Does “The Secret” Teach Magical Thinking About Abundance?

May 26, 2008 · Filed Under Main Page · Comments Off 

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“The Secret” has been a colossal phenomenon about how to create abundance, using “The Law of Attraction.” When my adult son first watched the “The Secret,” he objected to one dramatic episode. A boy wants a bicycle. He hopes and dreams for the bicycle and spends time gazing excitedly at a picture of the exact bike he wants. And then he sees the bike in the window of the bicycle shop with a “SOLD” sign on it. The boy becomes upset and gives up hope for the bicycle. After a period of despair, he again focuses his hopes and dreams upon receiving the bicycle. Throughout the entire episode, he does nothing but dream. The episode ends when the child opens the door to find his grandfather with the coveted bike as a present. We last see the boy riding off happily on his new bicycle.

The episode is meant to demonstrate that happy and excited thoughts focused on a desired outcome will result in getting what you want. In “The Secret,” the boy “manifested” his bicycle as a result of his concentrated positive thoughts and feelings. This is the secret of abundance in “The Secret.”

My son contrasted this story with his own experience. When he was in middle school, he wanted a Go-Kart. We said he could have one if he earned the money for it. So he went out and offered to work for people in the area. He raked leaves, swept driveways, and did other odd jobs. In a short period of time, he earned enough money to buy his Go-Kart. He “manifested” his Go-Kart as the result of concentrated intention and hard work. He has commented more than once in the years since that we did him a great favor by encouraging him to work to buy his Go-Kart rather than to buy it for him. It taught him that he could have what he wanted by taking focused action to get it.
 
I don’t mean to dispute the validity of “The Law of Attraction,” or deny the possibility that people can manifest what they want to have by concentrated thought. In a world of quantum possibilities, the mind is a powerful creator. I do mean to make the point that entrepreneurs are much more likely to get what they want than dreamers are, because dreamers merely dream, hoping for an outcome. Entrepreneurs act upon their dreams to produce abundance.

On contrast, so many of the stories addressed to children teach magical thinking as the method of manifestation. Fairy godmothers wave magic wands, genies grant wishes, boy wizards recite magic incantations. Children also learn about Santa Claus with his flying reindeer as the great wish fulfiller, a giant rabbit who brings colored eggs and candy, and tooth fairies who exchange baby teeth for cold, hard cash. As a child, I even learned to wish upon the first star I saw at night. I had no similar instruction in how to turn my wishes into reality by creating an action plan.

During elementary school, as a child growing up on Cape Cod, I was involved in a summer children’s theater. I had some small acting roles and did some behind-the-scenes work. During the production of “Peter Pan,” I sat in a theater box to the upper left of the stage and did sound effects. One sound effect was to jingle little bells for Tinkerbell.

In the story, Tinkerbell drinks poison and is dying. Peter Pan calls out to children everywhere to save her life by believing. Peter addresses the audience directly and claims that if there aren’t enough children who believe in fairies, little Tinkerbell will die. At that point, the audience gets involves and wishes Tinkerbell back to life. My part in the dramatic moment was to jingle the bells louder to show that Tinkerbell had been restored by the fervent wishes of the children.

Now, many years after my brief career in theatrical sound effects, I look back on Peter Pan as one more way that the adult world teaches children magical thinking. Maybe it is all part of the wonder of childhood and maybe it is all harmless stuff. But I am not convinced. The common denominator in all of these fantasies is to instill in children the idea that if you only find the right magic spell, the right genie, the right wizard, the right fairy godmother, do the right things to please Santa, then you can have what you want.

Such magical thinking does not end with childhood. When we get older, we can substitute hope in winning the lottery, hitting the jackpot, or buying into the latest biz-op as the way to get rich without doing anything beyond hoping for abundance.

Whatever else “The Secret” teaches, in this one episode about a child who wanted a bicycle, it teaches magical thinking as the method to achieve abundance.
 
In contrast, successful entrepreneurs do what my son did. They don’t use magical thinking to accomplish their dreams. When they want something, they do something about it. As a result, entrepreneurs are more likely to create wealth and abundance than any other group of people.

One way to overcome magical thinking is to understand the real nature of money. Be sure to get your free “52 Heart Of Money Insights” by Kalinda Rose Stevenson, Ph.D. at  www.nomoneylimits.com. Discover the difference between “earning money” and “making money” in a  real estate investing book, “No Money Limits,” USA Book News Best Books Winner in Business: Real Estate category and Finalist in Business: Personal Finance category. “No Money Limits” is not just for real estate investors,

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