Letters to the Editor
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TESTING FOR 100 DAYS - IT WORKS
http://www.youtube.com/group/100Days
Thank you for the link.
It's rather amazing that a bunch of confused teenage morons evolved into a bunch of assertive teenage morons.
That's a real achievement.
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Money Quote
"And that's the part that should bother us most: the diminishing, even implicit mocking, of genuine goodness, and of authentic spiritual concerns and practices. Engagement, curiosity and active awe are in short supply these days, and it's sickening to see them devalued and misrepresented."
Thank you, Mr. Birkenhead, for nailing precisely what I have found to be so irritating about Oprah for many years. Just before the Grammys aired, she had Mary J. Blige as her guest and I found myself appalled at the treacle coming from both of them about "self-love" and "empowerment". I saw in both of them very fragile personalities who were clinging desperately to this new philosophy. I wondered if either of them really had looked clearly at the pain in their respective pasts and had seen how their hardships had burned away the dross and revealed the refined metal of their character. In some way, I suspect yes, but in other ways, it seemed to me that each had taken the pain and "drama" and elevated it to a special god-like status that they could now hang whatever the hell they wanted off of it and point to it as a badge of entitlement.
I think Oprah is a classic example of entitlement masquerading as a guru.
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About that walk
I support anyone who criticizes the hypocrisy of Oprah, but Mr. Birkenhead is lax in his Chicago geography. It would be a mighty long walk from Oprah's studios to what's left of Cabrini Green. However, Oprah does live within walking distance of the old housing project.
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Hooray
I suspect the target audience of The Secret is not the truly hopeless and yet Oprah's championing of The Secret is often defended with the argument that she is at least imbibing people with a sense of hope. More so, Peter Birkenhead who has reassured me that the world is not void of people who prefer to think twice and who don't want Life rendered a mere catalogue of things that can be express mailed to them.
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The Power of Fear...
is demonstrated throughout this commentary. I chose not to read this entire article because, in reading the comments, its content and motivation are quite clear. The number of responses to this article is quite a demonstration of the Law of Attraction at work. If each person were to examine their own lives, beliefs, convictions and attitudes, they would discover that they did, in fact, attract experiences to themselves. The matter is not about blaming ourselves or others for "bad" experiences we have. People living in pain, suffering abuse, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual trauma, do not intentionally attract these conditions and are not to be further abused by self-righteous believers in Karma and Sin and Guilt. The Truth that is being presented in The Secret and has been taught throughout the history of Humankind, is that there is only One Power, the Creator of All That Is, and that Power is Omnicient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent. The second part of the Universal Truth is that as we are the expressions of this Power, and that we have access to the full use of this Power. The third part of this Truth is that The Power does not "care" how we use It. It has no judgment about Its Creation. As a human being, of course, I cannot possibly know what the full expression of The Power is like. I can, however, live my life in wonder and awe, exploring the potential available to me. Yes, at times I wonder why It Is The Way It Is; then, I surrender into Allowance of What Is, and allow It to unfold.
What The Secret teaches is beyond most people's comprehension because what it portrays is so far out of what this society allows itself to accept. The concept that We Are One flies in the face of our perceived separatism. As long as we see each other as the other, we cannot conceive of the Truth of the Brotherhood/Sisterhood of Humankind, and the Unity of all of Creation. As much as possible, I live the LOA, and know many others who do, as well. Our lives are filled with magic, even in the most tragic conditions, because we know The Secret. Love is all there is.
Peace,
St John
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She is obviously bonkers
Look - she has no partner, is clearly uncomfortable about the idea that there is someone else out there quite as important as her (Mother Theresa is dead; there are doubts about the background of the Pope; the President is widely disliked)
Hang on - I need to go and visit the African witch doctor to have all my illness taken out of me by the power of thought alone
....arghhhhhhhh
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Debunking The Secret
I am relieved and slightly thrilled to see this article. I was introduced to "The Secret" by an ex-friend of mine... an uneducated, unemployed yet highly engaging and charismatic 42-year-old single "polyamorous" mother who leeches off some poor sap of a man while she drinks excessively and has sex with people she barely knows. Basically, she's kind of a loser. But a charming, dynamic loser. She kept trying to organize viewing parties to watch the DVD, which I continually managed to dodge. So, when I saw Oprah hawking this piece of garbage I was absolutely stunned. It was shocking to me that she paraded that array of self-help gurus as living proof that "The Secret" can help people be successful. What I saw was a group of people who made their money by claiming they could teach other people how to make money... a classic pyramid scheme. It felt cultish and frightening, and I'd be willing to bet a LOT of my own money that some really nasty dirt could be dug up on any number of those so-called gurus that would knock the shine right off of them. When Oprah did a follow-up show about a week later, I felt sure that she would do right by me, and come to her senses. I figured the outcry from her more sensible fans would cause her to re-think her slavish devotion to this "philosophy" and she would address complaints and criticisms. But, it was not to be. Instead, she featured more shallow, incomplete stories of people whose lives were suddenly perfected by "The Secret" with no more effort than waking up in the morning with a forced smile and basically willing things into existence. I didn't believe the stories those people told, and now I seriously wonder about the integrity of Oprah's internal world. She seems to be constantly grasping and reaching for the Next Big Thing that will justify her existence, her fame and her impact on our culture. I truly, fully believe that she means well. But she's trying to bottle her own success and fame into a formula that she can sell to her followers, perhaps to relieve the guilt she feels from knowing the universe has handed her much more than it gives most people, at least externally. Now, as far as her spiritual well-being goes, I'm thinking hers is not quite as rosy as the portrait she paints.