The main topic for today is positive thinking, specifically making supposed good things happen in our lives simply by thinking them into reality. The fact is that a strong connection exists between positive thinking and mental energy. In any case, the advocates make such a claim. Making our positive thoughts come true, they say, is dependent on how hard the positive thinker thinks, that is, on how much mental energy he applies to the positive thinking act.
Making Millions Through Positive Thinking
The fact is that positive thinking is a lucrative cottage industry in this country, and it’s keeping many a publisher and many a writer alive. Millions of dollars have been made through books, articles, audio CDs, DVDs, TV guest appearances and lectures. Watch the Oprah or Ellen or a score of other talk shows on television for any length of time, and you are guaranteed to hear from a number of these people.
Norman Vincent Peale whose The Power of Positive Thinking came out in 1952 is the best known of the positive thinking gurus, and Wayne Dyer, a star of the lecture circuit and author of Your Erroneous Zones, among many works, is a contemporary advocate with a wide following. (Internet references: http://normanvincentpeale.wwwhubs.com. http://www.drwaynedyer.com.)
The latest of the positive thinking gurus is an Australian television producer by the name of Rhonda Byrne whose best selling book, audio CD and DVD are called The Secret, The Law of Attraction. See the website http://www.the-secret-book.com for information on the book and links to the audio CD and DVD and note that the works include contributions by several people, not just Byrne.
Manipulating Objective Physical Reality
I am indebted to the weekly news magazine Newsweek for bringing Rhonda Byrne and The Secret to my attention (
“In the words of ‘author and personal empowerment advocate’ Lisa Nichols [and a contributor to The Secret] : ‘When you think of the things you want, and you focus on them with all of your attention, then the law of attraction will give you exactly what you want, every time.’
“Every time!,” Adler continues in the Newsweek article. “Byrne emphasizes that this is a law inherent in ‘the universe,’ an inexhaustible storehouse of goodies from which you can command whatever you desire from the comfort of your own living room by following three simple steps: Ask, Believe, Receive.”
Closer Look at Newsweek
So let’s take a closer look at Newsweek, in fact at the same issue that contains the article on The Secret, to see if there is anything redeeming at all in this bizarre philosophy. Let’s start with the cover of the magazine, a cover which shows a wounded veteran of the War in Iraq, double-amputee Specialist Marissa Strock. Strock, pictured with her protheses detached and propped up by the chair on which she sits, was the gunner on a Humvee that on Thanksgiving Day 2005 was hit by the explosion from an IED (improvised explosive device). The explosion killed two of her fellow soldiers in the Humvee.
Is there anyone in his right mind who would argue that if Specialist Marissa Strock were to “ask” to have her real legs back, no matter how passionately and how much mental energy she exerted in asking for it, and how much she might “believe” that it might happen, that in fact she would “receive” her legs back? The question does not require an answer.
In Furtherance of Greed
To set the record straight, The Secret is not marketed as the secret for using the mind to have lost limbs suddenly reappear or to bring about any number of other comparable medical impossibilities. When I am postulating that an amputee might get real limbs back, I am projecting Byrne’s central thesis out to its most ridiculous extreme. Rather it is a guide for material acquisitiveness and other forms of self aggrandizement, in other words using the mind in furtherance of greed and personal advantage at the expense of others.
Imagine yourself with an expensive necklace around your neck, and viola the expensive necklace suddenly appears around your neck. Imagine yourself driving a Mercedes Benz and viola, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Self-centered Nonsense
A universe in which such self-centered nonsense were possible is not a universe in which I would care to live. But as bad as the Byrne philosophy is in its own right, it also shares some of its negative features with many of the other positive thinking philosophies. The trouble with so many of the positive thinking philosophies is that they reduce the experiences and processes of living into just plain simple mindedness.
The Pleasures of Complication
Norman Vincent Peale when he was alive would frequently tell us how “simple” the solutions to life’s problems were, first and foremost our worries. The solution to our worries for Norman Vincent Peale? Trust in God, of course. I am not arguing against a belief in God, but I am arguing for an acceptance and a respect for the complexity of life. Life is complicated, and in its complexity lies one of its great pleasures, but also many of its difficulties. Read literature, study art and music, read history, read philosophy, read psychology and the social sciences. In fact, read the bible. These contain the records of the immense range of possibilities and complexities that is the richness of life.
The utter unpredictability of some of the situations in which we find ourselves—who our parents are, wars and death, to cite some extremes—the fact that we are social beings and never operate entirely alone and are often subject to the decisions of others, the reality and complexities of addictive behavior, the vicissitudes of other forms of mental and physical health. Yes, we are often presented with opportunities to take charge and direct our lives—and we must be prepared to take advantage of those opportunities—but we also often have to play the role of reactor. We also have to play catch up.
As we learned from Scott Peck, to deal with the complexities of life takes work and discipline. Easy answers are no answers. Are you ready?
ABOUT MIND CHECK
Thank you for tuning into Mind Check, a biweekly effort to prove that we are what we think and that clear thinking leads to effective action and to a better world. Mind Check is intended to serve as a bridge between the realm of the human spirit, that center of our energy, mental and physical, and our rationality, of which the scientific method is an excellent example. Mind Check is also intended to prove that the ideas of right and wrong are innate, not exclusively inherent in the situation or the whim of the moment.
To communicate with the author of Mind Check, please write to stephen.saft@gmail.com. For examples of the writer’s other writings, see the website http://www.iwillmeanpoetry.com.
Copyright © 2007 by Stephen Alan Saft
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