oriented and we respond to the images that we give ourselves (consciously and unconsciously).
If we do something not taught to us in school or at home, i.e. to deliberately create images of what we want, our whole bodies seem to resonate with it. We feel joy, contentment and a sense of alignment, that maybe even getting a fat pay rise in a job we don't like much wouldn't give us.

Of course the film goes further than that by saying that we can effect our environment by our thoughts. Maybe we can, I really don't know and I'm not willing to completely disregard it so quickly.

your world is a projection of your mind, if you want to believe that is a scam is going to be a scam. Probably happen with many thing in your life the same.

I believe that the secret is helpful depend how you use it. The same happen with movies like
what the bleep we do know.
Conversation with God (Maybe you thing that the guy never talk with God).
Peaceful Warrior
or People like Chopra, Anthony Robbins, Wayne Dyer etc
Etc

What I see is always somebody has to have problem when somebody else succeed.