What “The Secret” went wrong with

The Secret is one of the most popular self help books, but it is also branded as one of the most pseudo-scientific ones with the load of quantum flapdoodle competing  with the amount in Chopra’s (Deepak) books. At the same time, I think there are a lot of things talked about in The Secret that make a lot of sense. On the whole, I think the writers of the book mean well and truly do want people to live by their highest potential, and in that effort, they may have gone overboard while emphasizing on the power of one’s thoughts. The following are some things mentioned in the book which would have made more sense if they had been written in a more qualified and nuanced manner, as the corrections I have provided.

1. LOA is the law of the universe: This statement implies that the law of attraction is the law of the physical universe, which is an extremely far-fetched and problematic claim. Claiming something so huge is one of the reasons scientists hate this book and Byrne. I do believe, however that the authors could have considered the LOA as a hypothetical law that governs the SOCIAL universe. This is because I do think that people are attracted to positive, courageous and fun people and that happy and positive people attract positive circumstances and vice versa, negative people attract negative circumstances/outcomes.(Although citing some social psychology research about this would be great too)
2. You attract everything/all circumstances (good or bad) through your thoughts: Thoughts indeed play a huge role in one’s actions, behavior and decision making, however there are often many thoughts that people think but don’t act upon. Hence, the word thoughts could be replaced by actions. You attract everything/all circumstances (good or bad) through your actions/behavior. Actions and behavior are a result of thoughts/belief and therefore they are often the root and source of desired and undesired bad situations/circumstances. However, realistically, actions are what attract or repel people since they are overt. Thoughts indirectly affect everything since they are the predecessors to actions, but placing that much emphasis on thoughts could be irrational as many thoughts are just considerations and not true desires/feelings.

Pseudo science

Quantum flapdoodle