Major objections to Secret naysayers

The battle between the Secretrons and the naysayers continues. Tony M., one of the Descended Masters and random instigators I mentioned yesterday, alerted me to a new thread on the Powerful Intentions forum, "Dealing with Nay-Sayers…including the Almighty Oprah." The thread was started by a member who goes by the name of Rev. Jackie Major.

I suppose a little background info about the Rev. Jackie is in order. On her personal page on the PI forum, Rev. Jackie tells how she has used the Law of Attraction to her benefit:

My health has really come around since I zeroed in on my unconscious thoughts that I re-play throughout the day. Now that I realize that every thought is like a magnet, I visualize my magnet and heal myself. Using the powers of visualizing perfect end results! My health is balanced and my wellbeing is grounded, allowing me to continue my work as a Healer.

Seeing as how magnets work on the "opposites attract" principle, this must mean that the Rev. Major is thinking about illness in order to attract health. Or perhaps she just has a favorite refrigerator magnet with an inspirational saying, and she visualizes that in order to get healthy. As for her work as a Healer, she writes, "I have trained/certifide [sic] as a 'Clairvoyant Minister' and this means that I work specifically through seeing energy and seeing a means to which to affect [sic] a healing (as called upon) through our higher-self information and angels."

Anyway, it seems that the Rev. Major is concerned about the negative Nellies and Neds who are trashing The Secret:

As we all know, the Secret had an excellent start out of the gates through the Internet, wherein it's [sic] energy found those of us who could embrace it's [sic] intention through the laws of attraction- NATURALLY, finding those of us who were ready for this LEVEL of information, freed from 'the voices' who would cast doubt. (Discussion panels on Larry King, Newsweek, etc.)

As the Secret grew wider-spread, the critics came onboard zeroing in on the (dissected and mis-conceived) limitations, based on their own UNRESOLVED fears. This is called 'projection.'

That is only the beginning of Rev. Major's message – she went on to address some of Oprah’s latest remarks – but the beginning is the part that really caught my eye, so I wanted to address it. First of all, Rev. Major, speaking as one Reverend to another (yes, I too am an ordained minister, though admittedly not a Clairvoyant one), I respectfully disagree with you on a number of points. For example...

1. The information about The Secret found its way to you and thousands of other recipients not because you were "ready" for this high level of information, but because every one of you just happened to be on the mailing lists of one or more of the New-Wage hustledorks featured in The Secret. They had agreed to help the then-budget-strapped Rhonda Byrne publicize her infomercial by spamming everyone on their massive email lists. In other words, word about The Secret first came to you not through some mystical natural law, but through viral marketing. And I probably don’t need to remind you that viral marketing would not be possible without the advent of the Internet and computers, which were the result of developments in science and technology (a product of that reductionist Western mindset so many enlightened people love to hate) – not some mystical, magical Universal law.

2. There were critics on board The Secret’s New-Wage party boat from the beginning – even before the DVD was released. And some of us hopped on board while The Secret was still in the honeymoon phase and was getting mostly-favorable media coverage. But most of y’all were just too intoxicated on The Secret and LOA to notice us.

3. During that honeymoon phase, there was indeed a lot of non-critical coverage of The Secret, Larry King’s two-part paean (November 2 and November 16, 2006) being among the most striking examples. This fawning coverage had us "naysayers" pretty riled up, and we didn't hesitate to speak up about it. But no one really seemed to be listening until Oprah came forth in February 2007 touting The Secret. THEN the media began noticing – and spotlighting – the criticism that had been there all along. And more criticism emerged as the media’s talking heads began to realize that any discussion of The Secret, pro or con, was good for ratings. It was about this time that some of the LOA-ers started coming down off of their nearly-one-year benders enough to notice that there were some pretty serious charges against their new drug of choice. Their first response was to accuse the critics of being fearful, negative, hate-filled or simply jealous of The Secret’s astounding success.

4. The limitations of The Secret are within The Secret itself and are not a "projection" of the "unresolved fears" of the critics. One of the very best summaries of the major falsehoods and deceptions in The Secret can be found on this excellent post on Calista McKnight’s blog. It’s long but well worth reading.

The discussion begun by Rev. Major on the PI forum continued, and it got pretty interesting, I must say. A participant named Livia explained how she dealt with naysayers, citing a practice called "segment intending," as explained in Esther and Jerry Hicks' book, The Law of Attraction:

That has been the most powerful way for me to avoid the pull of naysayers. Segment intending is simply about parceling your day into segments so that you can clearly articulate your goal for that segment and thus feel good one segment at a time until you get the hang of doing it all day long!

In other words, it's all about consciously preserving those good feelings, a few moments at a time, rather than actually listening to the naysayers or critically examining one's own beliefs. (Memo to Livia: Maybe you are being "pulled" in the direction of the naysayers because on some level, you suspect that much of The Secret is b.s.)

A few folks raised some other issues. Some focused on the recent Oprah segment that Rev. Major had cited in her opening thread, in which Oprah grilled a cancer patient about the efficacy of LOA. Oprah's confrontational questions were apparently what prompted the Rev. Major to call the Big O a "naysayer." (All I can say is that if Oprah's a Secret naysayer, I'm Mother Theresa.) One forum participant even touched on some of the objections that critics of The Secret have raised. These folks were summarily dismissed by the Rev. Major, who threatened to delete her thread if people didn’t behave themselves. So here’s the link; read it while you can.

And then get back to Calista’s blog and read some more about Oprah’s great love affair with The Secret. Despite the Rev. Major’s contention that Oprah is a naysayer, it appears that the Big O is definitely on The Secret party boat too. Unlike the Secretrons, however, she’s not giddy or high; she seems to be stone-cold sober and pretty darn calculating. There’s money in this for her – lots of it. As Calista says, "Be afraid. Be very afraid...