movie: "The Secret" (3/5 stars)

If you've ever seen "What the Bleep", this is a similar, but better movie. There is a quite cheesy opening about some women finding a note from her daughter, and some monks in the middle ages stealing away with a secret that the rich, Illuminati types don't want out in the world.

The movie shows a lot of people discussing the secret, which is given early in the movie, interspersed with shorts of people behaving a certain way, or having certain things happen to them.

Basically, the "secret" is the law of attraction, which says that what you think about is the kind of thing that attracts itself to you. There are some metaphysicians, philosophers, quantum physicists, reverends etc.. who are talking about this phenomenon as if it is a real phenomenon, a law that has to be explained by quantum physics and deep science. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant... as the people in the movie say, you don't have to understand how electricity works to use it - you cook things, and turn on lights all the time and it just works.

Apparently, the law of attraction is the same and is always at work. While I'm sure there is a logical explanation for all of these people's experiences, and it can all be explained away logically, statistically, scientifically, I say that it doesn't really matter.

The fact is that it's better to think about things that you want to have, things that make you feel good and would be good for your life, than it is to go around thinking about how bad everything is. Every psychologist, positive thinker, mother, father, person... would most likely feel that this is true, and it is.

The movie quotes Mother Theresa who said, "I'll never attend an anti-war rally, but if you're having a peace rally, please invite me along.", and Joseph Campbell who says, "Follow your bliss." The bottom line, think about, immerse yourself, really feel the things that you really want - it will make you happy, and thinking about these things will get you going in the direction you want to go in. If you attend an anti-war rally, all that will do is promote war, not matter how prominent the "anti" is at the front of the posters. Thoughts attract.

There are lots and lots of reasons why this law is wrong, but the most obvious, funny one that I could think of was the teenage boy with a condom in his wallet. Sex is on their mind all the time, almost certainly pictured in great detail. That being said, not many of them get it. It's probably easy enough for the film makers to find people whose dreams have come true and spun the story as if it happens all the time to everyone, and the only reason it isn't working for you is because you aren't thinking hard enough. This is a religious point of view and there is no way to disprove it.

I thought it was a positive movie and I enjoyed it, but I don't believe that the law of attraction is some quantum field that exists everywhere in the universe and you resonate with it if you think the right thoughts.