If you haven’t had someone try to get you onto “The Secret”, you will. It’s bigger than the Yo-Yo craze.
Sorry to burst your bubble baby, but the real secret is that "The Secret" ain't no secret. A few folks have just found a snazzy way to wrap a * mish mash of this and that religion, a bit of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, and a bit of Counselling 101, a bit of smoke and mirrors, thrown in some common sense and they've mystified it by calling it 'The Secret', called the email newsletter 'The Secret Scrolls' and –of course – popped up on Oprah.
Oh and one more thing... they use the hippest phrases like 'The Universe rushes to meet you', 'vibratory fields', 'life force', and 'energy rhythms' and you can't argue with anyone who has an esoteric language like that, now can you? It’s gotta be right.
They used to call this kind of thing Snake Oil and it came in bottles and you drank it or rubbed it on and it cured everything. Now it comes in a DVD and a book and it goes in through your eyes and ears and - yep - it is still claimed to cure everything. It is peddled by a different kind of snake oil salesmen and saleswomen – all apparently well meaning folks, gurus, Mums and Dads and those who've become devotees.
Does it do any good? How could anyone qualify or quantify an answer to a dumb question like that? Ask a better question.
Does it do any harm? There's another nothing question. In fact it's what I call 'a Californian' – all about feelings and faff. Ask a better question.
Ask a question like this:
What's its authority base?
What's its foundation?
Who does it attract as its gurus and what in turn is their authority base?
All that glistens is not gold. Glug! Glug! Glug!
WHY 'THE SECRET' RESONATES
Seriously, the reason "The Secret" resonates with people is that somewhere in the depths of our DNA there is an unanswered telegram from our primeval parents telling us we were born for better, deserve more and shouldn't be so mediocre. The answer has never been a secret and still isn't. It's just not palatable and doesn't appear on Oprah.
It's called Character. It does come on DVD though. I'd love to tell you more about it. Let me know how to get in touch.
Look here. And then if you would like to know more, call me.
By *mish mash I mean it sounds like grabs from the Bible, Shintoism, Shamanism, Bahai, Buddhism, Hindu, Boohoo, Voodoo and Hoodoo.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
... 'Hillsong gets another bashing from the Bulletin.'
Hillsong gets it in the neck again from a likely source!
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
The magazine lets fly at Hillsong for such dastardly deeds as receiving 10% of volunteers' money (voluntarily given), for hosting the Prime Minister, for the Senior Pastor having a father guilty of sex indiscretions and crimes (openly acknowledged by the Senoir Pastor), for making and selling CDs (with no anti-parent, no anti-society, no pro-drug, no pro-promiscuity messages by the way), for having branches in other countries!! and for the occasional foibles of over zealous officials.
Then it publishes letters to the editor many of which are full of – you can't call it anything else– ignorant bigotry against the church.
With 19,000 attendees there are bound to be irritations.
But here's the irony. The Bulletin's owners have a bit to answer for themselves and I suggest it is a lot more dastardly than making a few million bucks from selling CDs and giving it to the service arm of the church, tax free. They have significant shares in casinos which are known to induce gambling addiction, bankruptcy, greed greed and greed, family break up and even gaol terms and suicide. Where's the big expose on that?
The Bulletin 'has a go' at the Hillsong volunteers doing their bit to help the people of Redfern – yet I'll assert (and I'm open to enlightenment) not one of the magazine's editorial staff or ownership has ever set foot in Redfern to do equal or better.
I wonder if this is not a case like that of Herod and John the Baptist. Herod had to cut off JB's head because JB was telling him he shouldn't be in an adulterous relationship with his sister in law.
It's drawing a long bow I know but I wouldn't be surprised if the Bulletin's owners know the casinos will be in trouble if Hillsong and its kind continue to have social impact, so they take any chance to apply blade to neck. Makes me wonder...
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
The magazine lets fly at Hillsong for such dastardly deeds as receiving 10% of volunteers' money (voluntarily given), for hosting the Prime Minister, for the Senior Pastor having a father guilty of sex indiscretions and crimes (openly acknowledged by the Senoir Pastor), for making and selling CDs (with no anti-parent, no anti-society, no pro-drug, no pro-promiscuity messages by the way), for having branches in other countries!! and for the occasional foibles of over zealous officials.
Then it publishes letters to the editor many of which are full of – you can't call it anything else– ignorant bigotry against the church.
With 19,000 attendees there are bound to be irritations.
But here's the irony. The Bulletin's owners have a bit to answer for themselves and I suggest it is a lot more dastardly than making a few million bucks from selling CDs and giving it to the service arm of the church, tax free. They have significant shares in casinos which are known to induce gambling addiction, bankruptcy, greed greed and greed, family break up and even gaol terms and suicide. Where's the big expose on that?
The Bulletin 'has a go' at the Hillsong volunteers doing their bit to help the people of Redfern – yet I'll assert (and I'm open to enlightenment) not one of the magazine's editorial staff or ownership has ever set foot in Redfern to do equal or better.
I wonder if this is not a case like that of Herod and John the Baptist. Herod had to cut off JB's head because JB was telling him he shouldn't be in an adulterous relationship with his sister in law.
It's drawing a long bow I know but I wouldn't be surprised if the Bulletin's owners know the casinos will be in trouble if Hillsong and its kind continue to have social impact, so they take any chance to apply blade to neck. Makes me wonder...
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