[Oe List ...] The Secret - Bill Alerding

[William Alerding]

> Here is a section of a   recent reflection from Michael Hall, one of 
> my mentors in Neuro Linguistic Programming. It adds something to the 
> recent discussion about THE SECRET.


> We do not even live our lives at the molecular level, let alone the 
> sub-molecular level. That’s why we cannot and do not put our hands 
> through solid furniture, cannot walk through walls, and cannot fall 
> off a skyscraper without getting hurt. Stones crush our bones, 
> speeding cars rip our fragile bodies apart, and spoiled food turns our 
> stomachs. And even the best thought, the most powerful beliefs, and 
> even the most innocent and focused intention, cannot prevent or stop 
> these things. Think quantum thoughts all you want. But if you jump off 
> a skyscraper or out of an airplane without a parachute, you will fall 
> and you will suffer and probably kill yourself.
>
> In the small book that’s now in bookstores, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne 
> (2006) quotes John Assaraf who says, "A thought has a frequency, we 
> can measure a thought." (p. 9). Again, a fascinating and even sexy 
> kind of thing to day, but it is just not so. The author has confused 
> levels. A "thought" exists at a macro-level of our phenomenlogical 
> experience. What occurs at the level of the brain processing is the 
> exchange of chemicals (neuro-transmitters, peptides, etc.) and the 
> charging of protons and electrons as a bio-impulse moves along the 
> neuro-pathways and the ions are exchanged in the cells. We can see and 
> measure and somewhat understand these mechanisms, but these are not 
> "thoughts" or "emotions" — those terms do not apply at that level, 
> they apply as a much more macro-phenomena.
>
> All of these bio-electrical and bio-chemical processes are the 
> sub-strands and sub-layers that comprise a gestalt that we call 
> "thoughts" or consciousness. So "thought" has no frequency. The 
> overall functioning of the brain has frequencies and within those 
> operations of the brain, we experience different kinds of thoughts.
>
> The author Assaraf has also forgotten that the idea of "frequency" 
> applied to thought is a metaphor — a metaphor! — not an empirical 
> description. This is similar to the metaphor that is used throughout 
> the book of magnetic attraction, "Thoughts are magnetic." Yes, 
> metaphorically. But no, not empirically. And this confusion of levels 
> has led to non-sense and ignorant statements like the following, 
> statements asserted without any evidence:
>
> "The law of attraction simply gives you whatever it is you are 
> thinking about." (p. 13)
>
> "Quantum physicists tell us that the entire universe emerged from 
> thought!" (p. 15)
>
> "Nothing can come into your experience unless you summon it through 
> persistent thought." (p. 28)
>
>
> Such over-simplistic explanations create several toxic thought 
> viruses.  The last statement implies there are no other factors, no 
> other variables in the world except thought which, of course, is 
> blatantly false. The first statement is indistinguishable from the 
> magical thinking stage of cognitive development that occurs in 
> children from 3 to 5 years of age, again implying that thought is the 
> only creative factor and that there are no constraints of reality to 
> interfere. If only! And the second statement is completely 
> undocumented; I have never read a legitimate book on the subject that 
> even comes close to asserting anything like that. Yes, the 
> indeterminacy factor means that we tend to observe what our 
> assumptions and premises prepare us to observe since the observer 
> influences the field. But that’s a very long way from saying that the 
> universe emerged from thought!
>
> There’s several dangers in this. Exaggerating, confusing levels, 
> failing to index statements, failing to include the other multiple 
> contributing factors etc. leaves the impression that people are "gods" 
> or at least almost all-powerful in creating reality. Not so. Where is 
> fallibility in all of this? Where is mortality? Where is social 
> reality? Where are the constraints of reality?
>
> So to ameliorate all of this, the truth is more balanced. We do create 
> ideas and meanings and as we hold them in mind, we send messages and 
> commands to our neurology to try to actualize them in our bodies. Try 
> to make them actual and real, however, is a very different thing from 
> thought absolutely creating your reality. If it did, the people in the 
> back rooms of psychiatric hospitals would be some of the most powerful 
> people on the planet instead of some of the most sad and pathetic.
>
> Yes, thinking, feeling, believing, and intending do create and set up 
> self-organizing "attractors" or attractions within us, but this is 
> mostly a way of talking about the mind-brain relationship, the 
> reflexive communication processes within us, and should not be taken 
> as an empirical description. There’s still much mystery about all of 
> this, and anyone even slightly educated acknowledges.
>
> Yet there are a few people in NLP who have taken this exaggerated and 
> unbalanced view and created the toxic non-sense that therefore 
> everything that happens to you— you are responsible for it. You 
> brought it into your life. Ah what power! There were no other factors. 
> No other variables. No other influences. You and you alone are totally 
> responsible for everything that happens to you. Now, that’s about as 
> toxic an idea as they come. It implies that other people cannot be 
> responsible for what they say and do. It implies that you do not live 
> in various family, cultural, social, political, economic worlds. It 
> implies that you are like a "god" who makes everything happens.
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