The Secret

[Stackys]

AIBU to give “the secret” any thought?

I toyed with it years ago. Asked “the universe” for a £10 note. Walking through York the night after, found a wet soggy £10 note on the floor in a graveyard.

Played with it again a few weeks later. Asked the universe for a red balloon. Immediately afterwards I put YouTube on to listen to some music and the first recommended video was a song called something like “10 red balloons”. I’d never heard of the song before.

When I was a child, before I knew of “the secret” we were moving house and I desperately wanted a garden with steps in it. That would have been highly unusual in this area but I kept on thinking about it obsessively. The house we moved to had steps in the garden (the only house in the whole street that did).

My friend goes on about the secret all the time, I put all my “successes” down to coincidence as the alternative sounds batshit but some people truly believe it works, intelligent people!!

I watched the movie yesterday and I’ve decided I want £50k in my bank by New Year’s Eve 😂 ironically DH said to me this morning “we have nearly x amount in bank! The most we’ve ever had!” (Nowhere near £50k) ... maybe it’s already working lol

This is of course lighthearted but I’d be interested to hear other people’s experiences of it?! Please don’t turn it into a “you’re a fucking imbecile OP” type thread, it’s just for fun.

[quote IMissMenthols]@022828MAN You've contradicted yourself 'Isn't the whole 'Secret' about having a mindful approach to setting cogs in motion for things to happen for you', isn't that exactly what I did? I didn't say that it was purely for manifesting exes it was an example.

The law of attraction is in relation to the law of vibration, everything in the Universe is made from the same material which is energy. That's a fact that even a cynic can't argue. Your thoughts and feelings can result in manifestations, I simply used an example - seems you only took notice of one of the three?[/quote]
How is asking a question contradicting myself?
If you genuinely believe you sent vibrations into the universe for your ex to post on Facebook then I'd say you're delusional.
I can understand it working in regards to new job, fitness, wellbeing etc. A positive mindset will bring on positive results generally. But being able to mind control exs, for example; batshit.

I think The Secret and the whole Law of Attraction thing has been used to manipulate people. I am a psychotherapist working in the NHS and private practice and over the many years I’ve been working I have noticed the unfortunate effect it can have. It moves the “blame” for poor mental health onto the individual; they are not “thinking positively”, have “the wrong mindset”, “don’t want recovery enough”. People seek out support from coaches and “therapists” who have marinaded themselves in these concepts and do damage.

Secondly, these concepts are used in the network marketing industry/MLM/pyramid schemes to control people; to persuade them that if they want to succeed in, for example, Forever Living they must want it enough, they must visualise success, if they are unsuccessful they didn’t want it enough, they had the wrong mindset - this is a manipulation because the MLM world has a >99% failure rate; try visualing your way past that fact. The visualisation of the positive is used as a distraction away from the obvious red flags. Critics (family and friends who are concerned) are dismissed as unimaginative people who don’t understand The Secret and have a negative and closed mindset. These techniques are the same ones used in cults and closed groups.

Humans have a capacity to make links where there are none. Jung talks about meaningful coincidences in his concept of synchronicity and psychologists recognise humans’ fallibility to our own bias which we may not even recognise but which we all have. The confirmation bias mentioned upthread is absolutely right.

I think that positive thinking, being clear on your realistic goals in life is a good thing. If positive visualisation is motivating then that is also a good thing but context is everything and “positive thinking” can become irrational thinking and magical thinking which can be very damaging to the individual. The example of the cancer patient told to think positive and to “fight” is a case in point. They no more attracted the disease to themselves than repelled it through positive visualisation.

Humans have two basic demands, for control and for certainty; the rational position is that you can have neither and a healthier mind is built on the acceptance of that. The belief that events can be controlled and that certainty can be obtained through a certain type of thinking and the purchase of Rhonda Byrne’s book is bollocks.

Enjoy the positive coincidences but leave at that.

[quote IMissMenthols]@022828MAN You've contradicted yourself 'Isn't the whole 'Secret' about having a mindful approach to setting cogs in motion for things to happen for you', isn't that exactly what I did? I didn't say that it was purely for manifesting exes it was an example.

The law of attraction is in relation to the law of vibration, everything in the Universe is made from the same material which is energy. That's a fact that even a cynic can't argue. Your thoughts and feelings can result in manifestations, I simply used an example - seems you only took notice of one of the three?[/quote]
Are you implying that your thoughts somehow controlled the actions of someone else though, because that's a whole lot different to wishing for a ten pound note and finding it on the pavement? You set an intention about the ex and he suddenly posted on FB?

It’s called confirmation bias.

It’s harmless if you just use it to get yourself into a more positive mindset. I’m a natural Eeyore type character (or Sadness if you’ve seen Pixar’s Inside Out) so appreciate the power of positive thinking. But it’s when people start to believe your mind can genuinely cause major life events to happen or bring financial success or material gain that it gets dangerous. You can’t control everything and recognising that is healthy, instead of thinking that if you just wish hard enough you’ll get something. And as pp have raised, it also implies a lot of blame for those that have difficulties in life - if they just wished hard enough they’d be rich/wouldn’t have cancer/a bad marriage etc. It’s in line with the American Dream concept that anyone could be rich and successful if they just work hard enough - ignoring completely that people come from very different circumstances and also that there is a lot of luck in life.

anyone who believes that wishing to find some money and then stumbling across a stray £10 note is a result of 'The Secret' rather than sheer coincidence is seriously deluded and worryingly credulous

It's not coincidence. It's the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon ie selective attention and confirmation bias.

@022828MAN
You said mind control, I didn't. It's the alignment of events, not forcing someone to do something they don't want to do. If you don't know what that means then you don't understand it - it's not that deep

Excellent post from Youokhun

it's not that deep

It sure ain't.

Someone said that the universe doesn't care about you. Spiritual teachers say that the human brain and consciousness is the universe manifesting consciousness of itself. We are the universe looking at itself. Sound very woo, I know.

Why are people getting angry at each other? 😂 hilarious!

As I said in my OP I DID put my experiences down to coincidence but other people do believe it works so I don’t see the harm in trying it!

I’m still envisioning my £50k. I’ll post on NYE to let you all know whether I made it or not 😂

@Staffy1
Not specifically, in my original post I said I absentmindedly set an intention as in 'wouldn't it be nice' so the events were aligned. It's not about controlling someone. It's the same thing when you think about someone random and then they call you out of the blue.

My children (who know zero about things like this are interesting). I have one son who always says ‘I can going to win’ when we play games. (Football, monopoly, snakes and ladders) You can see it, he absolutely believes he will win. And he does, almost all the time. I have seen him roll seven ‘sixes’ in a row. My other son, often says ‘I will never win, he always wins’ and you know what? He rarely wins.

[quote IMissMenthols]@Staffy1
Not specifically, in my original post I said I absentmindedly set an intention as in 'wouldn't it be nice' so the events were aligned. It's not about controlling someone. It's the same thing when you think about someone random and then they call you out of the blue.[/quote]
It's clear you're obviously looking for meaning in things. But him posting is purely coincidence.

Why are people getting angry at each other? 😂
It's AIBU. You manifested angriness by choosing this section

The law of attraction is in relation to the law of vibration, everything in the Universe is made from the same material which is energy. That's a fact that even a cynic can't argue.

LMAO. I think Physicists might have one or two issues with that 'fact'.

@VividImagination

I’ve never heard of “The Secret” but some time ago money was very tight and I was wondering how we would get to the end of the month. I had put lots of small bits on gumtree which had sold for a few odd pounds and I had a large item that I’d had on for months with no interest.

I took the dog for a walk to his usual field and half way round there was a large, pure white butterfly just sitting on the grass. I walk my dog in that field several times a day, most days and have never seen a butterfly there,, ever. I stopped and looked closely and it didn’t fly away. After a while I walked on and when I circled back round it was gone. I really felt it was some sort of sign and thought to myself, perhaps it means that I will sell that large item today. When I got home there was a message from someone wanting to buy it. I have never seen a butterfly in that field since.

I don’t believe that was coincidence.

What was it then?

@BottomOfMyPencilCase

Why are people getting angry at each other? 😂 It's AIBU. You manifested angriness by choosing this section

Damn right!! 😂😂😂

If it worked Trump would not be president. And if Trump gets to be president again, you can be damned sure it doesn't work.

The law of attraction is in relation to the law of vibration...

Are these Isaac Newton's lesser-known laws?

@BottomOfMyPencilCase

anyone who believes that wishing to find some money and then stumbling across a stray £10 note is a result of 'The Secret' rather than sheer coincidence is seriously deluded and worryingly credulous

It's not coincidence. It's the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon ie selective attention and confirmation bias.

Yeah, I'll give you that. But there has to have been an element of coincidence for the thing that caused the confirmation bias to happen in the first place.

A few years ago I went to Vegas and decided to have a go on roulette. Had no idea how to play it on the machine (never gambled before) so just put $5 on and pressed a random button. I won $20. No idea how 😂 anyway it made me cocky so I went to a proper roulette table and looked at the wheel, I knew the next ball would land on red so I put $5 on it. I won $10. I carried on doing this, staring at the board and visualising the ball landing and I won every single time. In the end I had people literally putting their money on whatever I was putting it on. Altogether I came away with $220 from a single $5 bet. In the end I’d had so much to drink thanks to the women throwing free cocktails at me that I started to lose it. Lost 3 in a row and then called it a night.

I'm confused, I said everything is made up of energy and people are trying to counter. Did you not learn science?

If it worked Trump would not be president. And if Trump gets to be president again, you can be damned sure it doesn't work.

Maybe Trump has extra-super-strength LoA Powers, like the poster up thread who 'absent-mindedly manifested an intention' that magically made the universe force her ex-boyfriend post on social media. Or the poster who saw a butterfly and sold a sofa.

True But what if the £10 was always lying there but they only noticed it after they put it on their wish list