Sunday 6 March 2016

Review: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne: Wishin' & Hopin'

This book is so inspirational! It turns out that by just believing and wanting really hard you can get whatever you want out of life! And if that doesn't work you can write a vacuous self help book full of profound sounding but utterly meaningless tripe and there are enough stupid people in the world to make you rich! This book has also taught me that I don't need to care about other people; if they don't get what they want it isn't anything to with me or anything to do with society being fair or equal, it's because they didn't wish hard enough or learn to visualise what they want! I used to give a lot of money to various charities – cancer research, rape support groups, third world aid – but I've stopped that now because I realise that the problems people have are because they secretly, deep down, wish them upon themselves, and only they can make their lives better! It's sad if a child dies of leukaemia or lots of people are killed by a tsunami or a train crash but something in them brought it on themselves, and anyway they'll get another chance in the great circle of life and they should try harder next time. And by 'try harder', I don't mean actually work to achieve anything but just wish really hard, because it turns out that all sorts of brilliant people like Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Mozart, Beethoven, Plato and John D Rockefeller were successful not because they worked hard or were particularly smart or talented but JUST BECAUSE THEY KNEW THE SECRET!!!!!


NOTE: Just in case there is anyone who is especially slow on the uptake, this is sarcasm. I'm not that shocked that this book exists but that it has apparently sold somewhere in the region of 21 million copies really does make me worry for humanity. Does the author (along with her contributors, the most qualified of whom are described as “a doctor of Chiropractic” and another “an internationally known feng-shui mistress”) actually believe this bollocks, or are they just using it to milk the stupid. And if you believe in this book there's no sugaring the pill; you are a moron. A shallow, self centred, vacuous moron. I would happily spit in the face of Ms Byrne, any of her contributors or people who worked on the DVD. Yes, there is a lot to be said for the power of positive thought – because it can change your own attitude and behaviour! There's a whole field of psychology based on that idea called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. There is nothing mystical about it. You know the old saying, "the universe doesn't owe you a living"?


Some of my favourite quotes:

“Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it thought persistent thoughts.” Damn, those Jews were pretty careless before WW2, weren't they?

“Quantum Physicists will tell you the universe was created from thought!” Really? Truly? Okay, NAME ONE. Seriously, just one published quantum physicist who is taken seriously by the scientific community.

“Our feelings let us know what we’re thinking.” What? What does that actually mean?

And the best, from Ester Hicks, conduit for a spirit called Abraham (seriously):
“...I used to be extremely disturbed when a person's rights were violated by violence on a person, or by someone forcefully taking someone else's property....But then, after meeting you [Abraham:], I got to the point that I see all those things they're doing with others as "games" that they're playing—more or less "agreements" that they have between one another, spoken or unspoken. I've gotten somewhat better at not feeling their pain. But can I get to the point that I don’t feel anything negative when I see someone violating the rights of another? Can I just look at whatever they're doing to one another out there, and think, You're all doing to one another what you have somehow chosen to do?"



Note: this is a review I wrote some time ago on the goodreads website

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