Selling “The Secret”
March 19th, 2007 by 
soulster
Ellen and Oprah, out of their shear magnanimity, have uncovered and shared with the humble masses “The Secret†(http://www.thesecret.tv) which has given untold wealth and success to all its bearers from ancient times untold. This 90-minute movie, made by down-and-out TV-producer Rhonda Byrne, reveals the amazing “Law of Attraction†upon which all the universe apparently rests, unbeknownst to most. This law alone, through the power of positive emotion, can attract to you love, health, bicycles, cars, houses, success, money, and more – all that you desire and the universe longs to give.
If you would like to know The Secret yourself, you can purchase it on DVD ($30), watch it online at the website ($5), or browse an illegal pirated copy on YouTube like I did (at least until the administrators get wise and take it down). If you would prefer reading to watching, you can also buy the book ($24). Perhaps, like many people, the simplicity of the message will seem endlessly hopeful and self-evident. Maybe, you will think to yourself, “I’ve always know this to be true,†as we do many times when someone says something that meets our deepest wants and hidden expectations. Or, you could be like me, and think that the endless scenes of clandestine missions and elite cover-ups add just the right hooky flavor to a self-help scam that fleeces millions of hope-hungry suckers out of their money by telling them lies they are eager to hear.
Now, as a philaletheist, I am interested in truth. So I would like to present my case against The Secret, and then, consistent with the themes of this blog, I would like the readers to talk about why this video is selling millions of copies in America (when it failed to gain an audience when first released in Australia). I think this is an amazing example of the power and lure of magical thinking, and I am curious for comments and insights into implications for atheists and believers alike.
How The Secret Claims to Work
According to Rhonda Byrne, and her host of “experts†enlisted for her film, people are unwitting magnets of their own destiny. Our emotions generate a frequency of sorts that attracts to us exactly what we are thinking about. As teacher Lisa Nichols explains in the film: “When you think of the things you want, and you focus on them with all of your intention, then the law of attraction will give you exactly what you want, every time.”
But more than thought, we attract what we are feeling and visualizing. If you are feeling the negative effects of personal debt, for example, you will attract more debt. One the other hand, even if you are currently severely in the red, all you have to do is visualize yourself with all the money you want and the emotions of “feeling wealthy†will draw money to you, seemly out of thin air. In the words of the website:
Money is magnetic energy. You are a magnet attracting to you all things, via the signal you are emitting through your thoughts and feelings. Discover how to become a powerful magnet for the creation of personal wealth.
Byrne thinks this is true of every aspect of life. For example, concerning weight loss, she writes, “If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it.†This will apparently attract your prefect body to you, sans exercise and careful diet, but might prove ruinous for the social lives of those who have more than a few extra pounds.
Just like Byrne says, this idea is not new, but she is mistaken to claim that all the great ancients understood it. Really, this idea belongs only to the genre of “self-helpâ€. Byrne herself discovered this “mystery†in a forgotten 1910 book called “The Science of Getting Rich†[read the wikisource copy]. The author of this work is the forgotten Wallace Wattles, one of the possible founders of the self-help movement, though not as famous as Thomas Troward and Charles F. Hannel. This book and others formed the foundational works that introduced themes mixing radical individualism and self-determinism in the context of capitalist American society. Books such as Norman Vincent Peale “The Power of Positive Thinking†and Og Mandino’s “The Ten Scrolls†have said similar things, selling the idea that thinking in new ways is the key to changing one’s condition. But Byrne is going further than motivational thinking. She’s saying our thoughts and emotions actually change reality itself – an idea more connected to religious traditions such as Gnosticism, the New Thought [wiki] movement, and later Scientology.
How I Think The Secret Really Works
Is there any truth in Byrne’s claims? Does her system work? Well, yes and no. To be fair, there is much evidence that links thought and emotion to our behavior and personal outcomes (that’s kind of “no daâ€). If you think you’re a loser, there is little chance of being a winner, accept by accident. But beyond the “self-fulfilling prophecy†of our own emotional self-programming, you must make a tremendous leap to get to The Secret. There is no reliable evidence that the Law of Attraction exists on a cosmic or personal level.
Just ask the two quantum physicists that appeared in the movie. Fred Alan Wolf and John Hagelin – both already considered controversial and on the margins of the field – have decided to distance themselves from the project since its release. Wolf claims much of what he said concerning human consciousness and quantum entanglement [wiki] ended up edited out. Of the whole law of attraction, he says now, “I don’t think it works that way. It hasn’t worked that way in my life.†Hagelin adds, “The coherence and effectiveness of our thinking is crucial to our success in life. But this is not, principally, the result of magic.â€
To be sure Byrne and some of her experts would disagree with me and ignore all critics. But what have they really shown in their own lives? They claim to have used the secret to attract wealth and happiness, and their personal fortunes and turn-around stories are impressive to many. But a short look on the online store of the website will show the engine to their success: the self-help industry. Americans, especially, are willing to spend millions to add meaning and success to their lives. The real secret Byrne and her experts have discovered is how to market the hopes of many Americans back to them. No less than 21 of the 24 “teachers” represented have made significant portions of their personal fortunes selling self-help books, seminars, audio series, and DVDs.
In Byrne’s own case, one could ask has she simply attracted wealth to herself from no where using positive thoughts? No, her wealth is coming from the 1.75 million copies of her book and the 1.5 million DVDs she’s sold since she began marketing the series, and much of this from an explosive up-serge in sales since Oprah threw her unconditional personal support behind the product.
Is It Dangerous?
Honesty. Some of the information presented in the movie is a bit twisted. For example, the respected world leader and statesman Winston Churchill is quoted in the film saying: “You create your own universe as you go along.†It’s true that Churchill said this, but look at the context of his statement:
Some of my cousins who had the great advantage of University education used to tease me with arguments to prove that nothing has any existence except what we think of it. The whole creation is but a dream; all phenomena are imaginary. You create your own universe as you go along. The stronger your imagination, the more variegated your universe. When you leave off dreaming, the universe ceases to exist. These amusing mental acrobatics are all right to play with. They are perfectly harmless and perfectly useless. I warn my younger readers only to treat them as a game. The metaphysicians will have the last word and defy you to disprove their absurd propositions.
I always rested upon the following argument which I devised for myself many years ago. We look up in the sky and see the sun. Our eyes are dazzled and our senses record the fact. So here is this great sun standing apparently on no better foundation than our physical senses. But happily there is a method, apart altogether from our physical senses, of testing the reality of the sun. It is by mathematics. By means of prolonged processes of mathematics, entirely separate from the senses, astronomers are able to calculate when an eclipse will occur. They predict by pure reason that a black spot will pass across the sun on a certain day. You go and look, and your sense of sight immediately tells you that their calculations are vindicated. So here you have the evidence of the senses reinforced by the entirely separate evidence of a vast independent process of mathematical reasoning. [from “My Early Life†(1930)]
As you can see, this amounts at best to a misquote that was not well researched and at worst is intentionally misleading.
Likewise, there are many great minds quoted in support of The Secret who would not endorse such an idea if they were alive. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. is quoted saying, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.†He did say this, but in terms of applying hard work towards the ends of a Gospel of social justice, not the accumulation of great personal wealth and self-serving happiness. The usage of his quote is absolutely contrary to his teachings on the inequitably usage and manipulation of humans in the capitalist system. Likewise, Einstein would not have approved of The Secret. He was even skeptical of the physics the movie attempts to employ in its favor, calling quantum entanglement “spooky action at a distance.â€
Also worrisome is fantastic titles given to some of the experts involved. Motivational speakers and self-help authors are called “philosophers†in the program to lend them more weight. John Vitale, one of the most prominent voices in the program, received his doctorate in metaphysics from unaccredited university that provides degrees online for “$90 down, $25 monthly†[see http://www.metaphysics.com]. This added to the pseudo-scientific language of magnetism, vibrations, etc., amounts to the tactics of snake-oil salesmen.
Problematic Psychology. University of Scranton professor John Norcross is an expert in self-help books. He’s worried about what happens when The Secret and the Law of Attraction doesn’t work. He says, “It’s pseudoscientific, psychospiritual babble. We find about 10 percent of self-help books are rated by mental-health professionals as damaging. This is probably one of them. The problem is the propensity for self-blame when it doesn’t work.”
According to Byrne, if it doesn’t work for you, the problem is you. The Law of Attraction works every time. When asked about people in great situations of tragedy, like the Rwandan genocide, she says, “”The law of attraction is that each one of us is determining the frequency that we’re on by what we’re thinking and feeling. If we are in fear, if we’re feeling in our lives that we’re victims and feeling powerless, then we are on a frequency of attracting those things to us … totally unconsciously, totally innocently, totally all of those words that are so important.” So Byrne reveals the real reasons why people catch bullets, are hacked to pieces with machettes, and raped brutally — they were unintentionally thinking of the wrong thing at the time.
Ethics of Economics. At heart I think perhaps Byrne’s does believe The Secret works. She is like many today who buy or construct beliefs that do their dirty-work for them. Where is Byrne’s money coming from? From many millions of people desparate for hope. What will it do for them? For most of them, nothing. And that’s just what such a scam does. It feeds off the fat bottom of somewhat ignorant but eager people, just like the majority of lotteries, casinos, and TV preachers. Hungry for a different life and envious of the middle-class American suburban dream (or more), they will make millionaires out of anyone who promises them what the want to hear.
By saying we are just attracting what the universe wants to give us (like the genie in the movie saying “you’re wish is my command”) from unlimited storehouses because of our positive vibrations allows us to blind ourselves to our manipulation and exploitation of others, especially on a systemic level. We can don our rosy glasses while our myth sells false hope and sucks others dry. There is no right or wrong, no discussion of egalitarianism or sustainability, only unbridled consumption. Even when it does work, it promises to change people into society’s cancer — consuming more resources, more money, more energy, more time, all for their own benefit. Applied broadly, this can only have ill effects on humans, and threw them, every living thing on the planet that is endangered by already rampant consumerism. Is that not a message people are hungry to hear, but will ultimately destroy them?
More Information:
Newsweek’s Jerry Adler “Decoding the Secret†http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/
Blair Warren’s “Crooked Wisdom†on “Sinking the Secretâ€
http://blairwarren.com/blog/item/sinking_the_secret/
Dr. Gail Saltz, guest discussing “The Secret†on the Today Show
http://gailsaltz.ivillage.com/health/2007/02/selfhelp_books_do_they_help.html
Oprah’s Coverage of the Secret
http://www2.oprah.com/spiritself/slide/20070216/ss_20070216_284_101.jhtml
Posted in belief, current issues, ethics, philosophical issues | 
March 19th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
“The secret” to getting rich is not to buy books that purport to tell you how to get rich.
The secret to wealth is to convince some other sucker to buy YOUR book.
March 19th, 2007 at 6:17 pm
Incidently, I was wondering if you would like to purchase my new book “5 Easy Steps Opulent Consumption” for $29.95, or the companion 8 CD super-seminar for 6 easy payments of $19.95 with a completmentary free gift of artificially-intelligent electronic rabits foot?
March 19th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
It might be summed up simply perhaps. Human beings respond positively to positive actions.
We like stuff that makes us feel good about ourselves, even, I would suggest, if it is a lie.
I haven’t read the book and I don’t watch Oprah. So that probably puts me in the small % of the population who doesn’t see Oprah as some sort of new age guru.
March 19th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
I’m curious, beepbeep, as to what parrellels you might draw between The Secret and religion, at least as you’ve seen it presented or marketed?
March 19th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
RE soulster
lol@ buy your stuff.
I don’t have a great consumer mentality. I baulk at the modern idea that our function seems to be to buy more stuff that we don’t need at cheaper prices.
Modern consumerism is at least “like a religion.”
I think every advertisement should be prefaced with - “Come and buy crap that you don’t need.”
March 19th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
We seem to be cross- posting.
Consumerism is like a religion. And I suppose that some of the products which are presented to be “consumed”, become like the tenets of consumerism.
Of course I consider religions to be also part of this “consumer mentality.” There is a religion marketted to every mentality.
March 20th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
Hello, all! Just back from some work, and I’ve missed you guys.
I lost all respect for Oprah when she had on John Edward and Allison DuBois. Just taking a minute to fill out the form below shows that a vast majority of her viewers are, frankly, stupid beyond belief. On the informal poll at her site, 94.4% believe in the existence of the supernatural, 95.7% believe in a sixth-sense, 95.2% believe in the existence of an afterlife, and 84.5% believe mediums speak to the dead.
On a similar note, as I was browsing the books in the bookstore at BWI, I had to take a minute to physically pull my jaw up from the floor, my dissappointment was so strong. The books they were selling? Nothing more than on one side The Secret and the other The Purpose-Driven Life. Now, I’ve known about both books for some time, but it just blew my mind: new-age phychobabble on quantum theory and desire to my left and new-age religious absolvement of responsibility (with poor theology) on my right.
I’ve got my own theories on this: the workday. We work too much, spending way too much time trying to advance our place in life. The result is that the few pieces of our life we can attempt to change outside of work happen to be either our diet or faux-emotional matters. Who hasn’t read a self-help book when stuck in traffic or before bedtime; who hasn’t read an article in a newspaper, and while at the supermarket, picked up the new health food? Who hasn’t had the chance to pick up a Chicken Soup for the Soul in a doctor’s waiting room, or go on an Atkins diet? So many self-help books and diet books are sold, so much money is made on a great demand for both spiritual (as if ’spiritual’ is the right word. Perhaps ‘existential’ does the trick?) and physical needs, it’s as if Americans are convinced that merely reading about self-help or picking up the newest diet craze will actually help us. It’s part of the human condition, but the American way of life exemplifies this: it’s all about getting rich quick, thin fast, smart without effort, in shape in just 10 minutes a day; time and energy don’t have to be invested because we spend far too much time working to better our social position, so we settle for superficial things like The Secret, as if introspection and a moment’s peace were just too difficult…
and if I were to push it one step further, we don’t just follow the most recent snake-oil salesman, but two-thousand-year-old ones as well.
March 20th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
Oprah is a smart woman. But she is also evidence of what happens when you open your mind to “woo.” She now has a show which specializes in “woo.”
The rule of “woo” is that it always increases to fit the space available. In other words, once you believe that anything is possible, every crack pot sounds plausible - thus increasing the amount of “woo” one has to deal with on a daily basis.
There is always room for more “woo” and eventually there is no room for anything but “woo.”
(woo-woo adj. concerned with emotions, mysticism, or spiritualism; other than rational or scientific; mysterious; new agey. Also n., a person who has mystical or new age beliefs.)
Woo-woo
http://www.skepticwiki.org/wiki/index.php/Woo-woo
March 20th, 2007 at 10:00 pm
No matter how we all feel about this drivel, the fact that OPRAH (genuflect here) has given her ‘blessing’ will make these snake oil salesmen billionaires. After 20+ years it must be hard to come up with something of substance 5 days a week. Maybe it’s time for Oprah to five up the daily grind and build a few more schools…. Like Beep, I don’t watch Oprah (or much else on TV) and I’m not a shopper so the latest ‘must have’ items and ’secrets’ make me yawn. The US has made “keeping up with the Joneses” an olympic challenge and the sad part is it’s fueled by massive amounts of plastic that comes with compounded daily interest. How depressing it must be for the compulsive comsumer to find out ‘things’ don’t make one happy. The only way one can make changes in his or her life is through determination to succeed in your goals and stick to a regimented schedule to accomplish them. We are turning into a nation of whiners–life is hard, poor me–and expect the government to take care of us from cradle to grave. I’ve never read any of the so-called ’self help’ books. I’m an evangelical skeptic of all things mystical and ‘woo’ in any form.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
All along while I was writting this piece and then considering what our reader reactions might be I’ve been pondering: “Why do I view The Secret differently from my faith?” Interestingly, my mind has not moved towards the usual apologetics one would use in defending a faith: it’s historicity, documentary ingerity, prophetic reliability, moral impecibility etc [all of which I use to deconstruct The Secret]. Instead, I’ve been thinking about some other things: If I were to imagine a super-intelligent being that wanted to interact missionally with life on planet Earth, what would that look like? I think such a being would have to interface with the populace in terms of mythical and religious forms, some of this meeting with the general expectations we could simply call “human” (as indicated by drunkentune’s numbers of the popularity of certain themes amoung Oprah’s viewers which would also represent large portions of the population, especially in a pre-modern world). But more than this, such a being would need to move beyond expectations into disruption of the status quo. This aesthetic fits with my understanding of Jesus and his teachings. While it first meets expectations that are almost universally human, it goes far beyond The Secret, most popular religiousity, and much current Christian theology in both reality and missional outcomes because of its great power of disruption. That is why I think some analysts are right that the movement of Jesus consitutes an anti-religion in several ways.
Anyway, I thought it might be interesting for other readers to be transparent about my thought process.
March 21st, 2007 at 2:26 am
Needless to say, I consider religious beliefs to be “woo” as well.
(But no one here would be surprised by that.)
March 21st, 2007 at 2:37 am
Hasty generalization follows:
“Woo” is any information which bypasses the critical analysis parts of the brain and aims straight for the emotional response sections.
Once in residence, it breeds like a self-replicating horny rabbit by setting up new neural connections especially for the function of transmitting as much “woo” as possible to the rest of the brain.
Eventually, the “non-woo” sectors close down and atrophy from lack of use. The “woo” then has free reign to replicate itself into various memes whose function is to accept information which concurs with the “woo memes” and to reject information which is contrary to them.
March 21st, 2007 at 7:57 am
Woo-woo-woo, I can’t hear yoo.
But seriously, would you say that my “critical analysis” part of the brain has been bypassed and atrophed simply because of my belief?
March 21st, 2007 at 10:16 am
Atrophed? Hardly. I said in passing in Naturalism, Pt. II, ‘I have met many people in my life that compartmentalize their thinking on naturalism and supernaturalism. They follow the methodology of naturalism, but choose to simultaneously believe in the existence of a supernatural world… I think [such beliefs] are irreconcilable, but would find it interesting if there was a way to reconcile such worldviews other than in a weak fashion.’
Many who practice critical thinking in many parts of their lives end up accepting the existence of a supernatural universe. I don’t think they use this critical thinking when they accept the existence of said supernatural universe, but, perhaps, they do. I think that it’s clear that those, such as Descartes, who have come to the logical conclusion of a supernatural entity, are simply wrong on metaphysics. But, oh, what critical thinking went into such ideas. There’s a difference between ‘woo,’ the acceptance of any claim, be it natural or supernatural, and belief in the supernatural. One is full of ‘woo’; the other is just (as I see it) an ad hoc conclusion of faulty reasoning.
March 21st, 2007 at 11:58 pm
drunken
I actually agree with you. (Which is why I premised my comment with “hasty generalization follows”)
There is some sort of disconnect that allows people to be able to use critical analysis skills in many areas of their lives, and not in the area of their religious faith.
There is an inconsistency in this which I find bothersome. (one rule for this, but another rule for that)
I think the term used to describe this is “cognitive dissidence.” (The apparent disharmony or irreconcilable differences between 2 opposing modes of thought.)
Having said that, my understanding is that the development of the brain may be influenced by the neural connections which are laid down early in life. There is a lot of science about this, some of it contradictory as well.
But at least some neuro-scientists and some people who study the development of the brain and early childhood learning, such as Bloom and Piaget, suggest that the brain learns to develop according to the experiences of early childhood. As I said, there is some conjecture concerning this as well.
Perhaps best described simply as “the use it or lose it model.” I am no expert in this field, but I do find these ideas interesting to say the least.
Soulster:
“But seriously, would you say that my “critical analysis†part of the brain has been bypassed and atrophed simply because of my belief?”
I do wonder how someone can have at least 2 disjointed and conflicting concepts of biology without internal psychological conflict.
By this I mean, that I am assuming that even though you intellectually know the processes of human conception, that 2 gametes fuse to become a zygote and continue on to form an embryo and then a fetus which is eventually born as a baby; that you manage to believe that a child was conceived without the need of male sperm.
As biology shows, in order to have a male child, one needs to have the presence of male sperm (XY) added to (XX, and that it is the addition of biological sperm which accounts for gender.
Now, I fail to see how an incorporeal being has sperm, or a penis for that matter. So, the only alternative I would have to explain away this claim is that ancient people were basically ignorant about the processes of conception.
That, and also that virgin birth stories were common in the ancient world. In the ancient world, great men were often said to be born of mortal women and divine fathers. In fact, the concept of a virgin birth was so popular, that no prophet or savior-god could be considered a divine incarnation without one.
Now to me, this just speaks of ancient people’s ignorance about the processes of conception. It also speaks to me of the dislike and distaste they had for women who were NOT virgins.
But more than that, it speaks of a superstitious world where to gain credibility, reverence and power, you had to be a male who was sired by a “superior male.”
Which is why “great men” were supposedly born of virgins and sired by a “superior male.” - a male god.
The second century Christian Justin Martyr says of Jesus, “He was born of a virgin, accept this in common with what you believe of Perseus.” - First Apology
So, even Justin Martyr recognized that the concept of a virgin birth was prevalent. But his reasoning seems to be that if others had “virgin births” then so was jesus’s.
I have my own theories about partriarchy and virgin births, but I won’t bore you anymore than I need to.
March 22nd, 2007 at 1:18 am
Awww..
My last comment didn’t go through.
March 26th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Good points drunkentune and beepbeep. I wrestled with this “inconsistency” in my thinking for a while. Eventually, I came to the point where I had to reject the Western/Greek/modernist category of “supernatural” altogether. God’s work in the world must be according to and in the matrix of natural systems that he created, otherwise we would not even be able to acknowledge their occurance or experience them (since our sensory matrix is limited to natural phenomenon). The divide between the activity of God and nature is as artificial as the divide between activity of man and nature in Western semantics. Likewise, I do not hold to the view that miracles are “supernatural” events, rather they are natural events done by the divine, but that we fail to understand methodologically or technologically at this point. According to the ancient world, and a Biblical worldview, signs and wonders are a natural way of God working. There is little difference between his activity in rainfall and that in healings, accept the human reaction based on our level of comprehension. Or to put it another way, some count childbirth as a miracle, and for them it is, but only because it creates awe by exceeding comprehension, and not because it defies natural law or processes.
So here’s my thinking on the virgin birth: why would I think it impossible? According to current in vitro techonology, it is no longer required for a man and woman to actually have sex for pregnancy to occur. As genetic engineering develops, humans will be cloned without combining sperm and eggs. It is possible in the near future with nanite technology that a “virgin birth” could be engineered entirely within the body of a woman. If we could do this using our only 400 years of modern technology, why should I think it impossible? So I see the virgin birth of Jesus as a natural event based on some kind of “technology” that we do not yet understand [perhaps some interface between conciousness and matter on the quantum level?], but one day will likely understand and could even mimic or reproduce.
I think the commonality of “virgin births” in mythology hints at a common human expectations that you point out beebeep and perhaps others, but I do not think the ancient peoples were ignorant of the process of conception since the common word for semen in the ancient world is “seed”. I would expect, if God were attempting to establish himself in the “human world”, to use something that in some aspects is consistent with human expectations. For example, if he wanted to present himself as a hero, he might use the common froms of hero origins. This is simply contextualization, though radical pluralism makes contextualization meaningless to its own detriment.
March 26th, 2007 at 10:52 pm
RE: “but I do not think the ancient peoples were ignorant of the process of conception since the common word for semen in the ancient world is “seedâ€.
Oh, they twigged that they had to do the “wild thing” alright, but they didn’t know that women produced half the biological material to create life.
And no common word for “ova”. Why? Ova wasn’t considered until Reinier de Graaf(1641-1673)
He was the first one to describe follicles, which he called “kleine bollekens” ,in the ovary which he called ‘the female testicles’ and he realized that a follicle contained an oocyte, which he called ‘ovum’.
Although he has never seen an oocyte; he deduced its presence from the observation of an ectopic pregnancy.
Ovum themselves were not EVIDENCED until 1827 by Prussian-Estonian embryologist Dr. Karl Ernst von Baer.
See, I kind of go by what people DIDN’T know. I figure that people’s beliefs are more than likely based on what they DON’T know, not so much on what they actually know.
It’s obvious that ancient man knew that his penis contained “seed”. It is NOT obvious that they knew that women contributed 1/2 the biological material to create life.
The bible uses the kind of “sexual language” that one would expect from an ancient agrarian society that associates male sperm with “seed”, the woman’s womb with “the soil” and the result as “fruit”.
Frankly, I think that ancient men believed, because of a LACK of knowledge about human reproduction and a lack of knowledge about ova, that they were the instigators of life through their “seed” and that women were the “soil” which bore their “fruit.”
I am sure that men managed to be viewed as quite powerful because of this. Powerful men sired powerful sons. Weak men sired women, who were necessary, but not as important as males who were the “seed producers.”
If men were responsible for holding the seed to life in their penis, then a more powerful man must be responsible for the creation of all life. One who wouldn’t need a woman’s womb to create children.
(Which is why the powerful supernatural male created man out of clay/dust.)
A powerful supernatural male or god, could however do anything, so if it was called for, he could impregnate women at the drop of a hat. (The gods were always impreganting women in the ancient world, the randy things.)
“Special women”, virgins, whose sexual innocence was not in doubt, (and hence the source of the “seed” was not in doubt either), were apparently best for this purpose.
Thomas Acquinis (1225–1274CE) does not recognize the existence of any biological material suppled by the female.
“As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power.” - Thomas Aquinas, ‘Summa Theologica’, Q92, art. 1, Reply Obj. 1
They didn’t KNOW that women contributed half the biological material required to create life. They saw THEMSELVES as the ones who provided all the biological material that was necessary. I think that ancient man believed that they held the “spark” of creation.
March 26th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Need I add that “tools that tilled the soil” were especially prized, and so fertility rituals were created which spoke of their importance.
Afterall, if you have the belief that seed is produced exclusively by males and that women do not contribute genetic material in order to create new life, then you most probably create a ritual which symbolises the importance of this belief. If women and men were made from seed which man produced, then the male penis would take on special religious significance. I suggest that the ritual which was created to symbolize this male power was circumcision.
March 26th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
By snipping off a little bit here and a little bit there, they were “sharpening their plough.” They were trying to make improvements on their tool of trade, so that it would do a better job.
March 27th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I know this is way off from the rest of the comments, but I just listened to the book on CD (a copy given to me by someone) who managed to tell me it was the secret to curing my MS! The more I listened the angrier I became. I am a very positive person, and my motto for years has been, as a man thinketh, so is he, so I think I’m rich, because I’ll never be rich unless I think it! Now I can say I’m rich in many ways, not necessarily monetarily, so I think the positive thinking is good. But this book is a disgrace and an insult, and I appreciate this column stating exactly how I felt while listening to these words. I will tell everyone I know not to give any money to these people!
March 28th, 2007 at 1:11 am
beepbeep:
Interesting info. I knew the “ovum” was a recent discovery, but didn’t know the details of the history. The commonality of phallic symbolism in cults from around the world confirms much of what you are talking about. Some have even said the Asherah poles condemned in the Biblical narrative where such devices.
This statement:
led me to thinking you were saying it was the male’s role they did not understand. Thanks for clearing it up.
I’ve tried to read Thomas Acquinis and found his theology at many points disturbing. He seems to me to present a systematic theology for maintaining the absolute power of God through the absolute tyranny of the Church. Paul would certainly not agree with Aquinis in that he says that (in the Lord, i.e. ideally above cultural roles) man and woman are not independent of each other (and thus not unequal) because though Genesis has woman coming from man, now man comes from woman [see 1 Cor. 11].
momof4boys:
Thanks for putting a real story to this issue. Your comments are very welcome and quite to the point. Don’t let these people soil your positive attitude. Perhaps the glory of humanity is itself the ability to hope.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:12 am
Where I am going with this, is that the concept of a male god is based on the fact that ancient man saw himself as the initiator of life.
If men initiate life, then it must be an allpowerful male who initiates ALL life.
They wondered how this powerful male god could do such a thing, and as they had an agrarian mentality and associated seed with men and women with soil. And that men planted their seed in the female soil, therefore the allpowerful male must have made man out of soil. (dirt, clay - whatever)
As men are the makers of all life, woman was made from man. So woman was made FROM man and from his rib. (That part was especially creative…)
“For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman but woman for man.”
1 Corinthians, 11:8
Frankly I just consider Judaism, Christianity and Islam to be slightly evolved penis cults.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:57 am
What else it does is alleviate guilt of conspicuous consumption, and even elavate it towards those at the top as having a superior way of thinking. It also equates wealth with happiness. Which is true, one thinking of someone struggling to meet basic needs, but past a certain point it is false.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
The Secret movie was an awesome example of how the law of attraction can summon the universal powers to manifest people situations and material things into your life.
All of the presenters had compelling stories that described in detail how their lives changed once they applied the secret principals.
I watched the movie several times only to discover the secret was never revealed nor did they explain how to actually make the law of attraction work in your favor.
I searched for a year and finally discovered exactly how the secret law of attraction works.
Anybody can put the principals to work for them and change their life dramatically in a short period of time.
It’s true, they are laws and they work all the time but its your choice to make them work for you and not against you.