Is new age and spiritual stuff irrelevant to the tao cultivator?

[nine tailed fox]

New agers are too sweet

 

Actually unbearably sweet, sometimes I feel I will hit them if they won't stop this, seriously its unbearable sometimes

 

They even try to fake unconditional love, love everybody blah blah blah

[Spotless]

I am always surprised by just how much openly egotistical judgement is thrown at "new age" and "hippie".

 

It's odd watching "cultivators" speaking about these two groups like Republicans speak about Democrats or Democrats about Bush Jr.

 

However "lost" or misguided either of these groups may seem, both are in the mix of those who wish to move into the light.

 

When I think "hippie" I think of just about every positive movement on earth during the past 50 years.

 

When I think "new age" I think movement out of the "darkness of Christianity" (that is not to say there is not some lightness in Christianity).

 

We went through a spiritual renaissance largely because of these two groups and now picking them apart for not having executed it flawlessly according to our lower intestines is pretty harsh.

 

This group here at the TTBs is largely new age and hippie regardless of how it's participants view themselves.

Edited August 7, 2014 by Spotless

[Zhongyongdaoist]

I am always surprised by just how much openly egotistical judgement is thrown at "new age" and "hippie".

 

It's odd watching "cultivators" speaking about these two groups like Republicans speak about Democrats or Democrats about Bush Jr.

 

However "lost" or misguided either of these groups may seem, both are in the mix of those who wish to move into the light.

 

When I think "hippie" I think of just about every positive movement on earth during the past 50 years.

 

When I think "new age" I think movement out of the "darkness of Christianity" (that is not to say there is not some lightness in Christianity).

 

We went through a spiritual renaissance largely because of these two groups and now picking them apart for not having executed it flawlessly according to our lower intestines is pretty harsh.

 

This group here at the TTBs is largely new age and hippie regardless of how it's participants view themselves.

 

I really don't think that you want a serious response to this and I don't feel like wasting my time to give one either. It does invite some serious lampooning, but I will refrain from that also. Instead I will open a door to the historical context without which there could have been no 'hippies' and no 'new age'.

 

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls, welcome to the wonderful world of:

 

Romanticism

 

 

Romanticism (also the Romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Partly a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, it was also a revolt against the aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education and the natural sciences. Its effect on politics was considerable and complex; while for much of the peak Romantic period it was associated with liberalism and radicalism, its long-term effect on the growth of nationalism was probably more significant.

The movement validated intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—especially that which is experienced in confronting the sublimity of untamed nature and its picturesque qualities: both new aesthetic categories. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to a noble status, made spontaneity a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu), and argued for a natural epistemology of human activities, as conditioned by nature in the form of language and customary usage. Romanticism reached beyond the rational and Classicist ideal models to raise a revived medievalism and elements of art and narrative perceived to be authentically medieval in an attempt to escape the confines of population growth, urban sprawl, and industrialism. Romanticism embraced the exotic, the unfamiliar, and the distant in modes more authentic than Rococo chinoiserie, harnessing the power of the imagination to envision and to escape.

Although the movement was rooted in the German Sturm und Drang movement, which prized intuition and emotion over the rationalism of the Enlightenment, the events of and ideologies that led to the French Revolution planted the seeds from which both Romanticism and the Counter-Enlightenment sprouted. The confines of the Industrial Revolution also had their influence on Romanticism, which was in part an escape from modern realities. Indeed, in the second half of the 19th century, "Realism" was offered as a polar opposite to Romanticism. Romanticism assigned a high value to the achievements of 'heroic' individualists and artists, whose pioneering examples, it maintained, would raise the quality of society. It also vouched for the individual imagination as a critical authority allowed of freedom from classical notions of form in art. There was a strong recourse to historical and natural inevitability, a Zeitgeist, in the representation of its ideas. (Wikipedia article on Romanticism, Introduction)

 

This is the real source of the Tao Bums. When you know enough history to follow its roots and branches, back into the Eighteenth and through the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, one discovers a very weird and twisted tree, but it is also easy to see its flowers and fruits all over the Tao Bums.

[GrandmasterP]

But the Romantics tended to end up as reactionaries.

Look at Wordsworth for one example.

We're just a bunch of old hippies on here.

Even the younger Bums are Old Hippies at heart.

 

Edited August 7, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[MooNiNite]

new age is mind.a very mental approach. visualizations / non-dual understanding

 

some of the stuff is on-point though

[GrandmasterP]

It's too big n baggy to categorise as 'one thing' is New Age IMO.

Best to discuss facets of it as those present.

There's some good stuff, some totally whacky stuff and all sorts in between.

Also what 'I' consider totally whacky might well work for someone else.

Edited August 7, 2014 by GrandmasterP

[Horus]

Come do my Unlimited chakras [tm] course to soul splice your unlimited soul mates in an eternally fractally revolving toroidal quantum time slip from eternia, with sacred geometry brain dolphin/pleiadian dna repatterning into the sirius source codes of infinity [tm]

 

Level one is only $1000000000.95!

Sounds too cheap - scaaaam!

[Horus]

New agers are too sweet

 

Actually unbearably sweet, sometimes I feel I will hit them if they won't stop this, seriously its unbearable sometimes

 

They even try to fake unconditional love, love everybody blah blah blah

What a gift they are to you then if it brings up that much of your shit within!

[Apech]

But the Romantics tended to end up as reactionaries.

Look at Wordsworth for one example.

We're just a bunch of old hippies on here.

Even the younger Bums are Old Hippies at heart.

 

I see myself as a kind of latter day Lord Byron ...

 

When riseth Lacedemon’s Hardihood,

When Thebes Epaminondras rears again,

When Athens’ children are with hearts endued,

When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,

Then may’st thou be restored; but not till then.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;

An hour may lay it in the dust: and when

Can Man its shattered splendour renovate,

Recall its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate?

[Horus]

I am always surprised by just how much openly egotistical judgement is thrown at "new age" and "hippie".

 

It's odd watching "cultivators" speaking about these two groups like Republicans speak about Democrats or Democrats about Bush Jr.

 

However "lost" or misguided either of these groups may seem, both are in the mix of those who wish to move into the light.

 

When I think "hippie" I think of just about every positive movement on earth during the past 50 years.

 

When I think "new age" I think movement out of the "darkness of Christianity" (that is not to say there is not some lightness in Christianity).

 

We went through a spiritual renaissance largely because of these two groups and now picking them apart for not having executed it flawlessly according to our lower intestines is pretty harsh.

 

This group here at the TTBs is largely new age and hippie regardless of how it's participants view themselves.

Man, that was like a drop of truth creating a tidal wave in the sewer. Your compassion is ocean-like spotless...I can't wait to see it bloom

[deci belle]

I can't seem to shake these ideas as I try to explore new age and spiritual "culture" (?)...

 

If one was in total harmony with the tao, would you need to worry about chakras, the pineal gland, sacred geometry, dimensions, indigo children, crystals, and all that other stuff found in spiritual stores and websites?

 

Not trying to offend, I'm just trying to understand how everything translates.

 

I also dare to ask that isn't manifesting "doing"?

 

haha!! How wonderful!!

 

"Cultivation" is itself peripheral.

 

There is nothing to cultivate.

 

I can only go by what I know, and that is the unequivocality that nothing can be done about it (arriving at harmony in the tao).

 

I see most people doing the pursuit of all kinds of things to arrive at this nondoing of entry into the tao in reality. Actually, imitating tao is being empty of oneself in the midst of ordinary affairs. Just this is using the world to refine the self. Just this is refining the self and simultaneously awaiting the time(s) of celestial movement.

 

After a long time of abiding in sincere open intent, therein is long life and eternal vision. All kinds of spontaneous inner and outer phenomena supposedly arrived at by the deliberate "cultivation" of self-reifying practice is awakened to without even knowing there were such phenomena to experience by virtue of having a body.

 

People are absolutely backwards. The overall discipline described in the ancient manuals is called "reversal". Gee, I wonder why…

 

New age stuff isn't new. There is nothing to concern oneself in terms of arriving at the essence of one's nature.

 

Not doing is not following habitual consciousness unawares. Reality is just the world without your personal views based on self and other, before and after, good and bad.

 

 

 

 

ed note: change "stiff" to "stuff" in penultimate paragraph~ what could i have been thinking?!!

Edited August 10, 2014 by deci belle

[Horus]

haha!! How wonderful!!

 

"Cultivation" is itself peripheral.

 

There is nothing to cultivate.

 

I can only go by what I know, and that is the unequivocality that nothing can be done about it (arriving at harmony in the tao).

 

I see most people doing the pursuit of all kinds of things to arrive at this nondoing of entry into the tao in reality. Actually, imitating tao is being empty of oneself in the midst of ordinary affairs. Just this is using the world to refine the self. Just this is refining the self and simultaneously awaiting the time(s) of celestial movement.

 

After a long time of abiding in sincere open intent, therein is long life and eternal vision. All kinds of spontaneous inner and outer phenomena supposedly arrived at by the deliberate "cultivation" of self-reifying practice is awakened to without even knowing there were such phenomena to experience by virtue of having a body.

 

People are absolutely backwards. The overall discipline described in the ancient manuals is called "reversal". Gee, I wonder why…

 

New age stiff isn't new. There is nothing to concern oneself in terms of arriving at the essence of one's nature.

 

Not doing is not following habitual consciousness unawares. Reality is just the world without your personal views based on self and other, before and after, good and bad.

Nice post!

 

"People are absolutely backwards"

 

But this was the whole idea from the very "beginning" we have to invert awareness to even accept the suggestion of duality and "come here" - the whole notion of "backwards" is the very premise of all reality beyond Tao (ie all that is made manifest from Tao).

 

The idea was to be in it, and not of it. To enter the illusion and still Know Thyself.

 

"New Age" is an Illuminati created platform instigated to lay the foundational shift away from propaganda religions (also Illuminati/brotherhood contrived) toward one world religion.

 

Shepherd the sheep to where you want them by doing it gradually, progressively.

 

But it's actually the sheep guiding the shepherd to tend them (by what ever means required) so that they don't have to know their full potential and do the work.. The power and thirst for non-responsibility runs deep within us.

 

"POLYPHE′MUS (Poluphêmos). The celebrated Cyclops in the island of Thrinacia, was a son of Poseidon, and the nymph Thoosa. In the Homeric poems the Cyclopes are a gigantic, insolent, and lawless race of shepherds, who lived in the south-western part of Sicily, and devoured human beings. They neglected agriculture, and the fruits of the field were reaped by them without labour. They had no laws or political institutions, and each lived with his wives and children in a cave of a mountain, and ruled over them with arbitrary power."

[Nungali]

Ok perfect, here we go. In ultimate reality, isn't all of that just ideas?

 

Look ... why bother with all that tricky chakra meditation and concentrations stuff when you can just say (over and over again) that everything IS fine and dandy.

 

All you have to do is send me $119 for a set of cards ... what could be easier ?

 

 

If I were to totally let go, wouldn't all that happen naturally or at least whatever will happen, happens perfectly enough?

 

Yes, what ever happens will happen and was meant to happen ( ) and if you think it was meant to happen then it will be perfect enough.

 

( ' perfect enough' ... ... even got myself with that one ! )

[Nungali]

For Nungali

 

http://www.acutonics.com/tuning-forks-professional.php

 

 

Already got a set ... the green ones, when struck, will enable one to see the true reptilian form behind some 'humans'

 

 

[ ........ oh damn ! she took her pic with her sword out ... now I cant photoshop the dino head on it ]

[Nungali]

Come do my Unlimited chakras [tm] course to soul splice your unlimited soul mates in an eternally fractally revolving toroidal quantum time slip from eternia, with sacred geometry brain dolphin/pleiadian dna repatterning into the sirius source codes of infinity [tm]

 

Level one is only $1000000000.95!

 

WOW! Did you do that without

 

http://sebpearce.com/bullshit/

 

I am impressed !

[deci belle]

Thank you, Horus.❤

 

Horus said:

The idea was to be in it, and not of it. To enter the illusion and still Know Thyself.

 

This is buddhahood, wizardry, enlightening being— the active expression of complete reality with no inside or outside.

 

This is precisely the highest realization of the Supreme Vehicle of buddhist and the nonresistant Virtue of Receptivity of taoist traditions.

 

This is why I say that sudden enlightenment is entry-level. Horus' statement is the application of enlightened mind in the midst of delusion.

 

This is shattering the polar mountain (duality) and entering into the Tao in reality because the realization of enlightening qualities in the midst of the killing energy of karmic evolution is the knowledge of delusion and enlightenment is the same mind.

 

In terms of the OP…

 

Is new age and spiritual stuff irrelevant to the tao cultivator?

 

I find Horus' story interesting in that it has in it a hint of an idea expressed in Chinese shepherding folk-tales. But the story I am referring to is much less dramatic and a bit more focused in that it really concerns itself (the tale) with how to arrive at one's relationship with one's sheep in order to not be required to maintain them (the responsibility of one's conditional aspect of worldly involvements).

 

The reason for this is to free oneself for spontaneous living in the world without engendering cloying personal evolutionary recensions (going along with the conditioned flow of creative evolution), because this is unconscious deviation from floating around in the center of the compass of the immediate pristine pivot of awareness at the incipience of unconditional unity as it manifests as delusion for those ignorant of their nature and as "knowing thyself" as the world itself, for those who are able to see reality and express enlightened mind without being limited by creation.

 

As one's destiny is arrived at by virtue of fulfilling one's particular strain of karmic DNA, cloying deviations (personal evolutionary recensions), are unnecessary if one can see reality at its incipience thereby avoiding floating off into arbitrary involvements, i.e.: unwittingly "rewriting" ones true destiny.

 

In the truest sense, one's destiny is to realize the totality of oneself. In seeing complete reality, the conditional ramifications of one's circumstantial existence is insignificant. In other words, it doesn't matter what you do, because arrival at enlightening awareness is the expression of ones unity as the world.

 

There is no right or wrong in terms of seeing reality. Enlightening activity makes everything real.

 

 

But this was the whole idea from the very "beginning" we have to invert awareness

 

But people's inverted awareness is not an idea, it is unconscious. The inversion of awareness (taoism calls this "turning the light around"), is the basis of self-refinement.

 

 

 

 

ed note: remember to thank Horus, and add 6th and 7th paragraphs

Edited August 8, 2014 by deci belle

[Nungali]

I am always surprised by just how much openly egotistical judgement is thrown at "new age" and "hippie".

 

It's odd watching "cultivators" speaking about these two groups like Republicans speak about Democrats or Democrats about Bush Jr.

 

However "lost" or misguided either of these groups may seem, both are in the mix of those who wish to move into the light.

 

When I think "hippie" I think of just about every positive movement on earth during the past 50 years.

 

When I think "new age" I think movement out of the "darkness of Christianity" (that is not to say there is not some lightness in Christianity).

 

We went through a spiritual renaissance largely because of these two groups and now picking them apart for not having executed it flawlessly according to our lower intestines is pretty harsh.

 

This group here at the TTBs is largely new age and hippie regardless of how it's participants view themselves.

 

Sorry Mr Spotless, although of the more intelligent type of response this is just so typical of the misinformed new age information going about.

 

If you really believe the hippie new age movement started all this ... what do you think it was that started the hippy new age interest / fascination in the first place .... and please dont say 'the age of aquarius' unless you can explain those dynamics and another explanation of how those astrological dynamics haven't even started yet.

 

The details I will leave up to Donald.

[Nungali]

Sounds too cheap - scaaaam!

 

Thats a new wage principle .... sorry ; new age principle.

 

If you dont charge enough, it cant be worth it.

 

Oh ... I teach for free - must be real crap !

Edited August 8, 2014 by Nungali

[Nungali]

Man, that was like a drop of truth creating a tidal wave in the sewer. Your compassion is ocean-like spotless...I can't wait to see it bloom

 

In light of the original post's question and slant , calling this discussion a sewer ... seems like you shouldnt be here ?

[Flolfolil]

...

Edited March 5, 2015 by Flolfolil

[Nungali]

"New Age" is an Illuminati created platform instigated to lay the foundational shift away from propaganda religions (also Illuminati/brotherhood contrived) toward one world religion.

 

Typical New Age conspiratorial response

[Nungali]

Aside from all the reasons I dislike the new age approach , it also is damaging and causes many social and personal problems.

 

Two of the biggest New Age 'principles' are (or have been) breatharianism and the 'Law of Attraction'

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/453661.stm

 

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/04/450080.html?c=on

 

This one is THE s=classic new age teacher: (apologies to the world ... she is an Aussie national )

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasmuheen

 

Law of attraction:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(2006_film) especially section 9 (link problem see post below)

 

... Not to mention the court case here ; 3rd year in the Supreme Court ... all started because of stupid new age 'principles', resulting in a huge land and environment problem (from same 'principles' ) potential eviction and loss of houses for a dozen families and the associated land ... and the continual blindness of people that keep perpetuating it. ( e.g in the old records the workers and sweaters are being admonished by the 'owners' (they weren't) and 'spiritual guides' of the community, as when the 'guides', via 'channeling' and other wonderful 'spirtiual' practical methods decided they were going broke becasue of the 'lack of prosperity consciousness' of the workers when they went to town to buy things like water pipe, parts to repair the water pump, nails and screws, etc ... while they spent vast amounts of money on stupid things, did things like pull all the fences down and sell the cows to 'release the natural etheric energy of the land' .

 

Dudes .... who will keep the grass down , it used to be a dairy farm ! .... so they start mowing and slashing and burning vast amounts of petrol and diesel ... it goes on and on ...

 

Yes, this might give some indications as to why I abhor this type consciousness ; personal connection with it. Yes, I am coming from an experienced bitter reaction ... just like I do when I see other negative or disruptive or rip-off forces in the world ... I am not going to gloss it over with feel-good goop, just because reality is a challenge.

 

I will add that I have worked for 20 years in the field ... holding groups, doing workshops, putting on over a dozen festivals with a peace & healing focus - offering a full range of alternative therapies for free , all done for free, at great personal cost and effort to me, opened our land and community to all sorts and worked both in that area and professionally as a support and help person from everyone from destitute homeless hippies, single abandoned mums and overseas refugees .

 

So I am not speaking of what I do not know.

 

But for most, they wont realise all this ... just dabble around the edges, play with some crystals and tarot readings made up from the pretty pictures of cats and dragons and fantasy heroes, do some affirmations and practice the 'Law of Attraction.'

 

 

Edited August 8, 2014 by Nungali

[Flolfolil]

...

Edited March 5, 2015 by Flolfolil

[Nungali]

How to 'attract' $65,000,000 .

 

 

[from another discussion on the subject:]

 

I think a relevant point is , " The main message is to get happy, not get rich.
The Secret was not the original tell all of this information and neither was Jerry and Esther"

Well ... unfortunately our whole society seems to be focusing on getting rich and NOT getting happy. So that may be an unfortunate development

EXCEPT

it did happen ... the dvd did come out, it WAS crass and commercial, it did 'sweep the world' (the 'alternative' world that is ) and now ... very clearly .... Abraham (whoever or whatever that is, person, corporation or trademark) on their website very clearly affiliates, and takes the credit for, such movement.

VERY STRANGE considering the court cases!

" This is the original source material for the current Law of Attraction wave that is sweeping the world, and it is the 21st century inspiration for thousands of books, films, essays and lectures that are responsible for the current paradigm shift in consciousness.

"This is the fountainhead of the information upon which the hit movie, “The Secret” was based."

http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofat...urce/index.php

ALSO

In relation to people saying the movie The Secret twisted away from what Hicks teaches:

Okay ... I will partially cop that. It was an Aussie! That Channel 9 doco that turned into a world breaking (now even in Iran) phenomena ( a type of reverse 'daimonic outbreak' of epic proportions - no, I wont go into THAT dynamic , here) somehow roped 'Abraham' into getting involved with this suspect, Melbourne TV producer Rhonda Byrne. ( Not that that explains WHY the current 'Abraham' site cites affiliation and cred from the movie )

" Jerry Hicks, (ex Amway distributor and circus acrobat) presented numerous workshops on the law of attraction with Abraham Hicks Publications and appeared in the original version of the 2006 film The Secret."

"Regardless of any 'channelling' ; " A large part of Hicks' work centers around the Law of attraction, a concept written about in the early 1900s by William Walker Atkinson (1862–1932), in his book Thought Vibration or the Law of Attraction in the Thought World (1906) ."

Now we get to the juice!

The original teachings are not too bad at all.

"The essence of Abraham–Hicks' teachings since 1986 has been presented as follows:

Individuals are physical extensions of the non-physical.
People are in their bodies because they chose to be.
The basis of life is freedom; the purpose of life is joy.
People are creators; they create with their thoughts.
Whatever people can imagine totally & completely, by creating a perfect vibrational match, is theirs to be, or do, or have.
Individuals choose their creations as they choose their thoughts.
Emotions indicate what people are creating, either consciously or subconsciously.
The Universe adores people; it knows their broadest intentions.
Individuals should relax into their natural well-being, and know that all is well.
Life is not meant to be a struggle, but a process of allowing.
People are creators of "thoughtways" on their unique "paths of joy".
Actions and money are by-products of focusing on joy.
Individuals may depart their body without illness or pain.
People cannot die; their lives are everlasting."

But something happened.

Apparently there were TWO versions of the film 'The Secret' , the second one was an 'extended version' ;

" Esther Hicks was a narrator and star of the original version of the film The Secret, as well as a central source of the film's inspiration.

"The footage featuring Hicks was removed from the later "Extended Edition" after the film's creator Rhonda Byrne, who has been involved in contractual disputes and litigation regarding the film, rescinded the original contract covering Hicks' participation and asked that Hicks relinquish her "intellectual property rights in these areas forever".

"In an open letter posted on the internet, Hicks stated that she had been "uncomfortable with what felt to us like a rather aggressive marketing campaign," and that ultimately Abraham gave her the following advice: "Whenever you are given an ultimatum that says, 'if you don't do this, then we will have to do such and such,' it is best that you just let it go and move on. Otherwise there is always another, and this, and this, and this?" The letter doesn't condemn Byrne, but clarifies why Hicks no longer appears in The Secret.

"Hicks has since posted a video on YouTube further explaining her discomfort with The Secret and finally, her decision to discontinue involvement with the film."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esther_Hicks

Okay ... good on her! But why are 'they' touting the film on their website ? ? ?

Is it 'their' website ? I guess. It markets books by the Hicks ... and has a rather large shop

http://www.abraham-hickslawofattract...ore/index.html

" For one, most of the millions of people who have seen “The Secret,” a documentary that is the biggest thing to hit the New Age movement since the Harmonic Convergence, may not know that there are two versions of the film.

" But behind the success of “The Secret” is a seamier story about the origins of the film. It involves big money and what some participants say are the broken promises of Ms. Byrne. The star of the first version of the movie, released in March last year, demanded to be cut out of the current version, which has been on the market since Oct. 1.

That star, Esther Hicks, 58, has been promoting her own version of the law of attraction with her husband, Jerry Hicks, in books and seminars for two decades. “We teach that you keep saying it the way you want it to be, and if you keep saying it the way you want it to be, the universe will line up and give you exactly what you’ve said you wanted,” Ms. Hicks said.

" Ms. Byrne had promised Ms. Hicks 10 percent of DVD revenues to appear in “The Secret,” both parties said. But they had a falling out, and Ms. Hicks could not even bring herself to watch Ms. Byrne this month on “Oprah,” the movement’s moment of triumph.

"In a backhanded compliment Ms. Hicks said, “I’ve got to give Rhonda credit,” adding that her former collaborator has shown a monomaniacal dedication to the law of attraction. “I’ve never seen anybody do that like she’s doing it,” Ms. Hicks said. “And never mind honesty, and never mind doing what you said you were going to do, and never mind anything. Just stay in alignment.”

"Although “The Secret” is an overnight phenomenon, its message of think-and-grow-rich is but the latest version of a self-help formula dating back more than a century, with roots both secular and religious, and branches that have included Napoleon Hill’s best-selling “Think and Grow Rich” in 1937 and Norman Vincent Peale’s “Power of Positive Thinking” in 1952.

"J. Gordon Melton, the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., traces the origins of “prosperity consciousness” to 19th-century Christian Science. “It’s always waiting for slightly different forms of expression, the same old message,” he said.

"Last Sunday evening the Hickses relaxed in their $1.4 million luxury bus parked outside the Rancho Cordova Marriott near Sacramento, where they had just finished a six-hour workshop on the law of attraction in the hotel ballroom. Three hundred people had paid $195 each to hear Ms. Hicks, a former secretary, summon otherworldly spirits she says speak through her. The spirits, who collectively use the name Abraham, answered participants’ questions.

"The Hickses spend most of the year traveling the country, leading workshops based on the teachings they say Abraham has given them. They record the workshops and have 10,000 subscribers, who pay up to $50 a month for CDs and DVDs of Abraham’s wisdom.

"When Ms. Byrne asked Ms. Hicks to appear in “The Secret,” as the most prominent interpreter of the law of attraction, she agreed to give the Hickses approval over much of the movie, according to a contract. But when the couple saw the first cut, they were livid. Ms. Hicks’s voice, chaneling Abraham, was used as narration throughout the film, but her face was never shown.

"After negotiation, Ms. Hicks’s image was edited into the film and it was released, ultimately netting the Hickses $500,000 from sales, Ms. Hicks said. But the couple were unhappy with the distribution. They said they understood it would be shown first on Australian television, but instead it was being sold as an Internet download and later as a DVD.

"Cynthia Black, the president of Beyond Words Publishing, a New Age imprint, who is both a longtime friend of the Hickses and the publisher of Ms. Byrne’s book version of “The Secret,” tried to broker a peace. She enlisted the help of Jack Canfield, the author of “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” one of the “transformational experts” who appears in “The Secret” (and whose nephew Zach Canfield says he used the law of attraction to score a date with the hip-hop singer Lady Sovereign). But Mr. Canfield was also unable to bring the parties together.

"The Hickses consulted their lawyer, and Ms. Byrne in turn demanded changes to the contract, both sides said. No agreement could be reached. Ms. Byrne moved forward with a second version of “The Secret” without the Hickses. Advised by their lawyer to sue, the Hickses said they declined because litigation would take energy from their own pursuit of the law of attraction. “We don’t sue,” said Mr. Hicks, a former circus acrobat and Amway distributor.

"Ms. Byrne does not seem overly troubled by the rupture. “I’m grateful to have had the journey with them for the time that we had,” she said, sitting on a plush chair next to a honeysuckle candle in her apartment in Santa Monica, Calif. With a glittering silver circle affixed with false-eyelash glue to the center of her forehead, she related how she had mortgaged her home in Melbourne, where she worked as a television producer, to finance “The Secret” and also received an investment from a former Internet executive in Chicago, Bob Rainone. The cost of the films was about $3 million, Ms. Byrne said.

"Ms. Byrne, 55, seems possessed by the energy of her success, jumping from side to side as she speaks. Her gray eyes shine with the fervor of the true believer as she talks about setting the goal of taking her vision to the world and watching it come true. “It’s incredible to actually experience an intention that is so big, to experience it is ... ” She paused as her voice crested and swooped as if on the edge of breaking. “It’s like I can feel the lives, every life changing, the joy,” she said.

"Without the Hickses’ 10 percent cut, Ms. Byrne and her Chicago investor will reap millions in additional profits. None of the film’s other self-help gurus were paid. But “even though money was involved,” Ms. Byrne insisted, “it was never about that.”

"And the Hickses agreed. “We earn millions of dollars a year” already, Mr. Hicks said.

"No, the clash seems mainly over who deserves credit, and the wave of mainstream publicity, for this latest version of prosperity consciousness. The Hickses have preached the law of attraction while traveling with Abraham for 21 years. Ms. Byrne’s exposure to the notion is more recent: she was going through a rough patch in her life in 2004, when her daughter gave her a copy of “The Science of Getting Rich,” first published in 1910.

"The book discussed how focusing on gratitude can help a person take control of life. Ms. Byrne delved into the works of other self-help gurus, like Charles Haanel’s “Master Key System” from 1912; Prentice Mulford’s 19th-century “Thoughts Are Things”; and Robert Collier’s “Secret of the Ages” from 1926.

"For the second version of “The Secret,” Ms. Byrne used Lisa Nichols, an author of “Chicken Soup for the African-American Soul,” and Marci Shimoff, an author of “Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul,” to fill gaps left by Ms. Hicks’s removal. (The DVD of the Hicks version of “The Secret” is going for $104 on Amazon.com.)

"What the Hickses say bothers them most about the second version of “The Secret” is that those who watch it are not receiving enough explanation of the law or being told that its discovery was made by “vibrationally accessing broader intelligence,” Ms. Hicks said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/fa...0Pictures&_r=0

"But a big question to many was (as this IS a little 'old hat' ) ; " So what makes “The Secret” – which traffics in the kind of harmless power-of-positive-thinking jargon that’s been packaged and re-packaged since the late 19th century, when the spiritualist movement in America began – so polarizing?"

So, a bit of 'history' about the marketing project that made tyhis happen.

" There is, of course, its dubious origins: The book and DVD were written and produced by an out-of-work Australian named Rhonda Byrne, who claims to have stumbled on “The Secret” to life in a 100-year-old book that remains unnamed. ... She enlisted the help of self-help gurus – two of whom, Esther and Jerry Hicks, later claimed Byrne swindled them out of their share of profits. "

http://nypost.com/2007/08/15/dirty-little-secret/

" The Secret, a New-Age marketing phenomenon the like of which has not been seen for decades. It’s a bunfight of cosmic proportions that has drawn into its orbit some of the best-known figures and most fundamental tenets of the global self-help industry.

" Byrne now lives in a Californian celebrity enclave just up the road from Oprah Winfrey’s 17-hectare, neo-Georgian estate, and the creator of the New-Age blockbuster The Secret.

"Her lawyers had just sued two of the very people who were instrumental in launching her book and film The Secret to phenomenal success. Drew Heriot, the Australian director of the movie, and Dan Hollings, an Arizona internet consultant whose “viral marketing” helped propel Byrne to global fame via Oprah, had both been demanding that Byrne pay them a share of the estimated $US300 million ($340 million) revenue they claim she’d promised them. In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, Byrne’s lawyers had counter-attacked by launching legal actions against both men in jurisdictions far from their homes, a tactic one judge has since described as vexatious and harassing.

" But now the “most powerful law in the universe” seems to have gone awry, with Byrne’s own former associates accusing her of fraud and hiring platoons of lawyers to pick apart the business machinations behind The Secret.

" If there’s a karmic backlash brewing, it’s one that even some alternative spiritual thinkers welcome. “If it is, that won’t be a bad thing,” says Paul Wilson, the Australian meditation teacher whose Calm books have become an international phenomenon. “Because the field you are talking about is New Age self-help, and there’s a lot of nonsense involved in it. A lot of it.”

"Not that Wilson doesn’t admire Byrne’s marketing genius. “I just wouldn’t want people to stake too much of their mental health on the idea that there’s an ancient secret that will save them or make them happier.”

" The full story of how Byrne turned that realisation into “the greatest success story in the annals of viral marketing” – to quote The American Spectator – is only now emerging in court papers filed in the US and Australia, and from interviews with the participants. To Byrne it’s the story of a small group of people bringing “joy to the world”; to some of those involved it’s a story of hypocrisy and ruthless double-dealing.

" The Secret had no conventional advertising, and Hollings says he devised viral marketing techniques involving Google adverts and blogs, and also helped Byrne set up her online ordering and customer-support systems. In March 2006 the movie was launched as a teaser-download linked to a $US34.95 DVD, and within weeks it had taken off. Although no verifiable figures have been published, the film was reported to have grossed nearly $20 million in its first eight months.

" The disputes about money began almost immediately. When Heriot emailed a request for payment to Byrne the day after the film’s release, she responded that he was being “unappreciative” and that they had “some serious thinking to do” – an exchange she has acknowledged in court filings.

" Bob Rainone, a Chicago-based executive from the computer and internet industry. Rainone helped Byrne create a new corporate structure around her film and on April 11 they transferred the copyright to a Hungarian company which operated out of a lawyer’s office in Budapest.

" IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER this that another dispute opened up between Byrne and Esther Hicks, a 59-year-old spiritual-medium from Utah who had been central to the film. Hicks, who tours the US speaking in the disembodied voice of a spirit entity called Abraham, publishes a range of best-selling New Age books based around the law of attraction. She narrated the film, and in an open letter on the internet has claimed that Byrne contractually agreed to pay her and her husband, Jerry, a percentage of both net profit and video sales, but then asked them to rescind the contract.

" “We received an email from the producer of The Secret lovingly explaining (we never have received correspondence from her that was anything other than extremely loving) that the contract that we had all agreed upon and signed was no longer sufficient for their further distribution of the project,” Hicks wrote in the email.

" Lawyers were called in, and the dispute threatened to derail publication of a tie-in book Byrne had contracted to write. Hicks, who had earned $500,000 from the film in just a few months, agreed to be edited out of the film after consulting her spirit entity, and in October 2006 Byrne released The Secret – Extended Edition, with the Esther Hicks segments replaced in part by similarly worded passages from other teachers.

" By February last year Byrne’s book was number one on The New York Times’ bestseller list and she had appeared before the 23 million viewers of Oprah Winfrey, whose personal endorsement launched The Secret into the sales stratosphere. “I stand in awe at the magnificent intelligence that is this universe,” Byrne told one interviewer, “as I watch it fulfil the intention of joy for billions that I held deep within my heart.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news...6b1c2376720fb9

[Aetherous]

However "lost" or misguided either of these groups may seem, both are in the mix of those who wish to move into the light.

 

Motivations for why we practice make all of the difference.

 

In Buddhism, they remember why they practice before doing anything (to benefit others) as well as dedicate all of the merit of the work to others. Such a motivation for practicing and studying something is definitely moving into the light.

 

On the other hand, and I'm guilty of this myself, we have idle curiosity and spiritual materialism...growing an ego that has to do with spirituality as a way of gaining power over others. This can be a strong motivation in the beginning, and may even continue for a long time as it has for me...it causing you to study and practice ways that transform you into something better is a good thing. The ends justify the means, and eventually you end up having the right motivation, I would think.

 

But newagers are basically people who are still stuck in spiritual materialism mode. They are facilitators of some secret ancient shamanic healing method that they can do for you for some fee, or something. The philosophies they live by are basically all partial truths, and are damaging to maintain...for instance relying on feeling vibes to make decisions. If you look at their lives, and their health...they could all be better off.

 

So yeah basically, the right motivation isn't there...and I'm not only referencing Buddhism with that. Newage motivation is too self centered and ineffective. But yeah it's nice that they're trying.