" Near as I can tell, the whole idea ( of the Secret ) is just a new spin on the very old , and decidedly not secret , " The Power of Positive Thinking " wedded to " ask and you shall receive ": Karin Klein / LA Times editorial writer

I saw THE SECRET last night at a friends house and besides being incredibly redundant, simplistic and far too long ~ I realized it was the latest reincarnation of the Esther Hicks ' Abraham teachings ' ~ which " teach that people are the creators of their own reality, that their emotions are guides to help in this creation and that humans are eternal beings and for that reason will "never get it done."

Esther Hicks is a spirit channeller ( think Seth ) and developed the Abraham Teachings. The key teaching of the Abraham Group is that achieving your desires is done by feeling hopeful and positive about those goals, rather than fearful. The teachings often refer to vibrations ~ in the nature of, your thoughts are 'vibrations' that influence the 'vibrations of reality,' and in this way have a real impact on the physical word.

To summarise Hicks, if you think positive thoughts, and so align up your good vibration, good things will happen to you. Equally, if something bad happens to you, then in some sense it was your own doing, because you must have aligned up your bad vibration to encourage or endorse it.

An example - when referring to the people who died in the September 11 terrorist attacks, Abraham says "There are no victims, there are only co-creators."

I have a great deal of respect for the strategies and devices of the ego and I see yet another painless strategy and ego candy at work here for obtaining material wealth ( which is endlessly stressed in The Secret ) without taking responsibility for one's life or for that matter without doing anything ~ except visualizing wealth.

The Law of Attraction is relentlessly used in the externalized ego context of attracting wealth or relationship instead of attracting what we need to open our hearts and eventually becoming part of a loving plan in action ( God ). The Secret's only attempt to internalize is its acknowledgement of gratefulness but the film barely scratches the surface of internally directed soul consciousness, love, altruism and the universal urge to unite.

In other words, the Law of Attraction is used in terms of fulfilling individual needs, such as wealth, possessions and relationship, but not in the spiritual context of Service or the Universal Urge to unite, which is innate within each one of us, and is the primary driving force of evolution.

The Secret celebrates the mind versus the heart. While it is true that the universe is always saying yes to us ~ our ultimate yes, in response, is fully opening our hearts, conquering fear and becoming part of something far greater than ourselves ~ where the heart then becomes the master and the mind its obedient servant.

Only then can the ego finally end its ceaseless striving for something the heart ( soul ) already knows ~ true peace of mind.

As such, the heart longs to break out of the ego's restrictive prison of fear based control but love is the only door to inner joy, delight and true freedom ~ because love lies deepest within each one of us ( the Unified Field ) and the path of love most certainly brings us face to face with our deepest fears.

Karen Klein, editorial writer for the LA Times, wrote an excellent review ( Feb 18th ) on The Secret titled GETTING IT ALL ... WITHOUT DOING TOO MUCH in which she alluded that it was yet another example of the dumbing down of America.

Here are some excerpts;

If " The Secret " had a plot, it might go something like " Tony Robbins uncovers the Judas Gospel and learns to use the force "

Americans are never too jaded for another get-rich-quick chimera.

In " The Secret " real and sustained effort is unnecessary, even frowned on. The scheme lays out a " Law of Attraction " ~ a strange misreading of quantum physics ~ that asserts that the universe grants your wishes because you are the " most powerful transmission tower in the world." Send out " wealth frequencies " with your thoughts and the universe's wealth frequencies will be pulled to you.

Here was my favorite bit: " Food is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight " It's a position that seems to have a lot in common with President Bush's ideas about global warming. Carbon emissions warm the earth only if you worry that they will .

On the flip side, nothing happens to people that isn't brought to them by their own persistent thoughts, and the book strongly implies that this includes those killed in the Holocaust and the World Trade Center.... Under this philosophy, why bother contributing to Oxfam or worry about Darfur ? What a guilt reliever. "


And there you have the Secret ~ no guilt, no effort, no worries ~ more candy for the ego and psychic bargaining ~ before the eventual fall.

ONLY LOVE HEALS

Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2007/02/24.html