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Secrets and Lies SI M-J 2007 pgs 3/28/07 10:21 AM Page 21 SPECIAL REPORT Secrets and Lies MARY CARMICHAEL and BENJAMIN RADFORD ast year, Rhonda Byrne dis- blance of scientific accuracy. Out covered the secret of the of this patchwork she made a universe. It is based on a movie (available for download L online for just $4.95!) and accom- principle of quantum mechanics and lies in a force with direct panying book. physical effects on matter. If The problem is that neither the you’re thinking it’s odd that such film nor the book has any basis in a momentous discovery hasn’t scientific reality. The Secret, Byrne been publicized—surely it de- states, lies in a New Age idea called serves at least a journal article or the “Law of Attraction”: that simi- two?—you clearly haven’t been lar things attract each other, so spending much time in the self- positive thoughts bring positive help section of your local book- things and negative ones bring store, where Byrne’s new book is negative things. Of course, in found. Tantalizingly titled The physics, it is opposites that attract, Secret, it’s probably the most but never mind that: according to slickly marketed idea to draw on Byrne, our thoughts send out quantum physics in all of history. vibrations that the universe (or Alas, though, it won’t be appear- some unspecified power) can ing in Science or Nature. “The somehow decipher and respond Secret,” it turns out, is a lie. “secret” to a downtrodden period in her to. Therefore, goes the dubious Propelled by the gushing enthusiasm life. Give her this: she didn’t fold. logic, we have only to think very hard of Oprah Winfrey and a clever advertis- Instead, she drew on a poorly under- about the things we want, and we will ing campaign, The Secret has topped the stood scientific theory, a few common- get them. If you want to lose weight, best-seller lists and moved nearly two sense principles, and, most heavily, a Byrne writes, you’ll first have to accept million copies to date. The book has a nineteenth-century American philo- that “food is not responsible for putting companion DVD film, whose “hidden sophical movement with roots in quack- on weight. It is your thought that food is knowledge” themes bear more than a ery. She co-opted William Shakespeare, responsible for putting on weight that passing resemblance to The Da Vinci Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, and actually has food put on weight.” Code and the ironically titled What the other prominent people as co-bearers of Bleep Do We Know? her secret, then rounded up a panel of Mary Carmichael is a general editor for The first warning sign that some- twenty-four contemporary teachers: health and science at Newsweek. thing is amiss is a common one—the self-help gurus and metaphysicians, a Benjamin Radford is author of Media author is a self-appointed expert whose few MBAs, a feng shui expert, and two Mythmakers: How Journalists, Adver- main source is a personal inspiration or fringe quantum physicists who weren’t tisers, and Activists Mislead Us and revelation. Byrne, a documentary pro- fully informed about her theories before managing editor of the SKEPTICAL ducer, traces her “discovery” of the the cameras started rolling. Voila: a sem- INQUIRER. SKEPTICAL INQUIRER May / June 2007 21 SI M-J 2007 pgs 3/28/07 10:21 AM Page 22 If that example leaves you scratching fully clear to scientists. Neither theory sure, physical vitality, even economic your head, author Lisa Nichols, featured applies to weight loss, credit-card bills, prosperity.” Sound familiar? in the film, explains that “Every time or for that matter anything else above The roots of pseudoscience grow you look inside your mail expecting to the scale of atoms. The book also does- strong near the septic tank of misinfor- see a bill, guess what? It will be there. n’t offer any explanation of how the mation, and the Law of Attraction has You’re expecting debt, so debt must universe supposedly reads our other pseudoscientific kin as well. It show up. Every day you confirm thoughts and responds to them. “She takes a special sort of arrogance for a your thoughts. Debt is there because of is invoking quantum physics,” says layperson to proclaim that he or she is so the Law of Attraction. Do yourself a Beryl Satter, professor of history at brilliant as to have discovered a hereto- favor: Expect a check!” Doesn’t that Rutgers, “to people who don’t know a fore unknown law of the universe sim- make sense? According to The Secret’s lot about quantum physics.” For all ply by inspiration, but there are plenty economic insights, the problem is not the scientific language in The Secret, of people who fit the bill. Just as Byrne our bills or debt; the problem is that we then, there is very little science in it. believes she discovered The Secret, are expecting those pesky bills! One won- “Very few people actually trained in Samuel Hahnemann “discovered” the ders how much time Oprah spent skim- scientific thought are attracted to universal “Law of Similars” in 1790 ming the book before agreeing to pro- this,” says Fuller. “But most of us aren’t when he developed the disproven mote this half-baked twaddle. trained in scientific thought.” quackery of homeopathy. He concluded There’s also an ugly flipside: if you None of this is to say The Secret doesn’t that “like cures like,” so that, if a drug have an accident or disease, it’s your have intellectual roots. It does—although produces symptoms similar to a disease, fault. There is of course a grain of truth they aren’t in science at all. They’re in then taking that drug will relieve the to this: if a drunk wanders onto a high- “New Thought,” a metaphysical move- symptoms of that disease. way and is hit, it’s likely his fault; if a life- ment with a long history of invoking The Secret, therefore, is nothing long smoker gets lung cancer, it’s likely science to justify profoundly unscien- new, nor is it a secret. It’s a time-worn her fault. But is everything we experience tific claims. New Thought has its roots trick of mixing banal truisms with of our own making? If an airplane in the showmanship of Franz Mesmer, magical thinking and presenting it as crashes, does that mean that one or more the Austrian physician who began some sort of hidden knowledge: basi- of the passengers brought that on him- experimenting with hypnosis in 1775. cally, it’s the new New Thought. New self? Do soldiers killed in Iraq simply not Mesmer’s key concept of “animal mag- Age bookshelves are overflowing with think enough positive thoughts? netism” is “very much like what Byrne is authors who claim to know and reveal Some of Byrne’s supporters write talking about with ‘attraction,’” says the secrets of the universe. If any of off this troubling aspect by arguing Fuller. The traveling doctor claimed to these self-help books—written in the that the Law of Attraction is a be able to manipulate magnetic fields 1800s or written today—really con- metaphor. It’s not; Byrne herself has said within and between people’s bodies by tained the secrets to success and happi- so. It is a literal statement that you are passing his hands over them and putting ness, the self-help industry would of what you think. “It’s a real belief that them in passive, sleeplike trances. Do- course be out of business. “The buyers our thought can shape, control, and it-yourself showmen started traveling for these books are people who bounce direct this powerful force in the uni- through New England, imitating Mes- from one self-help gimmick to the verse, that it sets in motion energies that mer and working as “healing hypno- next,” says Terence Hines, professor of go out into the atmosphere,” says tists” themselves. psychology at Pace University and Robert Fuller, a professor of religion at In 1838, one of these, a young author of Pseudoscience and the Bradley University who has studied clockmaker named Phineas P. Quimby Paranormal. “It’s almost like they’re metaphysical beliefs. from Maine, claimed to be able to put a addicted to it. They buy the book and To make the idea sound less prepos- seventeen-year-old boy into a trance. it doesn’t work, so they jump on the terous, Byrne cloaks it in irrelevant but The boy would then diagnose people’s next pseudoscientific bandwagon.” snazzy-sounding scientific terms. With- illnesses. Quimby laid out the princi- The Secret will indeed bring happi- out identifying the “observer effect”— ples that would become New Thought, ness, success, and prosperity—for the idea from physics that observing a which he largely lifted from Mesmer. Rhonda Byrne, her publisher, and book- process alters its outcome—she leans on “He argued that there was a powerful, stores. If the past is any indication, those its philosophical implications. She also mighty, spiritual force in the universe— who buy her book will be the losers; summons up “quantum entanglement,” it was a little like The Force in Star after the fad and hype die away and the the little-understood theory that, at the Wars,” says Fuller. “If you thought neg- disillusionment sets in, most will be subatomic level, particles influence each atively, you’d close yourself off from it returning to the self-help sections for yet other’s behavior in ways that aren’t yet and you would lack emotional compo- more easy answers.
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