Looking closely at “The Secret”, the main tenet is what the “Secret Teachers” call the “Law of Attraction”. They suggest this is a way of calling things into your life. It isn’t a new concept, though it isn’t as old as the Emerald Tablet. It is a form of ‘creative visualisation’ which has been around since about 1900.
If we look to science for some clarity about this, we immediately have a misunderstanding. Until Isaac Newton described gravity, the “Law of Attraction” was how we explained why water flows to the sea and apples fall from the tree. The Law of Attraction was folk wisdom for gravity. The Secret suggests that all the great thinkers knew about the “Law of Attraction”, but the term had a different meaning until very recently.
The Secret proposes that you need to 1) ask for what you want 2) believe that it is already yours and 3) receive the item by feeling now the way you will feel when you have it. Will this really work? Is it possible to control things with our minds? If you really think you can, you may be considered delusional. Is the universe really like a genie in a bottle waiting to hear our every wish?
Let’s break it down into particular questions >
