0:00

Michael, Peter. What do you know about the secret?

0:03

All I know is that for two weeks now, I've been

0:05

visualizing having good opening zinger

0:07

for this episode. Alright.

0:22

I am going to set the

0:24

vibes. By sending you

0:27

a YouTube video. Oh. And I want

0:29

you to just watch the first fifty

0:31

seconds of it. Okay. And this is a

0:33

pure vibe setter.

0:36

A year ago, my life had

0:39

collapsed around me. I'd

0:41

worked myself into exhaustion. My

0:44

father died suddenly, and

0:46

my relationships were in turmoil. Little

0:51

did I know at the time out

0:53

of my greatest despair was

0:56

to come the greatest gift Even

0:59

at peace. You

1:02

know this, secret gives you

1:04

everything you want. What kind of

1:07

a host do you wanna live in? Do you wanna be a millionaire?

1:09

What kind of a business do you wanna have? Do you want

1:11

more success? What do you really

1:13

want? This

1:16

is, like, I guess, presumably, the Australian

1:18

woman who's talking. This is woman who's, like,

1:20

walking through the desert and she's,

1:22

like, on a quest and then

1:24

she goes up into the attic of

1:26

her house or something some

1:29

sort of like haunted castle. And

1:31

then she opens a box like a

1:33

secret treasure box and there's a book

1:35

like a comb inside with

1:38

a note that says mama this

1:41

will help. Mhmm. And then she

1:43

opens what is fundamentally just

1:45

like a fairly generic

1:48

self help book. That's right.

1:50

But she's presenting it as this like,

1:52

yeah, a secret of like how to

1:54

live, I guess. And when

1:57

she opens it, images of

1:59

great philosophers and artists flash

2:01

-- Right. -- before -- Right. -- before -- Right. --

2:03

arise. I I wanted I

2:05

just wanted to set the vibe

2:08

because the secret is a book

2:10

by Rhonda Byrne. released in

2:12

two thousand six, but it's based on

2:14

this documentary of the same name

2:17

that she wrote and

2:19

produced. The basic claim of

2:21

this book is that it contains the

2:23

secret to life. When it came

2:25

out, It was a sensation.

2:28

It sold, Michael, thirty

2:31

million copies. Oh,

2:33

shit. That's that's almost

2:35

ten freakonomixes. And

2:38

Rhonda Byrne herself, who was really just a nobody

2:41

before this, suddenly everywhere,

2:44

talk shows, morning news segments

2:46

-- Right. -- full nine yards. She

2:48

is an Australian woman

2:51

visually sort of like a yasified,

2:53

paladine, tardrian,

2:56

platinum hair. And, yeah,

2:58

she has that Snapchat filter look

3:00

where she just sort of looks almost blurry.

3:02

Right. Now the story

3:04

that she's that is being told in

3:07

that opening sequence

3:09

is that Rhonda Byrne was going through a

3:11

very tough time. And then

3:13

her daughter gave her

3:15

a book titled The

3:18

Science of Getting Rich. This

3:20

is a nineteen ten book by

3:22

Wallace d Waddles. Okay.

3:25

He was just a an old timey

3:27

self help guy from what I could gather.

3:29

And she claims that this sort of

3:31

like put her on the path to understanding the

3:34

secret. I don't wanna get too

3:36

too far ahead of myself we'll talk about

3:38

the substance of the book briefly. But first,

3:40

I want to talk about the experience of

3:42

reading the book because it

3:45

does not feel like reading a book.

3:47

It feels like reading a book length

3:50

multi level marketing Facebook post.

3:52

The format of the entire book is

3:54

that there will be somewhere between one

3:56

and three paragraphs of prose

3:58

by Rhonda Byrne, followed by

4:00

quotations that illustrate the

4:02

point being made. Okay. Here is

4:04

a sampling of the folks being

4:07

quoted, and this is just from the first

4:09

chapter. There are well over a dozen

4:11

of these. Bob Proctor

4:14

who is described as a philosopher, author,

4:16

and personal coach. K. Doctor

4:18

Joe Vital described As

4:21

a metaphysician and marketing

4:23

specialist, although I did

4:25

some research and he is a

4:27

former Amway executive Nice.

4:30

Which is just Just

4:33

perfect. John

4:35

Asurev described as

4:37

a money making expert

4:40

doctor John DiMartini, a

4:42

philosopher and chiropractor. These

4:45

are gifters, Michael. These are gifters.

4:47

They have grifter names and

4:49

grifter professions -- Yeah. -- they sell

4:51

grifter things. Money making

4:53

professional, it it's like being

4:55

a money making professional is how he makes

4:57

his money. That's right. You're paying

4:59

them to tell you how to make money, but that's

5:01

how they make money. It's this weird

5:03

moebia strip. It's altruism,

5:06

Michael, they could keep it to themselves,

5:08

but they are bringing this knowledge to

5:10

you. It always cracks me up

5:12

because it's like, you could imagine

5:14

a real version of this, a realer

5:16

version of this where it's like, here's Warren

5:18

Buffett. Right. Instead, it's like, here's, you

5:20

know, Steve, the top salesman at the

5:22

local GNC, Right. And

5:24

he's gonna explain to you how

5:26

he understands the secret to the universe. Here's

5:29

Jack Lemmon from Glen Gary, Glen Ross.

5:31

Yeah. To tell you. So,

5:33

you know, I I was a few pages

5:36

into the book, and I was like, why is this the

5:38

format of the book? Why is it just

5:40

quotes and statements

5:43

alternating over and over again

5:45

-- Yeah. -- and then I realized, remember I

5:47

said the book was based on her documentary

5:49

-- Mhmm. -- what's a common documentary

5:51

format. There's some narration, and then

5:53

it's dispersed with, like, little

5:55

quotes from interviews with relevant

5:57

people. Right? What's happening is

5:59

that Rhonda Byrne isn't writing a book

6:01

based on her documentary. She is

6:04

basically writing the novelization of

6:06

the documentary where It's

6:08

like a carbon copy. So --

6:10

Right. -- I have, like, her narrating. And then,

6:12

yeah, an expert pops in and says something

6:14

just like in the documentary. Right. It makes

6:16

for this very unnatural reading

6:18

experience, especially when you

6:20

combine the format with the content

6:22

and it's just like layer

6:25

upon layer of New Age

6:27

gibberish being presented to you in one of

6:29

the most unusual book

6:31

formats I've ever witnessed. I'm okay.

6:33

So I'm I'm having this playing in

6:35

the background without sound as you're talking.

6:37

And it's like it is

6:40

Just like a parade of talking

6:42

heads of people with extremely dubious

6:44

titles, one of them was a Feng Shui

6:47

consultant. There's all this language on the

6:49

screen, these title cards about how, like,

6:51

the secret was suppressed for so

6:53

long. Mhmm. And it doesn't sound like it was.

6:55

It sounds like it was like a a book that

6:57

was that was published. And it

6:59

doesn't sound like there's very

7:01

much here that is like kind of worth

7:03

suppressing. One of the big

7:05

themes of the book, especially early

7:08

on, is that that she makes us claim

7:10

that the secret is this thing that sort

7:12

of held by

7:14

the elites -- Right. -- and

7:17

not purposefully not shared with the people.

7:20

But at No point. Literally

7:22

not once. Is there evidence

7:24

to, like, back that up? Like, evidence

7:27

of the elites hoarding this knowledge?

7:29

I paused this because I

7:31

can't keep fucking watching this while I'm talking

7:33

because it's it's too rich of a text.

7:35

And when I paused it, the title

7:37

card is a quote that

7:39

says the secret is the answer to

7:41

all that has been, all that is, and

7:43

all that ever will be Ralph

7:45

Waldo Emerson. A, that's

7:47

probably fake, and b, is

7:49

he talking about? Is he talking about the same

7:51

secret? Like, that's just a generic quote,

7:54

Ralph, although Emerson I'm

7:56

glad you mentioned the Emerson quote.

7:58

The quote is in the book, but it's jammed in

8:00

the back, and there's like an appendix

8:02

sort of area -- Oh, okay. -- that I did

8:04

not read as closely as the rest of the book

8:06

because my friend was about Yes.

8:10

She attributes a

8:12

quote to Ralph

8:14

Waldo Emerson where he's

8:16

talking about the secret quote

8:18

unquote. Right. When I read that, I thought

8:20

that's weird. A, because I'm

8:23

not familiar with famed essayist

8:26

about Waldo Emerson thinking

8:28

that this sort of New Age gibberish

8:31

is real. Right. And

8:33

b, because why would he call it the

8:35

secret, which is -- Yeah. -- promotional terminology

8:38

that Rhonda Byrne and

8:40

her cohorts sort of like latched onto.

8:42

So I looked into this and the

8:44

only thing I could find about it

8:46

is one woman, Julia

8:48

Rickard, in two thousand seven

8:51

wrote a piece about trying to

8:53

track down the source of

8:55

this, including, like,

8:57

talking to Ralph Waldo Emerson experts

9:00

and never finding any evidence

9:02

that he ever said. So

9:05

from what I can tell, Rhonda

9:07

Byrne made up a

9:09

quote and just a tribute

9:11

to, like, a famous

9:13

author of eighteen hundred

9:15

six. Maybe it's a mix up. Maybe

9:17

she thought that it came from Noted Man of

9:19

Letters, Ralph Waldo Emerson, when actually

9:21

it came from Steve, the Fengue

9:24

Cairo prep, in

9:26

Las Vegas. So,

9:29

alright, let's let's talk about the

9:31

content a little bit. Now,

9:33

As you can gather, the book makes it

9:35

immediately clear that, like, the secret is

9:37

not just a nice thing to

9:39

know, but fundamental

9:43

secret to life. Right? Mhmm. It's

9:45

presented as this age old

9:47

truth known by the

9:49

great figures of history that is

9:51

the the gift that she has bestowing

9:53

upon you. Right. So what

9:55

is the secret the secret

9:57

it is revealed is the

10:00

of attraction. Mhmm. She quotes a Bob Proctor,

10:02

a forementioned philosopher

10:05

and personal coach, quote,

10:07

everything that's coming into your life You

10:09

are attracting into your life, my god, and

10:11

it's attracted to you by virtue of

10:13

the images you're holding in your mind.

10:16

It's what you're thinking, whatever is

10:18

going on in your mind, you are

10:20

attracting to you. Burn later says,

10:22

quote, thoughts are magnetic,

10:24

and thoughts have a frequency. As

10:27

you think, Those thoughts are sent out into

10:29

the universe and they magnetically

10:31

attract all like things

10:33

that are on the same frequency. Exactly

10:35

how magnets work. They should track ideas

10:37

and events. Yes. This

10:39

is this is one of my favorite

10:41

fucking things where it's like you can say the

10:43

most banal shit But

10:45

you tell people that it's forbidden

10:48

knowledge and it's been hidden from

10:50

you by the powers that be, your

10:52

idea will suddenly take on

10:54

this like special magical

10:56

property in people's brains. It's just a

10:58

secret between you and thirty million

11:00

of your best friends. All she's really

11:02

saying is, like, try to have a positive

11:04

attitude. Which whatever. Maybe that's true,

11:06

maybe it's not. But it's like, that is something that

11:08

people have been saying. For

11:10

hundreds of years, there's

11:12

nothing remotely unique or interesting

11:14

about that idea. Absolutely. But I

11:16

I think there's a nuance here

11:18

because it's true that

11:20

the functional takeaway here

11:22

is have a positive attitude,

11:24

but the core of this

11:26

book is not about self

11:28

help. Right? But what the

11:30

the secret is meant to be

11:32

is a scientific Claim.

11:36

Oh, okay. About the power of

11:38

positive thinking being a real

11:40

thing that really

11:42

works spread peppered throughout the

11:44

explanations of the law of

11:46

attraction are various extremely

11:49

unsourced scientific claims

11:52

by both Burns and her various

11:54

co experts. Love it. One

11:56

dude says quantum physicist tell

11:58

us that the entire universe emerged

12:00

from thought. No.

12:02

I almost pulled the Michael Hobbs and reached

12:04

out to a quantum physicist about this, and then I

12:06

said no. I'm not gonna

12:08

debase myself. It started with

12:10

thought. Yeah. By the way, not the

12:12

only time quantum physics is brought up at

12:15

one point. Love it. The book is

12:17

addressing the question of how long it takes

12:19

to manifest what you want once you

12:21

put it out into the universe. Right? Because that's

12:23

sort one of the obvious

12:25

questions that flows from like, well, if

12:27

I if I can just attract things

12:29

into my life with my thoughts, How

12:31

long does it take? Right? Does it come next year or whatever?

12:33

Right. And Burns says that Einstein told us

12:35

that time is an illusion and that

12:37

everything is happening simultaneously. And

12:39

therefore it takes no time for the universe to

12:42

manifest what you want. The only

12:44

obstacle is you

12:46

truly believing it. Now what Einstein

12:48

said, but okay. Yeah. Not really what

12:50

I've since said. Also, does

12:52

not make any practical sense,

12:54

but there's only so much time I can spend on, like,

12:56

every little time that she said something

12:58

that made my my head just

13:00

fucking spin around like the exercise. If

13:02

you blast this book at a

13:04

wall, it goes through two different

13:06

slits and then it creates a mark on

13:08

the next wall. So

13:10

probabilistically, you can't say where the book is at

13:12

any given time. So before we get

13:14

too far, maybe worth pausing to note

13:16

that the book never explains

13:18

anything about how the law of

13:20

attraction works scientifically.

13:22

Oh, I'm livid. I

13:24

like, a long, like,

13:26

really try hard scientific explanation.

13:29

Like, some physics diagrams. At

13:35

certain points, it expressly says that you

13:37

don't need to know how it works. You just need

13:39

to know that it works. And

13:41

there are hints that

13:43

asking how it works is counterproductive because,

13:47

quote, How it will

13:49

happen? How the universe will bring it to

13:51

you is not your concern or your

13:53

job? When you are trying to

13:55

work out how it will happen, you are

13:57

emitting a frequency that

13:59

contains a lack of faith.

14:02

Don't question it. Don't if if

14:05

you think at all about,

14:07

like, the rank pseudoscience that this

14:09

is, you're actually denying it and

14:11

it won't work for you. I mean, you're seeing

14:13

the real like, the direct parallels

14:15

with religious thinking. Right? Just -- Totally. --

14:17

if this is not working for you, if you're

14:20

confused about it, that's

14:22

actually you not having enough faith.

14:24

And the only way for it to work

14:26

is for you to not question it. It sounds

14:28

like every religion and

14:30

every diet. It's like

14:32

I'm gonna sell you something that probably

14:34

isn't true. And if you can't

14:36

make it work for you, it's not the fault

14:38

of the plan. It's the phone that you

14:40

for not being able to implement this, like,

14:42

baroque deranged system

14:45

of, like, scheduled things and

14:47

fasting and, like, mac ready brands.

14:49

I have texted you a couple of images

14:51

pages from the book. Okay. I

14:53

imagine you will be unsettled from the

14:55

first sentence onward. So this is,

14:57

I guess, a quote from Bill Harris who's

14:59

described as teacher and founder

15:01

of CenterPoint Research Institute.

15:04

Mhmm. It says, Robert

15:06

was gay. He outlined all

15:08

of the grim realities of

15:10

his life in his emails to me.

15:12

In his job, his coworkers ganged up

15:14

on him. When he walked down the street, he

15:16

was accosted by homophobic people who wanted

15:18

to abuse him in some way. wanted to

15:20

become a stand up comedian, and when he did a

15:22

stand up comedy job, everybody heckled him

15:24

about being gay. His whole

15:26

life was of unhappiness and misery,

15:28

and it all focused around being attacked

15:30

because he was gay. I began to

15:32

teach him that he was focusing on what

15:34

he did not want. I directed him back to

15:36

his email that he sent me and said, read it

15:38

again. Look at all the things you do

15:40

not want that you're telling me about.

15:42

I can tell you're very passionate about this, and when

15:44

you focus on something with a lot of passion, it

15:46

makes it happen even faster. He started

15:49

taking this thing about focusing on what you

15:51

want to heart and he began really

15:53

trying it. What happened within the

15:55

next six to eight weeks was an absolute

15:57

miracle. All the people in his office who

15:59

had been harassing him either transferred

16:01

to another apartment quit working

16:03

at the company or starting completely

16:05

leaving him alone. He began to love

16:07

his job. When he walked down the street and

16:09

nobody harassed him anymore, they just

16:11

weren't there. When he did his stand up comedy

16:13

routines, he started getting standing ovations

16:15

and nobody was heckling him. His

16:17

whole life changed because he

16:19

changed from focusing on what he did not

16:21

want, what he was afraid of, what he wanted to

16:23

avoid, to focusing on what

16:25

he did want. Yeah. Thoughts.

16:29

This is

16:32

true. Sounds total of nothing to pick at

16:34

here. This is my favorite anecdote in

16:36

the whole book. It's so

16:38

good. This dude soared

16:40

homophobia through the

16:42

power of the secret. He had his

16:44

entire department restructured through

16:46

the power of his mind. He

16:49

willed a open mic stand

16:51

up comedy career into success

16:53

The secret is so powerful that he somehow got a

16:56

standing ovation at a comedy

16:58

club. Something that does not happen.

17:00

Something that has never happened in the history

17:02

of comedy clubs. So

17:06

there there's a lot going on here. One thing I

17:08

wanna use this to illustrate

17:10

is that it's not just about

17:12

the power of positive thinking per

17:14

se. It's that whatever

17:17

you think about, you attract

17:19

to you, And that means when you

17:21

focus on the negative,

17:23

you're actually attracting those negative

17:25

things into your life. So if

17:27

you become obsessed with the people that

17:29

street harass you, you're

17:31

attracting street harassment. But if you

17:33

visualize walking to work

17:35

with no street harassment, you're

17:37

attracting that. So that's

17:39

the lesson. When you're

17:41

getting homophobia done to you,

17:43

you don't wanna dwell on it. You just

17:45

wanna think positively and you will

17:47

eventually get all of your coworkers

17:49

laid off. I

17:53

like how in the history of American

17:56

victim blaming, we've gone from what was

17:58

she wearing to what

18:00

was thinking progress.

18:03

I'm also I mean, obviously, homophobia

18:06

still existed in America in the early two

18:08

thousands. But, like, where was

18:10

Robert getting constant street homophobic

18:13

harassment. Yeah. You don't wanna downplay societal

18:16

homophobia, but the

18:19

idea that this guy was going to, like,

18:21

stand up comedy clubs. Yeah. People were

18:23

just, like, get off the stage,

18:25

Yiquia, Like, where was the

18:27

I think better advice would have been,

18:29

like, moved to San Francisco. Robert.

18:33

So the the

18:35

book spends a lot of time going over ways

18:37

to harness the law of attraction.

18:39

Right? Meditating to clear your mind

18:41

of bad thoughts maintaining

18:43

a mental catalog of happy thoughts.

18:45

Okay. It is mostly throughout the book the

18:47

same concept restated over

18:50

and over. The interesting parts

18:52

come when they are trying to

18:54

discuss, like, the real world things that you

18:56

can accomplish using the secret --

18:58

Okay. -- almost immediately. Burn turns the discussion

19:00

to making money. She claims that

19:02

wealthy people use a secret, whether they know

19:04

it or not, and that the

19:06

key to being rich is

19:08

just thinking about being rich and not thinking about

19:10

being poor. One expert, quote

19:13

unquote, says that wealth inequality.

19:15

Oh, no, is explained by the

19:17

secret. Here's the quote, why do you think

19:19

that one percent of the population earns around

19:21

ninety six percent of all the money that's

19:23

being earned? Do you think

19:25

that's an accident? It's designed

19:27

that way. They understand something.

19:29

Oh, yeah. They understand the secret.

19:31

All those heirs to fortunes just have

19:33

positive thinking and that's the reason they

19:35

get their, like, Mars dynasty

19:37

money when their grandparents

19:39

die. Yes. I would give up

19:41

everything I own. To be able to go back in time and

19:43

read that to Karl Marx. You

19:45

get these, like, pearls of wisdom,

19:48

like, the only reason any person

19:50

does not have enough money is

19:52

because they are blocking money from coming

19:54

to them with their thoughts. In terms of you just

19:56

don't want money. That's the one thing. Why hasn't

19:58

anyone asked poor people to want

20:00

money. Their vibes are too negative,

20:02

Michael. We've talked on the show a lot about

20:04

how most of the books that we

20:06

cover, like, could have been magazine

20:08

articles I feel like this is one that could have been just a bumper

20:10

sticker. Yeah. I can't

20:12

understand how you can pad

20:15

this concept out to, like, two hundred

20:17

pages. I mean, it could yeah. It could

20:19

be a tweet that just says, get your vibes right.

20:21

Yeah. Yeah. As

20:23

again, we are literally explaining poverty

20:25

here, not as any sort of systemic

20:27

condition or the consequence

20:29

of policy of any type.

20:31

But it is purely personal

20:34

failing. Right. At times, it's almost

20:36

expressly religious with

20:38

Bern, at one point assuring

20:40

the reader that Jesus, Abraham, Isaac,

20:43

Jacob, Joseph, and Moses

20:45

were all millionaires. She

20:50

quotes some other gifter's book about this that

20:52

was called like millionaires of the bible or

20:54

something like that. Jesus famously

20:56

loved inherited wealth. Millionaire Jesus.

20:58

I'm coming around to view that she's actually

21:01

correct because if this is

21:03

a secret that like all of the world's

21:05

elites know and then the

21:07

secret is that like poor people are poor

21:09

because they're lazy and they don't want to be

21:11

rich. That is actually what most

21:13

rich people believe about poor

21:15

people. Right. This is just power

21:17

flattering bullshit that she's, like, repackaging

21:19

for people who don't have that much power.

21:21

The funny part about her claiming that, like, Jesus

21:23

is a millionaire is because, like,

21:25

you can't ever claim that Jesus' vibes were

21:28

wrong. Yeah. Right? When you're putting him in his self

21:30

self help book. And if his

21:32

vibes were right, He had to be rich that's

21:34

how the secret works. Right. You're you're not editing

21:36

the ideology. You're editing his biography to

21:38

make it fit the ideology. Yes.

21:41

Right. Now the first sort

21:43

of case study that Byrne

21:45

does is called the

21:47

Secret End Your Body -- Oh, no. -- as you

21:49

might imagine. It's about using the

21:51

secret to lose weight. Now, as

21:53

soon as I saw this, I got admittedly

21:55

very excited thinking about how mad you were gonna

21:58

get. I

22:02

am sending you another portion of

22:04

last book. Okay. I want

22:06

you to read it. Oh, no. Even though you've done

22:09

you've covered almost every

22:11

type of pseudoscience related to weight.

22:13

This might still be new to you.

22:15

So I'm I'm excited. The first thing to

22:17

know is that if you focus on losing weight, you

22:20

will attract back having to lose

22:22

more weight. So get having to lose

22:24

weight out of your mind. It's the very

22:26

reason why diets don't work. Because you're

22:28

focused on losing weight, you must

22:30

attract back continually having

22:32

to lose weight. Okay. The

22:35

second thing to know is that the condition

22:37

of being overweight was created

22:39

through your thought to it. To put it into

22:41

the most basic terms if someone is

22:43

overweight, came from thinking fat thoughts

22:46

whether that person was aware of it or

22:48

not. Jesus Christ. A

22:50

person cannot think thin thoughts

22:52

and be fat. It completely defies

22:55

the loss of attraction. Whether

22:57

people have been told they have a slow

22:59

thyroid, a slow metabolism,

23:01

or their body size is hereditary,

23:03

These are all disguised as for thinking,

23:05

fat thoughts. If you accept

23:07

any of these conditions as applicable to

23:09

you and you believe it, it must

23:12

become your experience and you will continue

23:14

to attract being overweight.

23:16

Mhmm. There's actually science that confirms us that

23:18

people in South Pacific

23:20

Islands just have higher rates of

23:22

fat thoughts. That's why we see

23:24

higher rates there. I

23:26

when she when she got to fat thoughts, I

23:28

had to, like, do a lap around my apartment.

23:31

You resisted texting me about

23:33

it beforehand, which is not I I really I was

23:35

like, oh my god. This is so

23:38

this is so on point for Michael. I love the

23:40

circular logic of this. She says a

23:42

person cannot think thin thoughts and

23:44

be fat. It defies the laws

23:46

of attraction shit. Mhmm. It's like, well,

23:48

if it doesn't all come back to thin

23:50

thoughts, then the law of attraction isn't

23:52

even true. And we know it's true.

23:54

They're We know it's true. I

23:57

also love that she throws

23:59

slow thyroid in there. Mhmm. Like, they're

24:01

like physiological reasons. Why

24:05

some people are fatter than others, and she's like,

24:07

no. No. No. That's the

24:09

thoughts. That's like what this

24:11

made me realize. So she's saying

24:13

that food has no relationship to your

24:15

weight, but beyond that, that your weight

24:17

is dictated in full.

24:19

Correct. By your thoughts -- Understood. -- about your

24:21

weight. Which is the first time it hit

24:23

me that, like, not only is

24:25

the law of attraction fake science,

24:27

but it's also supplanting real

24:30

science. Right. Not only are you

24:32

fat because you're thinking fat thoughts, but

24:34

your thyroid condition is not real. Right.

24:36

Your bodybuilding routine is useless.

24:38

You should just visualize being jacked. I

24:40

wonder if she's proposing any limits

24:42

to this. So, like, I'm five of six. I'm forty

24:44

years old. If I start

24:46

thinking tall thoughts, will I be like

24:48

six one by the end of This

24:50

this basic question in its various forms

24:53

haunted me throughout the book.

24:55

If you read

24:57

what what their claims are

24:59

literally, there is nothing stopping

25:01

you from visualizing being taller and

25:03

therefore getting taller. Fuck yeah. They they will expressly

25:05

say there is there is no limit.

25:07

the law of attraction. Right? The the

25:10

universe's power is infinite. Mhmm. I

25:12

believe that if you ask them this question, my best

25:14

guess is what they would say is that, like, our

25:16

collective belief that

25:18

this is impossible makes it

25:20

impossible. Right. So I can't humans can't

25:22

fly because we all think that humans

25:24

can't fly. Remember in miracle on thirty four when

25:26

everyone starts believing in Santa. Yeah. Yeah. If

25:28

we could if we could pull off that kind of

25:30

collective energy. Mhmm. We

25:32

we all grow two inches. It

25:34

also it also implies because I I

25:36

know too much actual science of

25:38

fatness to like swallow fucking any

25:40

of this. It also implies

25:43

that Americans started becoming fatter in the

25:45

nineteen eighties because we all started

25:47

having more fat thoughts. Mhmm. But

25:49

then, what would because of

25:51

that be. Mhmm. Like she's pushing the causality up one

25:53

level. Well, beyond that,

25:55

every social trend, Michael,

25:57

of any type. Right. It's just

25:59

the result of vibe shifts. All of

26:02

it. Wait. Has she told

26:04

Stephen Lovett about his abortion and

26:06

crime hypothesis? Because I think

26:08

that we have some more explaining to you about the nineteen

26:11

nineties. Actually, Bill Clinton just

26:13

manifested low crime rates. Thank

26:15

you. And so she

26:17

puts all of this weight loss stuff

26:19

in the context of, like,

26:21

are we all trying to lose a little

26:23

bit of weight, ladies? But the

26:26

implication is also that, like, a starving

26:28

person could manifest a healthy

26:30

way through positive thinking. Right?

26:32

Right. And you see this dark current running

26:34

throughout this book. Occasionally made

26:37

explicit that human suffering

26:39

is something that people bring on

26:41

themselves because their vibes are off.

26:43

If you're poor or sick,

26:46

that is something you could fix by

26:48

just properly visualizing being rich and

26:50

healthy. And if you

26:52

view the world like this, things

26:54

like charity and human are

26:56

literally useless. Right? Right. You

26:58

cannot help other people. They can

27:00

only improve their circumstances by

27:03

manifesting it. Like just this

27:05

truly dark view of the world.

27:07

The framing of it as a secret

27:10

also invites you to become an

27:12

evangelist for this Right? And, like, walk up to

27:14

fat people -- Mhmm. -- who you see on the

27:16

street and be like, did you know and just

27:18

be terrible to them. Right?

27:20

Because it's like, I know

27:22

something that you don't -- Mhmm. -- any

27:24

marginalized minority, you would give them

27:26

a fucking lecture about their attitude.

27:28

So worth taking a step back here, I

27:30

think, and realizing that the premise of this book is that it is telling

27:32

you the secret to the universe, and

27:34

then they follow that up by explaining how to get

27:36

skinny and rich with it. Imagine having,

27:38

like, the power of

27:40

all the infinity stones and then

27:42

you look around the entire world and

27:44

you're like, I want a six pack. That's

27:47

your snap. Is, like, you know what,

27:49

represent body fat. That's it. Thanos just

27:51

snapped his fingers and gets, like, a little

27:53

more vascular. I

27:55

mean And there are sections of the book that are

27:57

a little bit emotionally healthier if

27:59

I could put it. Okay. Okay. There's a

28:01

part about using the secret in relationships.

28:05

Which actually focuses a lot on

28:07

loving yourself in order to attract love

28:09

from others, making it by a

28:11

wide margin, the least

28:13

problematic portion of the book, know. That's actually like,

28:15

yeah. On a relative scale, that's not that

28:17

bad. There's a chapter on the secret and

28:19

the code, which goes beyond

28:21

losing weight. And unfortunately, talks

28:24

expressly about using

28:26

the secret to cure diseases.

28:28

Yeah. It's not good. Now

28:31

we have as you can tell, taken a

28:33

turn away from the emotionally healthy portions

28:35

of the book pretty quickly. Yeah.

28:37

Recall what I mentioned about

28:39

the science of the secret

28:41

supplanting real science. Yeah. Burn says

28:43

that you cannot catch any

28:45

virus unless you think

28:47

you can. Oh, no. So I

28:49

guess the claim is that the field of

28:51

virology is an illusion of

28:53

some sort. Right. Fake shit. The

28:55

COVID pandemic was just because the

28:57

entire world at once decided

28:59

to make themselves

29:01

vulnerable to this, I guess, virus that

29:03

doesn't exist. right. Together. It's a pandemic.

29:06

Yeah. There's a story shared. About a woman

29:08

who cleans to have used the secret to

29:10

cure her breast cancer -- No. -- which is

29:12

actually a piece of get moved because you

29:14

could theoretically manifest anything.

29:16

Right? So she could have manifested

29:18

the actual cure for breast

29:20

cancer But instead, she did

29:22

kill herself. Very

29:25

selfish. I know. Why doesn't she manifest at, like,

29:27

a big research breakthrough? All of these people to

29:29

like have this sort of mastered and

29:31

none of them have ever done anything

29:33

but for them. Yeah. Can I

29:35

manifest like a bunch of billionaires

29:37

exciting to pay their taxes. Can I manifest

29:40

that? At some point, we need to

29:42

talk about the conflicting

29:44

manifestations. Okay. That's when person

29:46

is manifesting one thing, and one person is manifesting another

29:48

-- Right. -- never explained. Okay.

29:51

Let's alright.

29:53

Burn says, quote, you

29:56

can think your way to the

29:58

perfect state of health, the perfect

30:00

body, the perfect weight, and

30:02

eternal youth. And it's hard to read this

30:04

section without wondering what the death toll

30:06

of this book might be. I know. I I remember when we were

30:08

talking about the title of our podcast, we

30:10

were like, this going too far? Then we

30:12

have books like this. Yeah. It's like

30:14

we're not going far enough. Jesus

30:16

Christ. Moving on to like the

30:18

sort of of extraneous chapters

30:20

toward the end of the book. There's a chapter called The

30:22

Secret to the World about using The Secret

30:24

to Make The World a Better Place. But

30:26

One thing the book never really makes

30:29

clear is the extent to which

30:31

your use of the Secret impacts

30:33

others. Remember, that

30:35

one guy homophobia among what

30:38

seemed to be a few dozen people at least. Right?

30:40

And in doing so violated their religious

30:43

liberty. So how do we balance that? If

30:45

you can will away localized

30:47

homophobia, can someone just

30:49

manifest world peace? What

30:51

are the limits here? What about just peace in

30:54

like one decent sized

30:56

place? Right? I live in queens. Could

30:58

I manifest no

31:00

crime? In Queen's. Could manifest decent Mexican food

31:02

in Berlin? The

31:05

final chapters are titled

31:07

The Secret To You and The Secret

31:09

To Life respectively, same

31:11

drivel over and over again. You

31:13

have the power to manifest

31:15

anything and everything go

31:18

forth and prosper. And

31:20

that's sort of it. That's how the book

31:22

wraps. Oh, yeah. There is a sort of semi

31:24

appendix of that just gives, like,

31:26

sort of mini biographies of all of

31:28

the contributors. Oh, filler, the

31:31

filler in these fucking books. Right. Right. Once

31:33

you hit the actual end of the book. You're at, like, a hundred and sixty

31:35

pages. And so you could tell that some publisher was,

31:37

like, I'm gonna need forty more. Yeah. We

31:39

just need we gotta hit the mark,

31:42

man. So, yeah, I mean, that's the

31:44

substance of the book. I think

31:46

it makes sense to step back and think about

31:48

this book's place

31:50

in, like, the canon of

31:52

self help -- Mhmm. -- which I imagine will

31:54

be returning to many times on

31:56

this podcast. Yeah. Unfortunately. I think part

31:58

of what's happening here is that the secret is taking the

32:01

genre to, like, its

32:03

natural endpoint. Mhmm. These

32:05

books propose magic

32:07

bullet solutions to complex

32:10

problems. Right? And so it sort

32:12

of makes sense that eventually, someone

32:14

would take that idea and just make it explicit. Right.

32:16

Not like I'm giving you useful advice,

32:18

but like I'm giving you the

32:21

magic bullet. Right. I'm giving you an

32:23

iron clad scientific way

32:25

to fix all of your problems in

32:27

like the snap of a finger. It's

32:29

it's like the only place that this sort

32:31

of positive thinking self help grip

32:33

could go. It had gone everywhere else.

32:36

The point had already been made a

32:38

hundred times by a thousand different

32:40

people. And Here we the

32:42

natural endpoint, which is just taking it

32:44

to the most absurd possible place. Do

32:46

you I mean, I always really

32:48

struggle with books like this because I

32:50

feel like on some level,

32:52

it probably is good advice to

32:54

tell people to, like, you know, I don't

32:56

know, not wallow in misery. Yeah.

32:58

Yeah. There's a version of

33:00

this advice that is, like, kind of

33:03

prudent. Right? Like, one hundred percent --

33:05

Yeah. -- you are dealing with a job loss. I

33:07

am going through a breakup I

33:09

have a tendency to,

33:11

like, wallow in sadness

33:13

and anxiety, and I have had people

33:15

tell me, like, Maybe try to think about something you enjoy or,

33:17

like, maybe try to do something you love

33:20

right now -- Yeah. -- the responsible

33:22

version of that advice. Is

33:24

like this will help a little bit. Right? It's like

33:26

taking a Tylenol or something. Like, is it

33:28

is it gonna make your back

33:31

pain go away, no, but it's gonna, like, lessen

33:33

it a little bit. It'll help. Yeah.

33:35

So the problem here isn't necessarily that these books

33:37

are telling people to think positively. It's

33:39

that they're telling them to think positively in every situation

33:42

-- Yeah. -- and that the inability

33:44

to think positively is something

33:46

that explains societal phenomena around

33:48

you, which it really doesn't. Right.

33:50

If you wanna explain cancer rates,

33:52

you should look at like don't know,

33:54

environmental toxins. Yes. But

33:56

what's upstream of environmental

33:59

toxins? It's people manifesting environmental

34:02

toxins. You have to go deeper it's

34:04

always manifestation. On a, like, on

34:06

a serious note, like, it's hard not to imagine

34:08

the ways in which this would get

34:12

in the way of actual self improvement.

34:14

Right. Right. We've talked about how this can

34:16

blame indigent and sick

34:20

people for their own lot. But, like,

34:22

what what about when someone is the victim

34:25

of ongoing abuse?

34:28

Right? Like, there may be things that they should do and

34:30

do quickly if they want to escape

34:32

the abuse, if they want to survive,

34:35

But what the secret is telling you is that it's all all

34:37

of that is just an illusion. Right? All of that --

34:39

Right. -- it's just an output of

34:41

your own thoughts and therefore what you really need to

34:43

do is visualize yourself in a better

34:46

situation, which is not just victim

34:48

blaming, although

34:50

it is, But it it actions

34:52

the victim might take to make themselves

34:54

safer. Right. I don't think it's

34:56

difficult to conceptualize of

35:00

circumstances where this advice is just like flat

35:02

out dangerous. What's so bleak to

35:05

me about it is not the

35:07

content of the book but the fact that it was so

35:10

popular and like -- Yeah. -- Oprah

35:12

famously gave it a ton of

35:14

credibility. Mhmm. I feel like so

35:16

much of it comes back too. This is

35:18

such mind like old man thought, but like

35:20

historical literacy I mean,

35:22

this is one of the oldest ideas of

35:24

humanity. Right? Is that it's

35:26

all attitude, you need to

35:28

think positively to get ahead.

35:30

There's no societal structures that affect you

35:32

in any way. Blah blah blah. Yeah. One thing I've

35:34

learned from doing the show with Aubrey is that, like, there's

35:36

medicine shows that were pedaling the same bullshit

35:38

in like the late eighteen hundreds. Yeah.

35:40

It's it's really weird to me that at

35:42

no point was there like a

35:44

producer at the Oprah show who was like, a

35:46

minute. This -- Mhmm. -- this has been proposed

35:48

as, like, the key to humanity roughly ten

35:50

thousand times before. Yeah. And none of them have worked

35:52

out. And, you know, I mean, look, we when

35:55

you have pseed scientific bullshit rising to

35:57

enormous levels of prominence. You

36:00

know that Oprah's involved. She has to be.

36:02

Yeah. Right? So the

36:04

Oprah saga gets pretty

36:06

dark pretty quickly. Yeah. Oprah

36:08

has burn on her show in, like, two thousand

36:10

seven and gives her, like, a full

36:12

throated endorsement -- Right. -- saying that

36:14

she should be that that viewers

36:16

should be teaching the concept to

36:18

their kids. A few months after Byrne is featured on the

36:20

show, a woman named Kim

36:22

Tinkham wrote to Oprah

36:26

saying that After hearing about the secret on the show, she decided

36:28

to forgo chemotherapy for

36:30

her breast cancer and instead rely

36:34

on the power of positive thinking.

36:36

Oprah flies her out to be

36:38

on the show and to tell her, hey,

36:42

don't ignore Modern

36:44

science, which is sort of

36:46

bizarre because the woman was

36:48

not misreading the book. The book

36:50

expressly says that

36:52

the secret can and has cured breast cancer

36:54

and very heavily implies that medical

36:56

treatment itself is functionally

36:58

a placebo.

37:01

So Oprah, I assume, has some sort of realization behind the scenes.

37:03

Yeah. It has to dedicate a whole

37:05

show to low key being,

37:08

like, look, this doesn't actually work, guys. I mean, I mean, like

37:10

do what this says. Yeah. One

37:12

thing I think a lot about is

37:16

In season two of the Dream Podcast, which was all about the wellness industry, there's

37:18

the story of this woman who went to a wellness

37:20

retreat, and it was all about, like, their their

37:23

building, like, a little drying

37:25

in the middle of a

37:27

pond and they have these, like, sort

37:29

of counselors who are guiding them through it and they're,

37:31

like, whatever you do, don't knock over the shrine. Whatever you

37:33

do, it can't get wet. Right? And as their group is

37:35

building the shrine in the middle of this pawn, someone

37:37

someone's elbow or something

37:40

like knocks it over. Mhmm. Even though they've been given this exportation

37:42

a million times that it's like the sacred

37:44

object and they'll they'll

37:46

ruin the effect if it

37:48

gets wet, they just

37:50

all quietly set it back up and

37:52

keep going and don't tell the

37:54

counselors. That's kind of what they

37:56

want. Right? It's like they don't want you to

37:58

actually believe this. Stuff. Yeah. Which is, I mean, classic

38:00

Oprah -- Right. -- to just -- Totally. --

38:02

quietly step back after the damage is

38:04

irrevocably done.

38:06

Right? Like, she has these quacks

38:08

on her show nonstop and

38:10

then cuts them loose when someone starts to

38:12

ask like any of the obvious questions that

38:15

the presence of those quacks implies. Right. But, like,

38:17

oops, too late, doctor Oz is

38:19

a senator. Yeah. Some of the other

38:21

sort of weird things swirling

38:23

around this book there

38:26

are tales of the secrets

38:28

extended universe, all of the all of the

38:30

associated gifters. One,

38:32

James Ray, quoted throughout the book,

38:34

hosted a new age retreat in two thousand nine, which

38:37

involved what he described as

38:39

a sweat lodge ceremony

38:42

and others described as a heat endurance exercise.

38:45

Okay. The ceremony involved

38:48

fifty people and

38:50

resulted in twenty one of them being hospitalized and three

38:53

of them dying. Oh, fuck.

38:55

It was basically meant

38:58

to be pseudo

39:00

meditative thing where you're in

39:02

the very hot sweat lodge, all

39:04

reports say that he discouraged people from

39:06

leaving except at like

39:08

certain set intervals and that

39:10

many people wanted to leave and felt

39:12

discouraged or expressly blocked by some

39:14

stories. He

39:16

was charged

39:18

with negligent homicide and served two years

39:20

for it. Holy shit. During the investigation

39:23

before he was charged,

39:26

I believe, He had a

39:28

conference call with many of

39:30

his followers and people that were

39:32

there, and he brought a

39:34

medium onto that conference call --

39:36

Okay. -- who claimed to be

39:38

communicating with the dead people -- Oh,

39:40

no. -- and reported to everyone there

39:42

that the dead people had

39:44

left their bodies of their own volition

39:46

during the ceremony and enjoyed

39:48

themselves so much that they

39:52

decided to stay dead. No

39:54

way. So they they are okay

39:56

with dying and they don't wanna come back.

39:58

So, like, don't hold me accountable for the

40:00

death space. They wanted to

40:02

die, they chose to, and they loved it. And

40:04

so they stayed dead. That was the

40:06

explanation given.

40:09

Oh, my imagine if you could do this at, like, every murder

40:12

trial. Like, I, you know, I know I stabbed Susan

40:14

to death, but I've talked to Susan.

40:16

She's okay with it. Why am

40:18

I in trouble for Susan

40:20

thinking dead thoughts? Right. If she

40:22

had manifested physically

40:25

tougher skin maybe the knife wouldn't have penetrated it. I don't know what

40:27

to tell you, judge. Weak skin thoughts,

40:30

disgusting. Anyway, yeah, that

40:32

guy is back in the

40:34

self help game. Of course, she'd go without

40:36

saying -- Obviously. -- and she's doing fine. Yeah.

40:39

Good. Burn herself would go on

40:41

to publish a bunch of

40:43

near identical books. The power was the immediate

40:46

sequel, the magic hero,

40:48

how the secret changed my life,

40:50

which is just a bunch of testimonials.

40:53

Her latest, she published in twenty twenty, and

40:55

it's titled The Greatest Secret,

40:58

which you might think based on the title,

41:00

was gonna be a new

41:02

Secret. But based on some pretty light research, I'm confident is just

41:04

the same secret again.

41:06

So Damn. I

41:08

mean, I'll give her points for consistency, Lee.

41:10

She's not like, moving on to

41:12

some, like, completely new drift. Yeah. I

41:14

guess, instead of manifesting world

41:16

peace, she decided to manifest

41:18

writing the same book over and over again

41:20

for fifteen years. Beach around,

41:23

you know? Just like Beethoven.

41:25

Just like Rolfolfe, ten percent. They

41:27

all knew it. I mean, it's hard

41:29

to articulate how uncomfortable if felt to

41:31

read this, like, knowing how successful it was. Yeah. I know. God.

41:33

I cannot imagine.

41:37

Reading this book and feeling

41:40

inspired. I can't imagine reading this

41:42

book and feeling anything other

41:44

than like a little bit upset. Yeah.

41:46

It's like These are, like,

41:48

the book is proposing the tenets

41:50

of the fall of human civilization

41:52

just like the complete disconnection

41:54

of every person from every other person, the

41:56

discarding of all knowledge heretofore acquired, all

41:59

of it to be replaced

42:02

by the unfiltered pursuit of our shallower desires.

42:04

Right. Like, this is the worst

42:07

book in history, Michael. It's

42:10

the work. I'm picturing a debate

42:12

between Rhonda Byrne and, like, a

42:14

panel of experts, like a

42:16

quantum physicist

42:18

a doctor or, you know, etcetera. And

42:20

they all make the

42:22

case for why the secret is

42:26

pseudoscience. And They

42:28

do that for hours, and then Rhonda Byrne steps up and it's just like,

42:30

well, aren't these a bunch of negative

42:33

Nazis? Yeah. And the

42:36

entire audience like erupts into applause.

42:38

That's not a prediction.

42:40

That's just you watching Oprah.