James Arthur Ray: Tweeting Through the Darkness

In an earlier post, I made reference to James Arthur Ray's "thoroughly nonsensical defense of The Secret's blame the victim idiocy, in light of things like 9/11 and the Holocaust." Allow me to elucidate. Here is the quote from ABC News:

In that interview, Ray defended "The Secret" against critics who asked if the victims of 9/11 or the Holocaust are to blame for simply thinking incorrectly.

"I know people of the Jewish faith and heritage who don't necessarily believe the Holocaust was bad," Ray said. "Now that might be shocking to you but I have people on record who have said, hey there's a lot of good things that came out of that, a lot of lessons, a lot of opportunities for the world. "

I don't personally know any Jews -- or anyone else really -- who would characterize the Holocaust as not "bad," so I really wonder who he's been talking to. But that's almost beside the point. Ray's answer dodges the question. One could certainly argue that every dark cloud has a silver lining and that the Holocaust did provide certain opportunities for growth, learning, and social advancement. But that has nothing to do with whether or not victims of horrendous adversity bring it on themselves with their "thoughts."

The question posed to Ray is one raised by The Secret's simple formula: Think and feel positive things and you will attract positive experiences. Think and feel negative things and you will attract negative experiences. Ray was certainly not the first proponent of the "law of attraction" to face that question, and I guess he answered it, or avoided it, about as well as anyone.

As I've discussed ad nauseum, in particular here, the paradigm set forth in The Secret is one doomed to fail even the most ardent proponents at some point in their lives. Bad things happen to good people; even when they're really "positive."

So now that the eternally optimistic Ray is facing an indictment for manslaughter and the implosion of his fortune, what does he do? How does he fit that experience into the philosophy on which he's built his career and reputation? More doubletalk like his Holocaust dodge. 

Now that he's been released on bail, Ray has taken to his Twitter account  and he's tweeting up a storm. He's emerged from his incarceration with a new appreciation for the workings of the shadow.

"If you can't embrace the dark you'll never dance in the light"
3:03 PM Feb 27th via txt

Very few understand that it's the dark that creates and gives birth to greater light. Read the book of Genesis again.
11:19 AM Feb 27th via txt

It's the experiences of the darkness that bring clarity to the light
9:08 AM Feb 27th via txt

Okay... So he's no St. John of the Cross. (Of course St. John of the Cross didn't have access to a microblogging format so his published works were a little more polished.) But now that James Arthur Ray has entered his dark night of the soul, has he learned anything new about how the "law of attraction" might explain his current predicament? It would seem not. As he tweets along, we learn that "conditions" in our lives don't seem to operate according to the "law of attraction."

Current conditions have NOTHING to do with cause... unless we thru our own ignorance of how the universe operates give them power.
12:59 PM Mar 3rd via txt

Whaaa? [Insert Jon Stewart spit take of your choice here.]

The Law of Cause and Efffect is misrepresented in the realm of conditions. Conditions have no primary cause only "secondary causes"
10:55 AM Mar 3rd via txt

We've discussed Universal First Cause as well as Relative First Cause, let's return to the differences btwn "cause" and "conditions"
8:13 AM Mar 3rd via txt

I looked. I couldn't find any of these distinctions between primary and secondary causes in any of his extant writings. Must be new. Hmmmm...

Many misunderstand "If you know the laws of the universe you'll never have challenges, difficulties, upsets" yet no tradition teaches this
11:00 AM Feb 28th via txt

That's true. I can't think of single religious or spiritual tradition that says knowledge will make your life a cakewalk. So where would people get that idea? Oh. I know. From The Secret and from a certain motivational speaker who contributed to The Secret, James Arthur Ray. They've been telling us for years now that if we can only learn to think properly, we can have exactly the life want; not the one the wheels of fortune thrust upon us.

Remember. The universe is really a great big catalog here to hand us exactly the life experience we want. Quantum physics tells us so. James Arthur Ray explains it all to you.

The Copenhagen interpretation states this. There is no objective reality. What does that mean? That means there is nothing outside of you that doesn't come from where? Inside of you. Everything is subjective. Subjective to whom? To you... The observer effect states that you always, always get what you're looking for...  What are you creating? What are you creating? Is it worthy of you? Because see, here's how it works. There's unlimited potential and possibility in the quantum domain. There's vibrant health and vitality and there's dis-ease... There's abundance and there's poverty... There's joy and there's pain. And the moment you place your attention upon a chosen intention: Boom! The particle is created and every other possibility collapses to zero. I hope you're thinking. Once that particle is created that is coming into form and what happens, there's a law in this dimension, the third dimension, called the "law of attraction." "Law of attraction" says what? Like attracts? Like. This particle is created and so another particle in resonance to it is attracted to it and another and another and another and another and... Boom! You've got a Mercedes. And that's how it works. That is how it works... "I'm not good enough." Particle! "I don't have enough education." Particle! "I can't lose weight. I'm big boned." Particle, particle, particle! [Emphasis mine.]

"This sweat lodge is going to kill people." Particle!... No. Scratch that. I think this is where we get into the primary, or is it secondary causes that create... or don't create "conditions." I think... Sweat lodges that kill people are not in the quantum realm... or if they are, they can't be created by our attention to our intention... I think I get it... The observer effect means you "always" get what you're looking for, unless you get several deaths from hyperthermia and a manslaughter indictment... Or something like that. It's a little confusing.

I looked through some of Ray's books to get clarity on this causative principle, and again, he seems to say exactly the opposite. Here's an excerpt from The Science of Success. (p.47)

Most of us are already familiar with this SuperLaw. It states that every effect must have a cause, and every cause must have an effect. Anything that is a "cause" is actually the "effect" of something that came before it. And that "effect" becomes the "cause" of something else. It is impossible to start a "new" chain of events. The SuperLaw shows us the universe is a perpetual and never-ending cycle. All the great religions and philosophies speak of the Law of Cause and Effect. They phrase it in a variety of ways:

• What you sow, so shall you reap.
• If you put a lot out, you get a lot back.
• You can't get back something other than what you give.

And from Harmonic Wealth (p.185):

What you believe you'll achieve is the driving factor of your results: your lack of abundance in terms of money, peace of mind, relationships, physical health, or anything else. This is the cumulative effect of your current Total Belief System, which is exactly what it sounds like -- the totality of everything you believe, your habits, experiences, values, and assumptions. Most people try to change their results by dealing with the effects, throwing new solutions at the results, thinking they're going to change things. But if you want to change the results you must deal with the cause. You have to change what you believe.

One thing that I've noticed, when it comes to The Secret, is that they assiduously avoid discussion of "negative" results in your life. Once you understand The Secret and think positively, you'll attract positive results and your fortunes will change. (From whatever your story is, which they don't want to hear about.) They don't delve deeply into how we "attract" unwanted outcomes -- or how the Jews (and Gypsies, and homosexuals, etc...) may have "attracted" the Holocaust through their "thoughts." It would seem that pattern is holding. At least so far, it seems that Ray is not addressing what "thoughts" attracted his current legal troubles. He seems to be back to a world where negative "conditions" are beyond our control. He doesn't seem to be looking at the metaphysical causes of his predicament. More to the point, he's refusing to take any responsibility for the overtly physical and tangible causes of this disaster. He packed too many people into a very hot sweat lodge for too long and several of them died. Many more were hospitalized with symptoms of hyperthermia and dehydration. No mystery there, really.

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Global Village, Global Oneness?

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Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee poses us an interesting challenge on The Huffington Post. Can we use the global communication potential of the Internet to experience unity consciousness with the world?

I remember when I first accessed the Internet in the early Nineties. I think that my children were using AOL and I went online to see what these "chat rooms" were. But although there was not much content in those days, I was struck by its potential and possibility. At that time I was having mystical experiences of the oneness that is present in all of life. In these moments I was made aware of the interconnectedness of all of creation, and how everything is a living expression of divine oneness. This first time that I went online I saw in that moment how the Internet could give the whole of humanity direct access to this interconnectedness and global oneness. All that is required is a computer and a connection.

Almost twenty years later the Internet is one of the central tools of our global connectivity. In the last few years it has radically changed our culture, how we communicate and access information. From laptops and cybercafes all around the world, even in unexpectedly remote locations, we are forming an interconnected whole, a network of human consciousness. And yet, although we are more and more immersed in this new form of communication, we do not appear to realize its deeper significance. There is the danger, that, as in the words of T.S. Eliot, we "have the experience but miss the meaning."

Well, we have definitely missed the meaning, if the meaning is deep connectedness. As one friend of mine discovered, when he was hit with a notional pie on Facebook by an old friend he'd been trying to have a real conversation with for weeks, the Internet is more about instamacy than intimacy. A communication tool is only as effective as its users. Besides which, the glut of information that is now at our fingertips is so overwhelming and distracting that it presents entirely new challenges to our ability to prioritize our interactions, in both the cybersphere and the face to face world. One could argue that our ability to have meaningful communication has actually atrophied.

Vaughan-Lee's objective is even greater, though, than the use of the Internet for meaningful discourse. He is looking to its potential to achieve mystical awareness; which is to say, experiential oneness. In this regard, I think the Internet is severely limited. It takes us out of ourselves, rather than deep into our core, or into the present moment. It is certainly useful for observing the collective consciousness. The Time Monks have developed the technology to forecast future occurrences by spidering the web and sifting for emerging archetypes. Their accuracy is pretty amazing. They can do this because all human beings are psychic and we are all tapped into a much greater, shared awareness, whether or not we're aware of it. We are all tributaries of the same great river, as my old friend Ralph Blum used to say. The Internet certainly makes more of those tributaries instantly visible. This does not automatically lead us to the great river, however.

Achieving those "peak experiences" of oneness consciousness requires a bit more effort for most of us, as Vaughan-Lee, himself, indicates. According to his bio, he is a Sufi teacher. Sufi is the mystical teaching in Islam. So he, no doubt, has undergone the learning/unlearning process that begins to break down the illusory world of duality, to take us into the mystical experience. I'm no expert on Sufism, but I did study for some years with Cherokee Mystic Virginia Sandlin, to that same end. For most of us, those experiences of merging with everyone and everything are brief and transient. They are, however, life-altering. It has nothing to do with how much of the world we can see before us, but with how we see it. It begins with acknowledging that oneness as a reality, rather than a symbol or platitude. Personally, I think it comes more easily when we are in the physical presence of earth's expressions, rather than pixels on a screen. I know many people who've had spontaneous experiences of oneness while communing with nature, for instance.

I would also remind Mr. Vaughan-Lee that the globe, while bigger than a breadbox, is still only a sliver of "all that is." We are one with all the universe, hence the name: uni (one) verse (turn). And the universe is not yet wired, to my knowledge. The earth is a microcosm of all that is; but then so am I. It is that awareness, that the smallest particle under my fingernail is a microcosm that contains the macrocosm, that awakens us to the mystical experience.

If we are to begin to experience our oneness through the wonder of satellites and fiber-optic cable, I would humbly suggest that we train our minds to view them as our reflections, just as we do with every other seemingly external object and person. To the mystic, the computer in front of me is "all that is" expressing as a computer. The person I chat with online is "all that is" expressing as the person with the silly, inscrutable nickname.

If we are to take Mr. Vaughan-Lee's challenge seriously, we have our work cut out for us. Internet communication, while vast in reach, is notoriously rancorous. I have personally encountered Internet users who insist that talking to people online isn't like talking to "real people," because they're just "words on a screen." This, presumably, justifies all manner of a verbal abuse. As one Time columnist put it:

The horribleness of commenters isn't really a mystery: Internet anonymity is disinhibiting, and people are basically mean anyway.

We tend to be far more gracious when we have to deal with people face to face, or eye to eye. As I wrote here, the presence of eyes seem to the be the deciding factor in locating our moral compass. They are the windows of the soul, after all. Eyes are also geometrical depictions of oneness. Looking one another in the eye, is an experience largely missing from Internet communication. So, I'm afraid, is the conscious experience of unity. I see no reason, though, that our computers and Internet relations cannot become focal points for expanding our awareness of that oneness. We could begin by reminding ourselves that cyberspace is "all that is" expressing as cyberspace. If the Internet could be a vehicle for expanding our awareness that far, it truly would deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for which it has apparently been nominated. Mr. Vaughan-Lee has posed us an interesting challenge, indeed.

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The Next Level

Graham Hancock had this video posted to his Facebook page, so I took a look at it. It's a neat little round-up of ideas on transformation and multi-dimensional awaremeness, from thinkers as diverse as Joseph Campbell and Joe Rogan.

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Sharon Osbourne, Susan Boyle, and Facing Our Shadow

I have this theory that celebrity news stories pull our eyes away from news of far more important, world changing events, because celebrities are, at bottom, just people whose very human foibles we can we relate to. Despite all their money and fame, the vicissitudes of their relationships and their little human dramas reflect the best and the worst in all of us. I was reminded of this recently, when news broke of a very unfortunate incident involving Sharon Osbourne and a microphone. I have posted the video of Osbourne's interview on Sirius Radio above, but I warn you, gentle reader, that it is not for the faint of heart.

Osbourne, who is a judge on 'America's Got Talent,' slammed the 'Britain's Got Talent' superstar's looks on Sirius XM's 'The Opie & Anthony Show.' She says Boyle was "hit with the f***ing ugly stick"....as opposed to the surgeon's scalpel?

Here is a partial transcript of her expletive-laced tirade. You can watch the entire thing below.

"I like everybody to do well. Even somebody that looks like a slapped arse. God bless her. It's like, 'You go girl'. She does look like a hairy arsehole. She is a lovely lady. You just want to say 'god bless' and here's a Gillette razor."

In case you've been living in a cave and missed the high drama of Susan Boyle's emergence onto the world stage, here is a link to the video that launched a small town spinster to heady stardom. I still can't listen to her sing that song without bursting into big, wet, sloppy tears. Of course, much of her success at winning over a worldwide audience was the irony of a plain featured -- dare I say it, homely -- middle aged woman, with a voice like a bell. That an issue was to be made of her appearance was inevitable. Cue the junior high school behavior of Sharon Osbourne.

In reading the comments on Osbourne's cringeworthy performance on The Huffington Post, disapproval of her cattiness is nearly unanimous. News of her recent apology, has garned little more sympathy or forgiveness. She disgusted people. She disgusted me. Then a funny thing happened. I showed the video to my husband. He was also disgusted, but he generously caveated that she was probably seduced by the rapt attention of the two DJs who were cackling away and egging her on. He allowed that it was, to a small degree, mitigating. He got me to thinking.

One of the funny things about being in a radio soundbooth is that it is simultaneously very intimate and totally public. It is easy to forget, for moments at a time, that you are talking to more people than those with whom you are conversing; that there is a large invisible audience. Something similar happens on computer bulletin boards and blogs, where we talk to our friends, periodically oblivious to how visible those pixels are to anyone with an internet connection. Thinking of it in that way forced me to consider the dynamics playing in that soundbooth, and there is a very particular dynamic that occurs when a woman is the center of male attention.

So I began to consider the possiblity that Sharon Osbourne's behavior was somewhat understandable. Then something else happened. I heard myself talking... to my husband that is. I heard myself questioning how Osbourne could possibly be so damned lookist, when she owed her career to her role "dragging around that animated corpse of husband." And when I was done ripping into Sharon Osbourne, we turned on the Food Network hoping for "Iron Chef," but instead being tortured by a few minutes of "Dinner Impossible."

"Oh no! Why does that guy wear his hair like Ed Grimley?!" I heard myself say. It would seem that I am not, in fact, above a bit of cattiness.

Celebrities reflect the best and the worst of us. Everything does. Constantly. It cannot be otherwise because the world is our reflection. And it is always easier to point at someone else's shadow, especially when we only know them through our televisions and computers. Facing our own is much, much harder.

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If We're All One...

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I tuned in yesterday afternoon to Christina Pratt's new radio show. (Which I announced here.) Christina provided a wonderful introduction to both the new show, and the practice of shamanism.

One of the concepts Christina touched on was the concept of oneness. A question from a caller exposed the difficulty a lot of people have with this concept when they're really being honest with themselves. The caller asked, and I'm paraphrasing, "Does that mean I'm one with people and behaviors I really dislike?"

Short answer, yes.

This is a fundamental challenge of inculcating a belief in oneness, when we are living this experience of duality. The concept that we're all one sounds yummy and warm when we're in a loving space, like when we're on a spiritual retreat. It tends to go out the window quite suddenly, when we're confronted with the very tangible yuckiness of the world at large.

Christina addressed this question from a shamanic perspective, and since I don't think I could do her answer justice, I'd suggest getting the podcast to hear her explanation. But, I'd like to address it from the perspective of mystical thought. Having studied for many years with Cherokee Mystic, Virginia Sandlin, it is one of the fundamental issues I've had to confront, in my own thought process. The role of a tribal mystic is different from that of a shaman. As Virginia has described it, a mystic is born embodying the context of oneness. They hold that context for their community. Where most of us perceive the manifestations of this world as separate and discreet, a mystic innately perceives them as expressions of the whole. In my years of study with Virginia I had my comfortable concepts of duality and over-there-ness ground to dust. She's relentlessly, mercilessly mystical. She is a mystic, after all.

An anecdote: Some years ago when I was taking a course with Drunvalo Melchizedek, I found myself increasingly uncomfortable with what has been aptly termed the "instamacy" of spiritual gatherings. To put it simply, I'm not a hugger. This puts me distinctly at odds with the cultural climate of a lot of "new age" gatherings. To me, a full body press with another person is a rather intimate expression; one I reserve for people I feel personal affection for. That kind of affection usually develops over time. I feel perfectly comfortable hugging close friends and family, but rarely people I've just met. But, anyone who's ever been to one of these things can tell you, hugging total strangers is the norm. So, it became an issue. Drunvalo's response was to tell me that I would some day realize everyone I met was "absolutely" me. I think he was somewhat taken aback when I told him I already fully understood that, but it didn't change my views on the hugging culture a bit. While it was most certainly true that everyone in that class was "me," so is Charles Manson. I don't want to hug him either. This is what I mean when I say that oneness can feel yummy when we're in a comfortable, reasonably agreeable environment. But, being "one" with someone doesn't actually mean you have to like or trust them. To do so can be foolish; even dangerous. What it does mean is that you have to own the parts of yourself that reflect them. This is where it becomes difficult.

Accepting that people and behaviors we dislike are "one" with us, is part of what Virginia terms "sourceful awareness." Each of us is the source of our reality. That means when we observe behaviors we dislike, we look to take responsibility for them in ourselves, first and foremost. Does that mean that when I observe Charles Manson -- and quite naturally recoil -- that I'm a murderous psychopath? No. What it does mean, is that somewhere in me is something that "reflects" murderous psychopath. It could be smaller than a speck under the nail of my pinky toe, but it is there somewhere, else I would not have sourced its reflection. Addressing that as an intellectual question will ultimately bring frustration, and cause the ego to go into a threat response. I could never tell you, from an analytical place, how I reflect murderous psychopath. But, there is a technique for addressing exactly these questions. Simply ask spirit to show you what that reflection is, in yourself, and allow the images or words to appear in your mind's eye. Often, what you see, won't even make any logical sense to you. But, whatever you see, be willing to forgive and release it. Whatever it is, it is a barrier between yourself and conscious unity with the divine.

"We still attribute to the other fellow all the evil and inferior qualities that we do not like to recognize in ourselves, and therefore have to criticize and attack him, when all that has happened is that an inferior 'soul' has emigrated from one person to another. The world is still full of betes noires and scapegoats, just as it formerly teemed with witches and werewolves."

~ Carl Jung

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That One

William Henry recently made an observation on his blog, that made me chuckle. He thinks Barack Obama looks a lot like the Akhenaten (Akhenaton, Amemhotep IV). I could see that.

When John McCain pointed to Obama and said “That One” during the debate – sending a karate chop at his opponent who had voted for an energy bill - I had to put my guitar down.

I picked up my cat Boo and said, “Tell me he didn’t just call Barackhenaton ‘That One’ (or ‘Th-At-one’ or ‘Th-Atone’), because ‘The Aton’ or ‘The Atone’ is the name of the God worshipped by Ackhenaton.”

McCain supporters deny he meant anything in particular by the stinging remark. Obama supporters claim a racist tone in the dehumanizing term. Apparently, to McCain, Obama is not a person, he’s a thing.

I think McCain was psychically picking up on the whole Barackhenaton vibe. “That One”, “Th-At-One” or “Th-Atone”.

I had a very similar thought when I heard McCain's "that one," slur. Particularly, when it started to gain traction as a meme. Not for the first time, I was compelled to reflect upon some of the deeper symbolism of Obama and his campaign. All celebrities and politicians take on symbolic significance that is larger than their personal identities. They represent many things to many people, and there are archetypal patterns that emerge as they become increasingly prominent. Obama symbolizes unity (one-ness), even more than he does "change." His language is inclusive, eschewing partisan rancor.

RACHEL MADDOW, HOST: Senator, you criticize the Bush administration frequently. But, you almost never criticize the Republican Party itself. Other Democrats --

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Much to your chagrin.

MADDOW: Well, yes, actually. I mean, other Democrats, you will hear them talk about the GOP as the party that's been wrong on all the big stuff. Creating Social Security, civil rights, the War in Iraq. But, you don't really do that. Do you think there is a stark difference between the parties?

OBAMA: Well, I do think there's a difference between the parties, but here's my belief. That I'm talking to voters. And I think they're a lot of Republican voters out there, self-identified, who actually think that what the Bush administration has done, has been damaging to the country.

And, what I'm interested in, is how do we build a working majority for change? And if I start off with the premise that it's only self-identified Democrats who I'm speaking to, then I'm not going to get to where we need to go. If I can describe it as not a blanket indictment of the Republican Party, but instead describe it as the Republican Party having been kidnapped by a incompetent, highly ideological subset of the Republican Party, then that means I can still reach out to a whole bunch of Republican moderates who I think are hungry for change, as well.

He represents a union of races, bringing together not only black and white racial identities, which have been so divisive in our nation's history, but many other cultural elements. Because he has Muslim family members and an unfortunate middle name, he is misidentified as Muslim, unintentionally or otherwise. Although he, himself, is not Muslim, he brings that heritage into the mix, which has forced a dialog on the issue of Muslims in American culture and politics. While it has been used as a wedge issue, there is a great opportunity, here, for national and international healing.

I was struck, early in Obama's campaign, at the use of the letter O as a symbol in his advertising and logo. It very directly invokes invokes the sphere.



This is why I find the Akhenaten comparison so germane. It's certainly not because he was a unifier. He was known throughout history as the "heretic king" for his battle with the priests of other gods, particularly the cult of Amun. For his radical revision of Egyptian religion, much of his legacy was defaced shortly after his mysterious death. But, his greater purpose, and arguably effect, was to introduce the concept of unity consciousness. By instituting a law of one, and enforcing a worship of only one god, he brought forth that mystical construct symbolically. Like Obama, he employed the image of the sphere. His god the Aten, the noon-day sun, had no face; no anthropomorphic identity. He made worship of the solar disc, the law of the land.

The underlying point of mythical references to "the one" -- whether it be Jesus Christ, Neo, Obama, a life partner, or any other "savior" we seek -- is that the term does not really refer to a person. It is numerical code, which pervades our mythology and is hardwired into our consciousness. It represents what is, in fact, the "Christ consciousness," and that is one-ness. Our quest is to remember that there is no "other." There is only all that is. This deep mystical underpinning is played out in our democratic process and referenced in our national motto: "E pluribus unum." (Out of many, one.)

"We are the ones we have been waiting for. We are the change we seek."

-- Barack Obama, quoting either Alice Walker, June Jordan, or the Hopi Elders, depending on whom you ask

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Even A Broken Clock...

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is right twice a day. And sometimes David Brooks writes a really worthwhile column. Today it's nice overview of the bridging of science and mystical thought.

Scientists have more respect for elevated spiritual states. Andrew Newberg of the University of Pennsylvania has shown that transcendent experiences can actually be identified and measured in the brain (people experience a decrease in activity in the parietal lobe, which orients us in space). The mind seems to have the ability to transcend itself and merge with a larger presence that feels more real.

This new wave of research will not seep into the public realm in the form of militant atheism. Instead it will lead to what you might call neural Buddhism.

. . .

First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is.

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Sick As Our Secrets

One does not become enlightened
by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
The latter procedure, however is disagreeable,
and therefore not popular.
-- Carl Jung

It took me a while to get around to seeing "The Secret." Once I learned what the secret actually was, I felt no great urgency. But when I saw how it had been savaged on Salon.com, I resolved to see how bad it was for myself. Pretty bad, really.

This is not to say that it has no value. A number of the tools recommended by its co-creators are effective, at least up to a point. Far be it from me to discourage the use of creative visualization, visualization boards, affirmative thought, or any other of what I would consider rituals. When appropriate I recommend these tools to my clients. But they are not a panacea, and that caveat is decidedly missing from the slickly produced movie; and presumably the book, which I did not, in all fairness, read.

I don't think I'm revealing any state secrets when I tell you, gentle reader, that the secret revealed in "The Secret" is the "law of attraction." The problem is that this is not so much a law as it is a bromide. What many of us learned during the "new age" revolution of the 80s and 90s was that all of our affirmations and creative visualization did not, in fact, work. At least not fully or "every time," which is what "The Secret" promises... well as long we don't think "bad" thoughts and undo all the promise of our "good" thoughts. According to the brain trust that brings you "The Secret" our "negative" thoughts bring unpleasant experiences, and our "positive" thoughts bring pleasant ones. I almost wish life were that simple.

The "law of attraction" is really a very dumbed down -- one might say truncated -- version of a much deeper truth. This is probably why it has resonance and "feels" true enough to inspire a cottage industry. It has what Stephen Colbert calls "truthiness."

Underlying this attractive idea is what mystics have been teaching for millennia. It is that all things reflect all other things. That it cannot be otherwise because we are, in fact, one with everything around us. This means that the people you meet are not "like" you ("like attracts like"). They are you.

Where the "law of attraction," as presented in "The Secret," teaches us that if we are attracting unpleasant experiences, we need to shift our thoughts away from the negative and make ourselves happy, mystical thought teaches what Virginia Sandlin terms "sourceful awareness." Mystical thinkers honor that anything that comes into our reflective experience is mirroring something that exists inside of us, all be it, to a different degree. So our recognition of what we find unpleasant in our reflective environment is an opportunity to complete and heal that aspect in ourselves, thereby facilitating healing for the world that is our reflection.

So this mystical awareness comes with a greater sense of responsibility than thinking happy thoughts in order to get a new car.

I entitled this review "Sick As Our Secrets" not simply as a play on words, but because that axiom speaks to one of the deeper problems inherent in the philosophy advanced in the "The Secret." That phrase, popular in Twelve Step programs, is used to describe the dis-ease that arises because of the fraud, shame, and denial that are so much a part of the life of addicts and their families. As anyone who has undertaken a healing process on that level learns, the secrets that do the most damage are the ones we keep from ourselves. Try as a I might, I can't see the difference between the practices advocated in "The Secret" and plain, old-fashioned denial. To advocate that people simply stop feeling their "bad feelings" is not just glib. It's irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

I nearly fell out my chair when I heard "The Secret's" Bob Proctor advise that when you're feeling bad you should simply put on some music, because it would change your mood, and to "block out everything but that [happy] thought." Try that if you're clinically depressed. Just try it. Or if you are recovering from childhood sexual abuse. Or if you are one of our returning veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Even the joyous sounds of Steve Martin's banjo won't make you happy, and to suggest that it's that simple is insulting. And if you could block out all that pain, it would be anything but healthy.

In her appearance on "Oprah," Lisa Nichols explained how she addresses people who want to talk about their personal history or "story." Her response is "I don't want to know it, because you've used it to keep yourself where you are." So word to the wise, if you want someone to help you heal and come complete with your painful history, Lisa Nichols is probably not the appropriate facilitator for you.

The implicit hostility of this particular assumption is one I'm all too familiar with in my own field. That is to say, the idea that people are holding on to past trauma because they are "unwilling" to release it. I have even heard colleagues say of their clients, "Well they don't really want to get better." If they're showing up for help, they want help. It just may not be the kind of help that healer is willing or able to provide. And when a healer runs into the limits of his or her own paradigm, it is easier to blame the client than to question the belief system. When a client pushes your buttons, it's easier to dismiss the client than to determine why you have sourced them into your practice.

The glib, binary approach re-popularized in "The Secret" has real world consequences. I was recently emailed an article by Ross Bishop that addresses the impact on people suffering from mental or physical illness. He writes:

I received an email recently from a woman who had suffered through bi-lateral breast removal. She wrote:

Do you have any insight on why I developed this disease? It's been very difficult for me to handle what they teach in "The Secret" and all the Unity Church beliefs and that we create illness through negative thinking because I worked so hard to heal my life and have lived a life of joy for the past two years.

For several months I have been receiving calls and emails from people who are distraught over the guilt-producing messages contained in the video "The Secret." These people have been told that:

. . . you create in reality, in one way or another whatever you focus your attention on. Your life is going to be an outcome of where you predominantly place your attention.

This is a resurrection of the discredited "Law of Attraction" foisted by new age teachers, MLM organizers and get-rich-quick real estate infomercials. The idea is a simple one: what you place your attention on will manifest in reality.

Like Mr. Bishop I have been hearing from frustrated clients who aren't finding the tools to improve their lives in these ideas that are achieving a whole new level of popularity in the new age arena. And like Mr. Bishop, I see them beating themselves up for not being able to accomplish what they've been promised is so simple.

Experiences like these with the fall-out from "The Secret" make me tend to agree with Peter Birkenhead of Salon, who characterizes the slickly repackaged philosophy and Oprah's endorsement of it as venal.

Why "venality"? Because, with survivors of Auschwitz still alive, Oprah writes this about "The Secret" on her Web site, "the energy you put into the world -- both good and bad -- is exactly what comes back to you. This means you create the circumstances of your life with the choices you make every day." "Venality," because Oprah, in the age of AIDS, is advertising a book that says, "You cannot 'catch' anything unless you think you can, and thinking you can is inviting it to you with your thought." "Venality," because Oprah, from a studio within walking distance of Chicago's notorious Cabrini Green Projects, pitches a book that says, "The only reason any person does not have enough money is because they are blocking money from coming to them with their thoughts."

Worse than "The Secret's" blame-the-victim idiocy is its baldfaced bullshitting. The titular "secret" of the book is something the authors call the Law of Attraction. They maintain that the universe is governed by the principle that "like attracts like" and that our thoughts are like magnets: Positive thoughts attract positive events and negative thoughts attract negative events. Of course, magnets do exactly the opposite -- positively charged magnets attract negatively charged particles -- and the rest of "The Secret" has a similar relationship to the truth. Here it is on biblical history: "Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Jesus were not only prosperity teachers, but also millionaires themselves, with more affluent lifestyles than many present-day millionaires could conceive of." And worse than the idiocy and the bullshitting is its anti-intellectualism, because that's at the root of the other two. Here's "The Secret" on reading and, um, electricity: "When I discovered 'The Secret' I made a decision that I would not watch the news or read newspapers anymore, because it did not make me feel good," and, "How does it work? Nobody knows. Just like nobody knows how electricity works. I don't, do you?" And worst of all is the craven consumerist worldview at the heart of "The Secret," because it's why the book exists: "[The Secret] is like having the Universe as your catalogue. You flip through it and say, 'I'd like to have this experience and I'd like to have that product and I'd like to have a person like that.' It is you placing your order with the Universe. It's really that easy." That's from Dr. Joe Vitale, former Amway executive and contributor to "The Secret," on Oprah.com.

So scientific it is not -- nobody knows how electricity works, indeed -- but the notion I find most disturbing is that we should disconnect from the realities of the world because they don't feel good. I've even heard people go so far as to assert that by tuning out horrific events we can actually help to heal the world; accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative in our minds will reflect itself in a similar healing for the planet, the theory goes. What to say? You know, if reading newspapers is too upsetting for a person and causes discomfort, there's nothing wrong with putting them aside, to create an emotionally safe space for oneself. One would hope that within that context they would undertake the healing necessary to address the world around them again. But to confuse that elective denial for actual healing or some type of spiritual evolution is vanity. I'd love to wish the war in Iraq right into the cornfield by just not thinking about it, but it doesn't work like that. Now when we reach the point that we can look at the news and not get triggered, or thrown into anger or fear... that's an accomplishment. (Full disclosure: I haven't reached that point.)

There's a site I turn to periodically called Awaken in the Dream. The site author Paul Levy writes a great deal about spiritually conscious activism. In a recent piece, "Triggered by Evil" he takes a tack that stands in stark contrast to the idea of ignoring the news because it makes us uncomfortable. Writes Levy:

Due to the horrific events playing out on the world stage, I find myself unable to avoid the subject of “evil.” Some of my readers have objected to my use of the term “evil,” because it “triggers” something in them which makes them feel uncomfortable, and sometimes even makes them stop reading. Their reaction has made me wonder whether I should use a different word so as not to trigger them, or is activating people the whole point of my writing? When I contemplate this question, however, I am left with the feeling that there is no other word that more accurately describes what I am pointing at than “evil.” I find myself wondering, is there something being revealed to us when, for example, people are triggered by the mere mention of the word “evil?”

He goes on to explain how ignoring evil increases, rather than decreases, its power over us.

Evil animates itself, psychologically speaking, through humanity’s unconsciousness. Evil’s power is only operative in the absence of consciousness. Evil, through our psychological blind spots, plays with our perceptions so as to hide itself. In order to not be destroyed by evil we have to understand the nature of the beast we are dealing with. Like that great maxim of medicine says, “Do not attempt to cure what you do not understand.” We have to bring evil to the level of conscious awareness. To quote Jung, “…how can evil be integrated? There is only one possibility: to assimilate it, that is to say, raise it to the level of consciousness.”

Evil cannot stand to be seen, for when it is truly seen, it is not unconscious anymore, and its seeming power over us gets taken away. Just like a vampire can’t stand the light of consciousness, once we see evil, we take away its autonomy - it can no longer act itself out through us unconsciously. The energy locked up in evil then becomes available to serve what is best for the whole, which is to say it becomes transformed so as to feed and nourish life, instead of creating death.

I offer up these alternative perspectives, because I think they form a necessary counterpoint to the "tyranny of a positive attitude" advanced in "The Secret."

One of the subtler story arcs of the "The Secret" is that its co-creators appear to have gone through a period of struggle, trial, or some other journey through the shadow world. Rhonda Byrne describes her trauma from the death of her father and career crisis. Joe Vitale was homeless. Michael Beckwith was a drug dealer who had a classically shamanic "death/transformation" dream. What he described on "Oprah" could be defined as a "peak" or "mystical" experience. But it came after a long period of wallowing in muck.

The authors gloss over these experiences, using them more as cautionary tales -- things they went through before they knew the secret -- than exploring how crucial these periods surely were to their later accomplishments. But I guess if "The Secret" promised health, wealth, and relationships beyond your wildest dreams, by instructing, "First, go through a period of personal hell," it wouldn't sell very well. The assumption is, I guess, that people are picking up the book or movie because they are as ready as the authors were to come complete with their shadow journeys. But just because you are suffering and want relief from that suffering does not mean that you are done with suffering. It does not mean that you are remotely ready to just release everything that causes you pain. "The Secret" promises that you can come complete with that pain by thinking really hard. If only that were true.

Your "thoughts" are not the sum of your consciousness. You are so much bigger than your thoughts. The universe does not serve your thoughts. It cannot, because the universe does not exist outside of you. You are the universe. All of it. The good, the bad, the ugly. Our challenge as people of consciousness, beings of power, lightworkers (pick your term) is not to wish the "negative" away. It is to own and reintegrate our shadow, because to do so is to heal -- bring into wholeness -- ourselves and all the world.

"The Secret," both book and movie are available in the bookstore.

Also recommended: Nora Ephron's "The Secret: A Testimonial" on The Huffington Post. Hilarious!!!

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Eye of God

This photo, dubbed the "Eye of God," has been circling the web, and recently found its way into my inbox.

The photo is from the NASA website and depicts the Helix Nebula. According to Snopes the nebula is not that colorful in real life. The photo is actually a composit of 9 different photographs of the nebula. Here's another photo of the same nebula, also from the NASA website.

This is NASA's description of what is occurring:

One day our Sun may look like this. The Helix Nebula is the closest example of a planetary nebula created at the end of the life of a Sun-like star. The outer gasses of the star expelled into space appear from our vantage point as if we are looking down a helix. The remnant central stellar core, destined to become a white dwarf star, glows in light so energetic it causes the previously expelled gas to fluoresce. The Helix Nebula, given a technical designation of NGC 7293, lies 450 light-years away towards the constellation of Aquarius and spans 1.5 light-years. The above image was taken with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) located atop a dormant volcano in Hawaii, USA. A close-up of the inner edge of the Helix Nebula shows unusual gas knots of unknown origin.

So the real explanation may not be as "feel-good" as the urban legend floating around the web. Sorry, no matter what you've read, sending the photo to seven people on your email list won't bring you luck. But if you're willing to contemplate the wonder of a planetary star in entropy, it's truly magnificent.

I was struck by this image for another reason. It is an example of replicated geometries. It is not accidental that certain cardinal shapes recur throughout our reflective reality. "Sacred geometry," which pertains to the architecture of matter, ascribes significance to certain forms. This is why we see them in so many sacred symbols. The shapes themselves demonstrate the geometric requirements of manifest form.

The eye shape is sacred to many cultures. The variously attributed "Eye of Ra" or "Eye of Horus" in ancient Egypt is one example.

Legends and images of eyes permeate both mythology and superstition and with all manner of magical attributions. The evil eye is common to the folklore which has been disseminated outward from Mediterranean cultures. I've known many Greek and Italian Americans who wore a single disembodied eye in jewelry and on key chains; protection from the evil eye.

Every US dollar bears the "Eye of Providence." In the orignal sketches for the Great Seal, it was a single disembodied eye floating over a truncated pyramid, surrounded by a "glory." In its final form it was encapsulated in a triangle, reminiscent of the Egyptian benben; an icon of manifestation.

The "eye," then, captures our imagination in a way that few forms do. The geometry of the eye, with its alternations of spherical and vesica pisces shapes, tells the story of manifest creation. In sacred geometry the sphere represents the unity from which all manifestation springs. The vesica pisces, or almond shape, occurs when spheres overlap sheres. It is the shape of cell division, when one becomes two. That duality and oppostion makes possible the wave form out of which all things generate. Robert Lawlor explains in his book Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and practice.

The idea of the unknowable Unity at the beginning has been the basis of many philosphies and mythological systems. While Shakhara, with the Buddhism of a certain period, posited the void as a fundamental assumption, the main stream of Hinduism has always rested on the notion of the One, the Divine, who divided himself within himself to form his own self-created opposite, the manifested universe. Within the divine self-regard, three qualities of himself became distininguished: Sat (immobile being), Chit (consciousness-force) and Ananda (bliss). The original unity, represented by a circle, is then restated in the concept of the Real-Idea, the thought of God, which the Hindus called the bindu or seed, what we call the geometrical point. The point, according to the Shiva Sutra Vimarshini Commentaries, forms the limit between the manifest and non-manifest, between the spatial and the non-spatial. The bindu corresponds to the 'seed-sound idea' of the Tantras. The Divine transforms himself into sound vibration (nada), and proliferates the universe, which is not different from himself, by giving form or verbal expression to this self-idea. Ramakrishna summarized the scripture by saying, 'the Universe is nothing but the Divine uttering his own name to himself.'

Thus the universe springs forth from the Word. This transcendent Word is only a vibration (a materialization) of the Divine thought which gives rise to the fractioning of unity which is creation. The Word (saabda in Sanskrit, the logos of the Christians and Gnostics), whose nature is pure vibration, represents the essential nature of all that exists. Concentric vibrational waves span outward from innumerable centres and their overlappings (interference patterns) form nodules of trapped energy which become the whirling, fiery bodies of the heavens. The Real-Idea, the Purusha, the inaudible and invisible point of the sound-idea remains fixed and immutable. Its names, however, can be investigated through geometry and number. This emitted sound, the naming of God's idea, is what the Pythagoreans would call the Music of the Spheres.

Seeing the Eye of God, then, is not a once in a lifetime opportunity, seen through a telescope. We see the Eye of God everytime we look into the eyes of another, or into our own eyes in a mirror. For "God is an infinite sphere whose circumference is everywhere and whose center is nowhere."

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There Is Only One World

There is only one world, the world that is pressing up against you this minute.
-- Storm Jameson

And it's feeling a little close right now, isn't it? Everyone I've spoken to over the last week has been feeling like they're in a pressure cooker. I know I am. A friend of mine gave me a book for Christmas called "365 Nirvana: Here and Now." Periodically I just flip the book open and see where I land. The quote above was the first thing I saw the other day when I tried this bit of bibliomancy. It was not a comfort.

My colleague and shamanic healer Christina Pratt talks about "clear mirrors" and "smoky mirrors." Clear mirrors are pleasant reflections. When we encounter people and events that feel pleasing to us, they are reflecting the best in us. But other reflections are not so attractive -- even repellent. Those are smoky mirrors; reflections of our shadow self.

I'm not an astrologer but I've been told that we are moving through some difficult transits right now. There is certainly a sense of shared tension; the Muslim world is rioting over offensive cartoons, Vice President Cheney shot a man in a hunting accident... It would be nice to think that those things are "over there." They're not. They're part of our collective consciousness. Whether we like it or not, some tiny piece of these events around the globe is in each one of us, and is undoubtedly mirrored in some way in our daily lives. We would do well to heed those reminders of what we need to clear in our consciousness. As the next quote in my book reminds me:

Everything comes to you in life as a teacher.
Pay attention.
Learn quickly.
-- Old Cherokee Woman to Her Grandson

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