A Little Background Of The Secret
If you haven’t actually read or seen The Secret you may be hearing a lot of wording thrown around that doesn’t quite make sense. You may find it hard to understand some of what people are talking about. I’ve heard people say the language of the time sounds stilted and unnatural.
Things were different back then. New knowledge was changing everything. Charles and Myrtle Filmore were creating study groups that eventually became Unity Church; Ernest Holmes founded Religious Science and Edgar Cayce was giving psychic readings that were uncannily accurate.
The old ways were being swept away. Key to this process were the discoveries of science. People were being told that they had a power over the world around them.
The effect of these new ideas was not limited to spiritual circles. The idea of Positive Mental Attitude, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, the fields of art, literature, music and many others were strongly influenced by this shift in thought.
Many people may think the view of the New Age culture sounds like The Force of Star Wars fame, which “surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” This view of a universal substance that is everywhere present is described throughout history in culture and belief and is referenced by Wallace Wattles as “a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.”
The “new concept” that occurred 100 years ago was that we could directly impress our will upon this “formless substance” and shape our experience of life. No more pleading for the mercy of a Supreme Being! Such an idea was very transformational to the mindset of the time.
I like the way one person put it when saying “It gives us more power over our lives.” How can we know the unknowable? It makes sense to this writer that if we are made in the image of a Supreme Being then we would be co-creators of our lives.
Do you believe in astrology? You can embrace any belief you want, but I hope your fate doesn’t depend on it! I would not like to find out in the end that my ultimate fate depended on whether I mumbled certain chants or rubbed magic beads in a certain order.
We create our own reality by the thoughts we think. It’s exactly what the New Agers, the Positive Mental Attitude people and the optimistic folk have been trying to tell us all this time. The Secret is a secret because we don’t see it right in front of us!
It really makes for a fascinating study. The name of the book is titled The Science of Getting Rich. Published over 100 years ago, it is in the public domain today. Look for more information in the next paragraph.
Adam Dillinger runs the Self Help Hotline and has been involved in self improvement and New Age thinking since childhood. He is pleased to offer a free copy of the book that inspired The Secret. You can learn more about it here.
