Damek.

I love spirituality. I’m attracted to Taoist and Buddhist philosophy, uncodified nature religions (Wicca, I’m looking at you), and empathic, connected activities.

But I don’t go in much for New Age claptrap. I love science too much.

Lately I came across this thing called the “Law of Attraction.” It’s hogwash. Little more than Dianetics reborn, and about as dangerous and depressing.

It has a kernel of truth, in the psychological sense that positive thinking can be uplifting and life-transforming. I can speak from experience here as I’ve dealt with some depression and my own tendency to worry and introspect too much.

But that’s all it is. There’s no guarantee, there’s no magical, quantum mechanical electromagnetic mechanism at work here. And that’s what proponents of this idea claim.

And that’s the main thing that bugs me about this. The misuse and misunderstanding of science to push non-science, all in the service of tricking money out of people. Because there’s a book and movie out, that you can purchase many places online, and which have apparently been featured on Oprah and other popular media outlets.

Are Americans so stupid and desperate and, well, greedily American that they really buy this stuff? Apparently so.

No, you cannot think reality into the shape you want it to be. Be positive, by all means, but don’t start thinking you control your own reality, or you’ll be led quickly down the road to believe anything bad that happens to anyone else must be their fault. Some dangerous neo-fascist Republican corporate nazi shit going on there.

But I don’t need to write any more. It’s been better said by others. Particularly a commenter there who echos my previous paragraph:

Johann Hari: “This is the real Secret - that the book is a pure expression of Bushism: a slop of rancid aspiration-speak masking selfishness, social collapse and religiose myth-making.”

It’s true. The Secret — the so-called “law of attraction” — is like a back-door way for new-age-leaning leftists to give in to greed and jump on the Bush-America bandwagon. It’s sad and depressing and I hate to think of lots of kind, well-meaning people getting caught up in this crap.