Suppose you’re an alien, from outer space. You arrive to planet earth and start exploring this crazy beautiful planet called earth.
Five minutes in, and you already realize that there are certain things that humans do that you just cannot understand.
You head to the bookstore. Sorry mam’ where can I learn more about humans?
‘Here’ she says while handing you a copy of book that she claims has all the answers you’d be looking for.
A book called The Secret.
So you’re saying the biggest secret about human life is inside this book?
“The secret about the life in the entire universe.” She says in the absolute voice of pride.
Wait a minute… ALL the answers I’ll be looking for? Isn’t that what they say in religious cults?
She doesn’t laugh, all the contrary in fact. She takes a step back, crosses her arms, arches her eyebrows and says to you:
“You like clever remarks huh? Did you know that this books has sold millions upon millions of books? What do you think about that?”
I think they need better title!
… I mean, you’re buying the book under the premise to read some privileged information that nobody has, not a story that everybody has been sold on already.
You’re out of the store now, curiosity gets the best of you and so you decide to read the book - and by read the book I mean watch the movie.
You’re 10 minutes in that documentary-style movie and your mind cannot believe what your eyes are seeing.
You’re bombarded with exaggerated imagery of goofy grownups in some douchey white gowns. They’re all forming a circle as if they were about to perform some sort of ritualistic sacrifice in the name of the hooded one.
Wait, is this the Illuminati thing everyone keeps talking about?
You keep watching and you see ancient scriptures being passed around in secrecy inside some overly lit caves filled with plastic cobwebs.
Because you know, ancient cavemen are known to operate flashes and LED lights.
One thing is clear, this is either some sort of a ridiculous charade or a strategically crafted narrative presented with all sorts of crazy imagery and infused with dramatic music and powerful words.
Probably aimed for impressionable people with an inclination to the hyperbole and fairy-tales.
But you’re still curious. Not intellectually curious, but more like a lonely housewife who wants to know the ending of her Telenovela kind of curious.
I mean, the author claims that this important and vital secret was hidden for the ages until she herself stumbled upon it the midst of global recession.
Coincidentally just when people are the most desperate and willing to bite in any story that gives them any sense of hope.
But that’s just a coincidence I’m sure. The woman is probably just sharing with us a secret that has been hidden for centuries.
So what’s this big secret you say? Positive imagery and The Law of Attraction.
That’s it? That’s the big secret? If that was a secret it was really poorly hidden.
Napoleon Hill wrote about it in the 1930s, Norman Vincent in the 1950s, Tony Robbins just a few years before her.
That’s no secret? That’s spinning at best. At worst they’re selling people on some seriously unethical marketing strategies with false advertising and a maybe even a fake story to begin with.
Which is closer to that truth, that she’s spinning spin the same law of attraction story for the fifth freakin’ generation, or that she accidentally stumbled on the secret of humanity that was locked in some medieval cave?
You don’t need caves, scrolls and people dressed like Freemason... That same secret has been in every book store for five freaking generations already.
If you’ll ask me, that story doesn’t really add up.
You resist the urge to turn that thing off, and toss that book in the trash.
You want to know what other people think about the book and you join a book club, a Secret Book Club in this case.
Eyes Wide Shut
You try share your doubts with the members, but they are unconcerned, they are clearly emotionally attached to their secret, and they have faith, blind faith.
You don’t understand, they all seem to say.
They tell you that your problem is that you lacking faith, and that all you need to do is to open your eyes and start believing.
Or in this case, close your eyes.
They tell you that the secret she found on those caves is a treasure that provides proof of existence of a new God, a god unlike anything seen before.
A god called the universe, and that the universe is your wishes granting dispenser.
So you just wish away, and the universe is limitlessly bound to provide you with anything you want, anything in the world.
*“Oh yeah, we have that story in my planet too.”(
“You do?”
We do, but we have another name for it, we call it Aladdin.
Only instead of a treasure book it’s a lamp, and instead of unllimited wishes, we have only three.
There’s no call for sarcasm they say as silence drowns the laughter. Everyone is so offended now.
What’s the big deal you ask? If you’re offended, just cast your wishes to the universe to re-write this conversation, it’s like it has never existed.
They don’t see the irony and tell you that they’re offended because you’re speaking as if The Secret is some spin-off version of a new age religion.
They tell you that they’re offended that you compare the secret with Aladdin’s genie tale.
In the middle of the outrage someone plays the movie to “educate” you and the screen freezes in the most incredible scene:
Son of a bitch! They’ve spun Aladdin too!
You know what? I’m gonna give this universe wishing dispenser a shot,
I’m gonna wish for a better book!
