The Secret Behind The Secret

There's no doubt about it. "The Secret" is a huge success, thanks in large part to receiving the Golden Ticket and appearing on Oprah (twice).

This book/DVD has been ingeniously named "The Secret" making everyone wonder why they're never heard of it before. But, the "secret" has been around for ages, we've just always referred to it as "The Law of Attraction.

Supporters of this Universal Law of Attraction will tell you all you have to do is feel your wants and needs and you will enjoy success while opponents say it's all really just a bunch of crap.¹

Interested in just how many Universal Laws are out there (in addition to the secret Law of Attraction), even I was surprised to find (after a 30 minute 'Net search) more than 150; many of which seemed to contradict each other, effectively cancelling each other out.

For instance, there's the Law of Like-Attracts-Like and the Law of Opposites Attract. It is just me or are these polar opposites? If opposites attract and like attracts like, wouldn't I, in effect, be attracting everyone? And, there's the Law of Money and the Law of Poverty. In other words, if you're wealthy, I guess you're using the Law of Money until you make a trip to Vegas, in which case, you're probably using the Law of Poverty. And, not to be outdone, I also found The Law of Vacuum.²

So, just how real can the Law of Attraction be when lumped with a Universal Law such as the Law of Vacuum? It made me wonder...so much so, in fact, that I decided to test the law.

Call me a skeptic³, but I was willing to put The Secret to the test, especially since a success meant I'd have more money in my pocket.

Now, while it's true that the author of The Secret delves into all types of things one can attract from wealth to health, relationships, life and beyond, let's face it, most of us just want more of the green stuff. And, after watching The Secret, I'm convinced the attraction of money was the author's main theme.

Setting a deadline of one week, I asked the Universe for $100. I even enlisted a few friends for the sake of accountability. I was also very clear in my request - I wanted $100 of unexpected income within seven (7) days. Even though The Secret teachers insist that it isn't any more difficult for the Universe to summon $100 than it is to summon $1,000,000, I felt that in order for this request to have a fighting chance, it had to be believable to me. And, $100 in one week was believable.

This Law of Attraction, The Secret tells us in a three-step process: 1. Ask; 2. Believe; and 3. Receive.

So, I asked. There, Step One was done.

Then, I each day, I believed by thanking the Universe for the money as if I had already received it.

Now, Step Three is the tricky part - Receive. Here's the thing...The Secret teaches that the "how" of receiving is not up to us - that's the job of the Universe. We just have to believe we have already received. Believe as though we've already received -- tough when you don't have the money in your pocket. But, alas, I'm getting caught up in semantics. Surely that would only serve to confuse the Universe. So, I simply waited and believed. I believed in my $100 the way Virginia believed there really is a Santa Clause.⁴

Then, on the eighth day, after no lightning bolts, after no $100 checks, after no $100 PayPal deposits, I started to wonder. Now, let me be clear here - I didn't doubt. Doubting would erase the previous seven days of hard core belief and there was no way I was taking that chance.⁵

So, there I sat "wondering:"

· Did I ask for too much? That couldn't be it. The teacher's of The Secret tell me it's just as easy for the Universe to product $100 as it is to produce $1,000,000. Surely the Universe wasn't scoffing at my measly request.

· Should I ask again? Nope. To effectively use The Secret, you have to be willing to let it go and still believe.

· Did I lack in my belief? Again, I have to say "No." I was steadfast. Check that - I am steadfast in my belief.

And so, I let it go for just a moment as I recalled reading that there is no time in Universal Energy. Maybe, just maybe, one week to me is not traceable in the Universe's Kyros⁶ time.

As I go about my eighth day, I notice that the day before⁷, approximately $80 was deposited into my eBates rebate account. Is this my $100, I wonder, albeit slightly short? After all, this seems to be an 80% return on my investment. If I had asked for a million dollars, would I have been disappointed to receive a mere $800,000? I think not.

So, is it really just to Ask, Believe, and Receive? I'm no longer a skeptic. And, with this kind of result, I'm very willing to keep "testing" this Universal Law. However, I'm still not convinced, despite what I've read, that the Law of Vacuum wasn't invented by the Hoover Company.

There is, of course, much more to The Secret than what I've talked about here, but that's what the book is for. For me, this was an interesting exercise in the Law of Attraction and you can be assured that I'll be practicing this on a daily basis! Next time, I'm attracting a new BMW.

__________

¹I thought of many words I could use in place of "crap." For instance: malarkey, bull, nonsense, bunk, hogwash, rubbish, absurdity, garbage, baloney, twaddle, gobbledygook, jabber, noise, babble, mumbo jumbo, drivel, and balderdash, but none seemed to sum up the critics' voices better than the original.

²You might think the Law of Vacuum was cleverly created by the Hoover Corporation. But, alas, The Law of Vacuum appears to be the real-deal having to do with energies that create a vacuum-like force drawing forth other energies.

³I heard that.

⁴Just to be clear - I'm with Virginia on this one. As the story goes, in the late, late 1800s, a coroner's assistant living in New York was asked by his daughter, Virginia, whether Santa Claus really existed. At 8-years-old, Virginia had begun to doubt the existence of Santa Clause because her friends had told her that he was not real. - ah, peer pressure. Not wanting to steer his daughter wrong, the coroner's assistant told Virginia to pose the question to the New York Sun newspaper. Certainly, daddy was passing the buck on this one, but what started out as a way of ducking an innocent question, spurred the editor to raise this question with the Sun's readers. At its first printing, the editorial that raised this philosophical question ran in the seventh place on the editorial page below comments on the "chainless bicycle." Now, here's the great part of this story. When this story is re-run in modern times, more than half of the editor's original response has been removed, including (and, this is my favorite part): "Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies."

⁵I could almost hear James Ray say "Your wish is my command."

⁶Theory holds that there are two types of time measurement: Chronos and Kyros. Chronos is clock time, as in 12:15 PM while Kyros is timeless. In other words, Chronos dictates "You're Late," while Kyros lends itself to "Seize the Day." You can thank the ancient Greek's for that wisdom. So, the next time you're late, just explain you're operating today on Kyros time.

⁷If you're following along, the day before would be Day 7 - the deadline I had given the Universe to produce the $100.