who on ATS has seen the movie 'the secret'?

I think there may well be something to the idea of positive thought there is a famous example explained well here

A study I conducted in the summer of 1993 in Washington, DC, shows rising crime levels over a period of six months, which take place every year as the temperature gets hotter between the winter and the summer. People stay out later, they are more aggravated and agitated, they get into more fights, and the crime rate goes up. This is an absolutely known annual trend. From June through July of that summer, we brought to the area a large number of practicing meditators and trained quite a few others. When the group reached a particular size—2,500 (ultimately reaching 4,000)—which was about halfway through the period, there was a distinct and highly statistically significant drop in crime compared to expected rates based on previous data, weather conditions, and a variety of other factors.

We collaborated with the local police department, the FBI, and 24 leading, independent criminologists and social scientists from major institutions, including the University of Maryland, the University of Texas, and Temple University, who used highly sophisticated research tools to control for variables such as weather. Everyone ended up agreeing on the language, the analysis, and the results, and those results were quite astonishing. We predicted a 20 percent drop in crime, and we achieved a 25 percent drop. Just before the study, the Washington, DC, chief of police went on television and said something like, “It’s gonna take a foot of snow in June to reduce crime by 20 percent.” But he allowed his department to participate in the experiment by collecting and analyzing the data. In the end, the police department signed on as one of the authors of a published paper (see Social Indicators Research 47:153–201, June 1999).

source

reply to post by Sulie


ok so first you say

Most people who are starving have no access to the book or the video.

And then you say

If people are to helpless to help themselves, then the it won't work.

So which is it?

Maybe we should be sending copies of 'the secret' out to 3rd world countries instead of untied nations aid packages , medicine and food. For someone who claims to be not heartless and a realist you sure do have a funny take on the world

Originally posted by Sulie
No, I am not heartless. I am a realist. As I said, nowhere in the book does it claim to be magic into the lives of people who are wishing. Life takes action, and if anything "The Secret," points that out. If people are to

This post was part of a special Halloween Homage to Orson Wells.
Jumping out from behind the server and shouting BOO!

helpless to help themselves, then the it won't work.

Did you yourself need this book to figure that out? It seems fairly obvious that if you want something, you should go out and make it happen.

Anyways, here's a satisfied customer on The Secret.

Last spring I had a job that stressed me out and made me unhappy. So I started applying for other positions at other companies. For several months I had no luck and was quickly becoming discouraged and feeling trapped at my job.

Finally, after prodding from my Mom and my girlfriend (both of whom had been fans of The Secret for months), I picked up the book and read. What I found there truly changed my life. I became a more positive, peaceful individual. I was full of hope and began using The Secret to visualize my new job.

I re-applied for a company that I really wanted to work for, and within a couple weeks I had my first interview. I kept visualizing and believing, and two weeks after that I had my second interview.

source

For her, it was the visualizing and believing that made her get a second interview, not the fact that she had been actively searching for work anyways.

ETA: aaaah orson welles. We meet again.

Originally posted by iforget
I think there may well be something to the idea of positive thought there is a famous example explained well here

A study I conducted in the summer of 1993 in Washington, DC, shows rising crime levels over a period of six months, which take place every year as the temperature gets hotter between the winter and the summer. People stay out later, they are more aggravated and agitated, they get into more fights, and the crime rate goes up. This is an absolutely known annual trend. From June through July of that summer, we brought to the area a large number of practicing meditators and trained quite a few others. When the group reached a particular size—2,500 (ultimately reaching 4,000)—which was about halfway through the period, there was a distinct and highly statistically significant drop in crime compared to expected rates based on previous data, weather conditions, and a variety of other factors.

We collaborated with the local police department, the FBI, and 24 leading, independent criminologists and social scientists from major institutions, including the University of Maryland, the University of Texas, and Temple University, who used highly sophisticated research tools to control for variables such as weather. Everyone ended up agreeing on the language, the analysis, and the results, and those results were quite astonishing. We predicted a 20 percent drop in crime, and we achieved a 25 percent drop. Just before the study, the Washington, DC, chief of police went on television and said something like, “It’s gonna take a foot of snow in June to reduce crime by 20 percent.” But he allowed his department to participate in the experiment by collecting and analyzing the data. In the end, the police department signed on as one of the authors of a published paper (see Social Indicators Research 47:153–201, June 1999).

source

You should look into it just a little more:

Physicist and skeptic Robert L. Park called the study a "clinic in data distortion".[96][97] Park questioned the validity of the study by saying that during the weeks of the experiment Washington, D.C.'s weekly murder count hit the highest level ever recorded.[96]

Maxwell Rainforth, Assistant Professor of Physiology and Health and Statistics at Maharishi University of Management and a coauthor of the Washington, D.C. study, acknowledged that the 36-hour period was "horrific," but said that, from a scientific perspective, it was a statistical outlier because homicides by themselves constituted a small data set. He said that homicides comprised 3% of violent crimes in the year of the study (1993). Rainforth characterized Park's criticisms of the study as "superficial, highly polemical" and "willfully misleading", and that his objections to the use of time series analysis and other statistical methods were not based on scientific arguments. He also questioned whether Park had read the published study, since his criticism focused on a preliminary Interim Report released at a press conference in 1994.[98]

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "those outside the movement" did not see the cause and effect that the study asserted.[56] The Maharishi called the study, which cost $6 million, a "waste of time" and said that scientific research is a fraud.[99] As a result of this study, John Hagelin received the 1994 Ig Nobel Prize in peace, a parody of the Nobel Prize, described at the time as an award for discoveries "that cannot, or should not, be reproduced."[100][101] More recently, the Ig Nobel's tagline has been updated, and "honors achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think".[102][103] and The editor of the Annals of Improbable Research said that no scientific analysis of John Hagelin’s work was conducted before the Ig Nobel Prize was awarded.

en.wikipedia.org...

It is a bunch of BS. Let me give you some advice....secrets to the universe are not given out in a movie. Just like everything that guarantees some super magical ace-of-spades, this movie has an alterior motive. Do a little thinking and try to figure out what angle they are playing.

reply to post by PhoenixOD

Maybe we should be sending copies of 'the secret' out to 3rd world countries instead of untied nations aid packages , medicine and food. For someone who claims to be not heartless and a realist you sure do have a funny take on the world

Maybe we should be sending copies that are edible.

read the book and then at the end of the book the secret is revealed. IT is Edible

solves all the problems

all jokes aside

reply to post by LesMisanthrope


So on one hand you have a group of people who agree on the results, on the other hand you have group who disagree.

Isn't that what science is about?

Originally posted by willrush
reply to post by reppie

 

well even if it isnt true what the movie has to say.. isnt it an interesting thought??

i like to think about how these kinds of ideas could really work in our world..

do you not find it fun to think about things like this?.. to imagine if it were literally possible to make your own reality!...

true or not.. i like to think that it could be true haha

I'm watching it now. It is interesting, but it seems they're making a big deal out of common sense. If you have the financial savvy, ambition, and are business minded, you will succeed. However, if you are missing just one of these three attributes, you won't succeed. I'm missing all three of em.

Added: Oh yeah, I forgot my point: No matter how optimistic people may be, if they are missing one of the three attributes, they are doomed to fail.

Originally posted by magma
reply to post by LesMisanthrope

 

So on one hand you have a group of people who agree on the results, on the other hand you have group who disagree.

Isn't that what science is about?

Even though there was no point to pointing out what I was trying to point out, I'm glad we can agree.

Originally posted by willrush
reply to post by 1littlewolf

 

thanks for that link!.. i read the OP of it and it was awesome! haha

it was very informal and made me see how i might be able to use LOA in my life.

we'll see how it works out..

i wonder though.. when using the LOA, can it be done within one day so that you can actually tell whether it works or not?
or is it something that takes place over time?

im not saying i will become skeptical if it doesnt work after a few days but i am just curious

How quickly does LoA work? How quickly can you change the way you think? As I said you manifest your own reality every second of everyday. But it’s your belief that you do not which prevents anything really amazing happening. Another thing is if what you wish to manifest actually specifically involves others then it is not just your conscious will you have to deal with but there’s as well.

As I stated earlier we are all operating under a set of beliefs which have been reinforced since birth which states that the universe is static and we are merely passive spectators. It takes a lot of faith to break free of this and few can do it for more than a few fleeting moments. It is a hard frame of mind to hold for you must operate under a system of ‘knowing’ what you want to happen has in fact already happened, yet at the same time you must not really care whether it does or doesn’t happen. For if you ‘want’ something, again you are sending out subconsciously to the universe (which is merely a vast extension of you the ‘greater’ you) a signal that you do not have it and hence the universe responds accordingly. Hopefully you get what I’m driving at.


It is my belief that we are ultimately all one, which is entirely possible if you consider the theory of quantum entanglement and then consider that at the time of the big bang all particles were entangled. There is a distinct possibility that they still are especially considering time does not really behave how we expect at the quantum level.


Now if you consider that imho the mind can in fact affect reality to some degree, you have to expect that it will affect it in accordance to your expectations. Now if you are sceptical then subconsciously you are actually denying the possibility that it can happen, which in turn manifests into reality. If you are sceptical basically it is not gonna happen. You must suspend your disbelief but also be prepared that quite often it will not happen exactly the way you planned. Once you get a little better and gain some more confidence then you can begin to use your visualization skills to be much more specific regarding how exactly you want these life events to manifest.

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
The secret is such BS.

Imagine telling someone who is starving to death that the only reason they are not better off is that they just didn't wish for it hard enough or they just didnt want it hard enough.

Try telling someone with a terminal disease that they are going to die because they just haven't wished to live in the right way.

Try telling a terminal cancer patient the only way to cure himself is to not care if he dies of cancer. Try telling someone in war torn Africa that the only way to eat is to not care about when or where he will be getting there next meal.

The Secret is superficial mass marketed crap; but it has taken inspiration from a very old esoteric system which are shared by the mystics of many belief systems around the world. If you simply wish for something and think 'happy thoughts' you have no more chance of getting what you want than if you did nothing at all.

Originally posted by willrush
reply to post by magma

 

exactly magma!.. we create our own reality...

so you have seen this movie??..

do you know how to use this secret in your life?.. just wondering..

haha

I kinda started living my life like this on accident actually because I went through a depression and finally realized that I could choose to be happy everyday if I want to. After I watched 'The Secret' it seemed like everything clicked. Definitely a good movie.

Just keep a positive attitude and everything will fall in place how you want.