In my point of view, The Secret movie shows simplistically a religious philosophic positivism based on factuality and assertion (there is no chance for hypothesis, possibilities as if the reality of our lives were exactly as described in the film – possibilities and hypothesis would bring out ideas of uncertainty, which would interfere in reader’s or viewer’s decision to accept what is proposed by The Secret as truth) that tries to convince viewers that the solution for everything is in the way we see things around us. If we see them positively, that is, creating mental images that would project what we desire (a car, a house, money etc) or what we want to modify in terms of behavior (eating, relation, love etc) without doubt we would get it– it is the law of attraction. The Secret is a supposed law of attraction present in the universe involving everybody, everything. Who thinks of good things will attract them, who thinks of bad things will be caught by them.
Newsweek Magazine says the following about The Secret
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/):
On an ethical level, "The Secret" appears deplorable. It concerns itself almost entirely with a narrow range of middle-class concerns—houses, cars and vacations, followed by health and relationships, with the rest of humanity a very distant sixth. Even some of the major figures in the film confess to uneasiness with its relentless materialism. "I love 'The Secret' but I also think it's missing a couple things," says "metaphysician" Joe Vitale.
The factual and assertive characteristic of the film is also verified in the words that can be found in the site of “The Secret”:
This is The Secret to everything ... the secret to unlimited joy, health, money, relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever wanted.
In this astonishing program are ALL the resources you will ever need to understand and live The Secret. For the first time in history, the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers will reveal The Secret that utterly transformed the lives of every person who ever knew it ... Plato, Newton, Carnegie, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Einstein.
Now YOU will know The Secret.
And it will change your life forever.
Observe the expressions below in red:
This is The Secret (the process (the verb) is expressing reality).
are ALL the resources (also expressing reality).
For the first time in history (an appealing sentence in order to try to impress viewers as if many other people had already not said this before. Paul Young Cho, an evangelical pastor from South Korea, more than 20 years ago, had already spoken about the idea of creating images of desired things that “through faith in Jesus” could be materialized).
the world's leading scientists, authors, and philosophers (it is an attempt to validate the discourse of the film, presenting supposed authorities who were classified as the best ones, but who knows what were the criteria used?).
Plato, Newton … (historical characters are used in an attempt to validate which is presented in the film as if they reached what they reached following the path of “The Secret” – This is a strategy of persuasion by means of testimony impact; these kinds of stories normally are decontextualized - see what follows).
An I-can-do-whatever-I-want guides the plot of the film. And to strengthen this idea world history characters are used such as Martin Luther King, Beethoven, Abraham Lincoln, Plato …
The presence of Abraham Lincoln in the movie imagery, I understand, is decontextualized since Lincoln was one of those called believers in God and on God he depended, he was a man of kneeling to pray and ask God’s direction before making decisions, an attitude of submission and humbleness which does not match the positivist philosophy that emphasizes man and woman as the ones responsible for what happens around them. Lincoln lost elections before reaching the presidency; he was criticized by many; in his time his country was divided between those who supported him and those who wished his end. He was recognized as a great leader only after his death.
The same happened to Martin Luther King who was an evangelical pastor and activist for racial equal rights. He also was a man whose belief was based on God’s will dependency. His achievements were results of his efforts and struggle and not of the simplistic creation of mental images.
Concerning the presence of Martin Luther King in the film, the Newsweek Magazine says:
Martin Luther King Jr. is enlisted as author of an epigram about taking a staircase one step at a time. King certainly could visualize. But he also knew better than to sit back and wait for the law of attraction to send down justice; he went out and worked for it. And there's no secret to that.
What these men reached in their lives was fruit of much struggle, pain, affliction, confidence in the God they believed in, perseverance (which is more than mere imagery positivism), because to believe without perseverance is recipe for giving up.
The film, still, in a teaching of selfishness, individuality and prejudice suggests that we must not look at (literally) undesirable things. Fat people should not be looked at, because, by the law of attraction, we would attract their fat to us. It resembles the kind of popular superstition that a pregnant woman should not look at ugly things: “don’t look at a toad; the baby is going to be born ugly”.
It would be asked whether the secret of The Secret is not the bucks the production tries to make and is making, what has happened much more by the uneasiness of the human soul than by truths the film may hold.
For the psychologist Carol Kauffman from Harvard University
"Basically, it's chaos theory," she says. "I don't think you can actually attract things to you. But if you're profoundly open to opportunity, then when ambiguous events occur, you notice them. I think what positive thinking does is raise your consciousness to possibilities so they can snag your attention. We're starting to see some empirical studies on that now."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/page/5/
Byrne who appears speaking in the film answering a question about the massacre of Rwanda says:
"If we are in fear, if we're feeling in our lives that we're victims and feeling powerless, then we are on a frequency of attracting those things to us ... totally unconsciously, totally innocently [...]"
Following this thread, if we think of the Tsunami that stroke Asia in 2004, we would explain the tragedy as a result of thousands and thousands of people attracting the catastrophe!
If The Secret is the secret, why has it to be sold? How many people could have their lives changed, saved from several problems and destructions through the knowledge of The Secret? Is it not a law of the universe? If the secret has come from the universe, thus it belongs specifically to nobody. Why are they making the kind of promotion they have made in order to sell the book and DVDs of this “truth” that belongs to nobody that belongs to the universe? Here, it pops up to my mind a word of the Gospel that says that what we have received freely, we freely have to give away.
I prefer the secret of Jesus Christ, which is not any secret indeed; it is very clear, something that everybody can understand; it is on the surface, in a way that everyone can reach it and take it home. It is open to everyone who wishes to get it. But I do not refer to that Gospel sold, alike The Secret, by “televangelists and ministers of the Gospel” (saving those who really are true) of promises of new cars, new houses, top jobs, preachers of another gospel, the gospel centered on prosperity, preachers that indeed are not of the GOSPEL.
People who criticize these preachers (I do not disagree that their fallacies have to be criticized) and easily accept The Secret as something awesome should stop criticizing them because the preachers and The Secret do not have a different message, it is the same formula of palpable and tangible interests.
Let me repeat it: I prefer Jesus Christ’s Gospel which is that one of “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:33).
Jesus is saying that nobody is going to lack (maybe you are not going to get rich) if their lives are centered, from the bottom of their hearts, in things that come from heaven, things that He taught, that is, not living for earthly stuff only.
And that is enough. Seeing that it is not enough is what has lead many intelligent people to adhere persuasive an appellative book and film discourses like The Secret which fatten sellers’ bank accounts, discourses that reveal the empty soul, maybe the majority, of people of our society.
For many people, the lack of perception of whom they are and of the value of their existence for those who surround them lead them to perceive themselves only from a perspective of tangible things, material things, a perception which is manifested parting from their properties, where they can travel to, what they can do, clothe, eat … a permanent struggle for the best and to be the best. This kind of individuality manifests itself in the desire of having more and more.
You can do and have whatever you want is the proposal of The Secret. A fallacy. Who of the proponents of The Secret would be able to give back the natural color to his or her gray hair without hair ink? Who of them would be able to add a hand span to his or her height without science help?
Who of them could stop time to prevent wrinkles from appearing on their faces without the physician’s scalpel or the use of botox?
To say that we human beings can do everything, and that there is no limits to achieve goals, can only be strategy to sell books and movies, which the Newsweek, in my point of view, expresses well in the following utterance: “But this 'new thought' may just be new marketing”.
People are more human when they naturally and spontaneously do not try to be; this naturalness of being makes of them people that are, and consequently achievements will follow them.
Let's think about this!
José Martins
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