The Secret's Little Secret: A Review
By Paul M. Helfrich

The Secret, a DVD and book about "the law of attraction" (LOA), is the latest New Age fad to make a big media splash. The producer, Rhonda Byrne, and five participants recently appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to promote it (see YouTube.com in five parts. Part 1

The central premise is that if we learn "the secret," then all our dreams will come true. At it's best, it's a highly simplified version of perennial truths found in all the major wisdom traditions. At its worst, this made for prime time version can easily be misunderstood by those groomed to consume the latest "pop psychology" quick-fix. Such is the nature of daytime television.

A Fractured Fairy Tale

Interestingly, the original project and DVD featured Ester Hicks who has channeled Abraham for over twenty years and explored the LOA in bestsellers like Ask and It Is Given (2004). This "little secret" was edited out of the final DVD now making the Oprah rounds, because the original contract was changed when the original show wasn't picked up for TV in Australia. That forced the producers to take a new marketing angle that didn't include the Hicks. (Ester and Jerry Hicks' version of the story is available on the director's website: Drew Heriot).

While the project claims that there have been many teachers of the secret from Aristotle to Winston Churchill over the millennia, the LOA version of "the secret" was formulated by a channeled source, namely Abraham. It's based on the idea that like attracts like, a variation of "you reap what you sow." There are three basic steps: 1. ask, 2. believe, and 3. receive. Ironically, Oprah also mentioned Jane Roberts's New Age mantra, "you create your own reality" (YCYOR), without attributing the source. I wonder if she knew that mantra was coined in The Nature of Personal Reality (1974), a book written by Jane's channeled source named Seth?

Why is it that the phenomenon that produces these ideas still can't be authentically attributed on prime time TV? The Secret's appearance on Oprah reveals a trend we saw in What the Bleep?, another New Age success story based on a channeled source, J.Z. Knight and Ramtha, that refused to address the channeling phenomenon in the movie (see my review in the NWV Library).

To suggest that the ideas are important by themselves and that the source doesn't matter is intellectually and ethically dishonest. In academic writing when you don't properly attribute the primary source of ideas it's called plagiarism. Further, if you found out that a $10,000 donation to your favorite charity fell out the back of a Brinks truck, would you return it? We cannot separate the two without ultimately fracturing the holistic integrity of All-That-Is.

Thus, the source and the ideas have an intimate relationship that, when separated to pass muster on prime time TV or elsewhere, inevitably tells an incomplete story - a "fractured fairy tale" where the ideas are made public, but the source is safely tucked away in the closet. That's why it's important to cite the primary source, particularly when Oprah mentions YCYOR, or Rhonda Byrne promotes a project originally designed around the teachings of Abraham.

What is Channeling?

However, to discuss channeling with any integrity raises some very thorny issues, especially in light of how traditional religious and modern scientific worldviews currently understand it.

Jane Roberts's three Aspect Psychology (1) books are filled with first-hand accounts of how traditional and modern theories were unsatisfactory to explain her transpersonal experiences with the Seth Material. For example, the Judeo-Christian traditions call channeling "speaking in tongues" or glossolalia. In the Bible, God "spoke" through various prophets. In the Qur'an, an archangel "spoke" to Mohammed.

On the other hand, modern scientific worldviews consider channeling a dissociative identity disorder. It's labeled a serious pathology because it violates the integrity of the individual defined as one ego-one body. So it's very easy to get lumped in the same camp as Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggert, Osama Bin Laden, and others because religious traditions still deal with metaphysical assumptions that modern and postmodern sciences have shredded and rejected.

However, research shows that various forms of channeling have existed for over three thousand years. Psychologist Arthur Hastings points out in With the Tongues of Men and Angels (1991) that channeling occurred in the cult of Astarte in eleven hundred BCE. In Channeling: Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources (1998) psychologist Jon Klimo outlined many socially acceptable contexts for non-pathological dissociative states:

"Throughout history and among various peoples, channels have been named according to what they do. Besides the term 'medium' and the more recent 'channel,' other names have included shaman, witch doctor, healer, and medicine man in native cultures. They have also been called fortune-tellers, oracles, seers, soothsayers, savants, and visionaries. In religious contexts, they have been known as priests, gurus, prophets, saints, mystics, and holy ones. And in the esoteric schools they are called light workers, initiates, teachers, adepts, or masters. The majority of mainstream psychologists and psychiatrists would probably regard the channels as hallucinating, delusional, suffering from dissociative identity disorder (once called multiple personality disorder), schizophrenic, or simply as persons with runaway imaginations, or even as downright frauds." (2)

Still, there's no working model of how to best proceed. What if, as a hypothesis, channeling is simply another "developmental intelligence" similar to music, emotions, morals, mathematics, linguistics, interpersonal, spiritual, and many others identified by research scholars like Howard Gardner, Lawrence Kohlberg, Jane Loevinger, James Fowler, and many others?

The Science of Channeling

We need an authentic postmodern science in which to better explore and demystify the channeling phenomenon. One that occurs within acceptable rational, empiric-analytic parameters, but one that includes data verified by what the perennial sages knew as inner senses, deep intuition, or the eye of spirit. The integral theory of Ken Wilber outlines a method to do just that (Kosmic Karma and Creativity, still in pre-publication). So we may see someone who can explain channeling on Oprah some day without an over-reliance on religious metaphysical assumptions, defined as "thoughts and beliefs without any direct experience or evidence to back them up."

In the long run, one of modern science's enduring strengths is that all data is open to verification or falsification, and anything less is really just dogma in disguise. So we very much want to include the best of modern scientific methods while at the same time acknowledging their limits. Postmodern theorists like Teilhard de Chardin, Huston Smith, and Michel Foucault have shown that modern science has its own form of metaphysics and dogma called scientism that now form a "religion of science." They showed that we are never able to avoid all metaphysical assumptions, for example, an explanation or acknowledgment of who or what preceded the Big Bang. Therefore, we must seek to minimize them and at the same time articulate them as best we can, because when we try to eliminate all metaphysics, we end up with yet another fragmented, incomplete scientific method that doesn't embrace and include some allowance for the very mystery of its own Source.

Wilber's integral theory outlines an integral post-metaphysics, one that is based on a scientific method open to verification and falsification but requires the use of outer, mental, and inner senses. Interestingly, this is very similar to what Seth calls high intellect in relation to dream-art sciences in The "Unknown" Reality, Vol. 1 (1978). This method holds the promise to better explain what channeling is, who is really coming through, and what their native reality may or may not be like. However, that could require years of research, and millions in funding. Bit if the National Institutes of Mental Health budgeted five million dollars a year, for ten years, imagine what insights could occur? That's just a fraction of what the Bush Administration has spent on its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's a question of ongoing social, political, and economic priorities.

The Secret Goes Mainstream, or Does It?

So where does that leave us? Very much in the closet I'm afraid, at least as far as channeling goes. On the bright side, the ideas are beginning to find their way into the mainstream and are here to stay. This is a very encouraging sign! The Secret has successfully commercialized the LOA into a consumable form. But will it spur authentic transformation, defined as a push into wider stages of overall development, in a large segment of the population? Or is it just the latest New Age fad? A little of both perhaps? Time will tell, though I suspect the latter.

Back on Oprah, James Ray recognized three important elements to "the secret" - thoughts, feelings, and actions. This represents the individual's interiors (thoughts and feelings) and exteriors (actions or behavior). If you just sit on your couch potato butt imagining your soulmate, financial independence, ideal weight, etc. and take no action, then your desires won't manifest. That's right on, because he includes the interior and exterior factors in reality creation. He also had a sense of the individual in relation to the collective, and came closest to articulating key elements of "the secret."

Ray also mentioned that the spiritual traditions and science were now in total agreement, though he didn't really clarify. Daytime TV doesn't really allow for great detail after all. If you check the landscape, however, science and religion are still in the midst of their centuries old battle for domination, not integration! So he still needs to clarify just how this "total agreement" works. It turns out to be one of the central issues in moving from a modern to postmodern, metaphysical to postmetaphysical science, as we saw earlier.

Oprah then went on to show how "the secret" works. There were three segments that included successful testimonials on how we can all gain financial health, great love lives, and lose weight. But at no point was there any detail provided for any sort of collective application to, say, politics, education, economics, social issues, etc. This formulation of "the secret" is "person-centered" - designed to appeal to individual problems and not collective policy issues. In that sense, it's mostly pop psychology with a lemon twist designed to fit in between sound-bytes and commercial breaks, but one that introduced the concepts and planted seeds to motivate those ready to explore further. That part is a plus, but I would like to see more applications.

All the panelists were successful business folk, so by implication "the secret" is involved in that, which is well and good. Healthy business practices are very, very important. Just learn basic business practices, and you can use "the secret" to create your own business. But that's a loaded statement, and wasn't really explored by Oprah. Why not do a show on using "the secret" to allow people to create their own small businesses? Obviously, that begins to get away from a person-centered approach and moves into collective-centered approaches. They are more complex, and require more complex solutions and relationships that may not fit the format.

While several folks on the NWV forums expressed delight at the ideas we explore from Seth, Elias, Kris, and others were going mainstream, I am still underwhelmed. It is a step forward for the ideas, but the source that produced them - the channeling phenomenon - still remains in the closet. So don't get out those party hats just yet. It's a positive sign, but there is still much work to be done.

Different Worldviews Have Different Versions of the Secret

Decades of research in developmental psychology have discerned eight main worldview systems common to all human beings (3). They unfold in hierarchical fashion similar to acorn, sapling, and tree stages, and each worldview stage "transcends yet includes" its predecessors. As such, the acorn is still present in the sapling, though the tree is not yet present. Tree-ness exerts a "pull" on the sapling, but doesn't appear full blown overnight. The growth process includes forays into tree aspects as they gradually emerge, and like all growth, occurs in fits and spurts with occasional regressions based on over all life conditions. Thus, no one is simply at one stage and all stages overlap, because they don't manifest in strict linear fashion.

Together, the dynamics between these worldviews - seen from a systems view - creates all the collective human politics and conflict we see on the world stage. By definition each worldview stage develops different abilities, which in turn develop different belief systems. (4) Some agree, some conflict. In this context, we begin to discern acorn, sapling, and tree versions of "the secret." Each believes their version to be true, and within the limits of its current worldview it is. Therefore, there isn't a single, absolute version of "the secret."

So what we saw on Oprah mostly reflected a modern worldview (ORANGE in Spiral Dynamics/Beck and AQAL/Wilber). ORANGE beliefs include a strong, grounded rationality that rejects metaphysics and relies on five senses only methods. If the channeling phenomenon had been highlighted, then metaphysics would be highlighted. Since we still can't explain it all yet with modern rational methods, as we saw earlier, it's easier to sanitize that part of "the secret" in effect, becoming The Secret's little secret.

The focus on material wealth as "evidence of success" is another core value of ORANGE "strive-drive" worldviews, and The Secret is a healthy expression of that. The next wider worldview is postmodern GREEN. It focuses less on the importance of material "trophies" like SUVs, supermodel wives, big houses, bling-bling, etc. than ORANGE worldviews. But GREEN still focuses on wealth creation. It is less ostentatious and more aligned with many ideas in the Seth Material. For example, GREEN worldviews were the first to promote and legislate ecological, civil, gay/lesbian, women's, and animal rights, multiple spiritual paths, and more.

The Law of Attraction

Let's return to and examine The Secret's version of the LOA, because the scientific explanations on Oprah were not very compelling. For example, Bleep physicist Fred Alan Wolf pointed out recently on his blog that in terms of quantum physics and the LOA "opposites attract and like repels." (5)

So what's really going on with the "birds of a feather" aspects the LOA attempts to describe? In physics terms, it's more like sympathetic resonance. For example, if you hold down the keys of a C Major chord at middle C on a piano, and then hit a loud C in the left-hand bass, when you damp those left-hand strings you'll hear ALL the keys of that right-hand chord making a sound without having been struck! The acoustic energy has been transferred because those same tones were already vibrating as harmonics on the left-hand strings.

Put into human terms, like the characters in The Wizard of Oz, the qualities for success are already innately present in us all. However, we may need a jump-start to get own "strings" humming that song of success. In all cases, we will define our personal and collective success through the lens of our overall stage of development.

In physics terms, the "Law of Attraction" is really a kind of energetic transference that makes our innate tone/beliefs/behaviors resonate more strongly. It is our own ability to amplify them from within. So it's not an attraction in physics terms (opposite forces attract, like force repel). Calling it a "law" makes it sound scientific, and yet the physics are clearly contradictory.

All of which is to point out that the Law of Attraction is really a misnomer, and more accurately could be called the Law of Resonance because we're not really attracting anything outside of us, we're simply tuning up, harmonizing, and playing our own natural tune. When played at sufficient positive volume, we will find others playing a similar tune, and that synergy often leads to totally unexpected breaks, insights, solutions, growth, and fulfillment.

The counterpart, and here's the rub, is when our tune has sufficient negative volume we find others who synergize in negative ways. So "the secret" cuts both ways. Essentially, the tunes are neutral. It's our intention, beliefs, and behavior in relation to social and cultural factors that conspire to co-create the positive or negative outcomes. Either way, once we really get jamming, we're actually transferring, resonating, and helping others to jump-start their own Kosmic symphonies in harmony with our own.

It's always our choice whether we wish to play a negative or positive tune. That's the horrible beauty, the double-edged design inherent in "the secret." There is a shadow side that we also need to fully acknowledge and embrace within all worldviews. Therefore, the more we "face up to the abilities of consciousness," the more we wake up and confront the shadow elements that act as roadblocks and detours from realizing our deepest desires. That's another key part of learning to effectively use "the secret" that didn't make it into Oprah's show.

Still, "the secret" seems to work, so what's going on?

First, we need to stop using pseudo-physics to validate "the secret" and focus on the psychological, behavioral, cultural, and socio-economical sciences behind it. Clearly more research needs to be done on how stages of development factor in. Do neonates, infants, children, juveniles, adults, and seniors all use "the secret" the same way. What are the common elements? What are local cultural differences and what are universals to all people?

Second, we're trying to understand the mechanics of reality creation, the how. While there may never be a modern scientific model that is adequate, there are emerging postmodern methods as we saw earlier with the potential to shed light on the mechanics of "the secret" down the road. We need to support their continued development and funding as best we can.

What is Seth's Version of The Secret?

In the mean time, without calling it a science of any kind, we're left to explore Seth's version. Clearly he taught a version of "the secret," but how would you define it? Through the lens of The Nature of Personal Reality (1974) or the forty-plus books Jane Roberts and Rob Butts wrote taken as a whole? I take the latter approach because I find most definitions based on NPR very limited. All too often they focus on person-centered creation to the exclusion of collective co-creation. And that's something we need to avoid. With that in mind, here's a condensed version of "the secret according to Seth":

We create our realities, all of them, through a combination of personal and collective knowing, being, and doing.

1. In terms of knowing, "you get what you concentrate upon, there is no other main rule."
2. In terms of being, we are multidimensional, spiritual beings creating a physical experience, one of many.
3. In terms of doing, "the point of power is in the present."

How Do We Define Success?

"The secret," then, is how to focus specific actions necessary to achieve success, and we will define that from the rose colored glasses of current worldviews. Your definition may be quite different than mine, but just as valid as long as it works for you. Various testimonials on The Secret DVD, Oprah, and elsewhere generally define success in terms of strongly focused desires properly aligned with innate intents, beliefs, behaviors, cultural, and social factors that create what we need.

Mick Jagger said something similar, "You can't always get what you want, but if you try some time, you just might find you get what you need."

In my experience with "the secret," the universe always provides what I need, not always what I want. The difference here is learning to align with my innate intention. How can we better learn to do that? One way is to explore the typology of intention Seth called "families of consciousness." Elias has greatly elaborated on them, too. (6) They help us identify with our own innate purpose and meaning in life. Once properly tuned up our strings of success will hum away. Guaranteed.

However, because our innate intents - there are nine of them - are "different but complementary" each will define success in unique ways that may, at times, result in conflict within the same worldview stage. So not only is there a vertical disconnect between developmental worldviews at different stages, but also a horizontal disconnect based upon "different but complementary" intention. So "the secret" will never scale up into collective co-creation that produces Utopia. This a naïve Utopian view, because it doesn't adequately factor in how stages of worldview development and intention work on a global scale.

It is only at the TEAL worldview where we finally understand there will always be worldview dynamics and conflict to some extent due to the fact that six-plus billion people are simultaneously creating their realities through different worldview stages and intents. And that's when success is defined in positive terms! Add the complementary shadow and negative aspects, and you begin to sense why the collective creates so much conflict at times. Moreover, TEAL is an emerging worldview, a new worldview at this time, embraced by only two percent of the global population. But it is beginning to outline new solutions to current problems. As Einstein said, "The significant problems we face can never be solved at the level of thinking that created them." So it will take some time. (7)

In the mean time, until we develop postmetaphysical sciences to better explain "the secret," we can still explore the basics of personal and collective knowing, being, and doing. Eventually, as we begin to take full responsibility for everything in our lives, we cease being the victim of McDonalds, banks, spouses, bosses, children, the oppressor, the environment, weather, and on and on. Only then, can we manifest forms of personal and collective abundance, fulfillment, and remembrance that will help minimize the inherent conflict within the dynamics of differing worldviews and intents. By learning to use "the secret" we can make it easier for those who follow. This is the essence of what Seth called a practicing idealist (8), but that's yet another part of "the secret" you won't find anytime soon on Oprah.

Other Versions of The Secret (With a Dash of Tongue-in-Cheek ;-)

Elias: "It matters not."

Teddy Roosevelt: "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

Rene Descartes: "I think therefore I am."

Werner Heisenberg: "The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa."

George W. Bush: "Stay the course!"

Ken Wilber: AQAL-5 (All Quadrants, Levels, Lines, States, & Types)

Teilhard de Chardin: "The whole of life lies in the verb seeing."

Rumi the Cat: "Is it time to eat yet?"

Kurt Gödel: "Any theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete."

Heinrich Zimmer: "The best things cannot be told."

Douglas Adams: "42."

Gandhi: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Yogi Berra: "It ain't over 'til it's over."

Proverbs, 23:7: "As we think in our hearts, so we are."

Emily Dickenson: "The only secret people keep is Immortality."

Yiddish proverb: "Love thy neighbor, even if he plays the trombone."

Albert Einstein: "Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions."

Shankara: "The world is Illusory; Brahman alone is real; Brahman is the world."

Scarface: "Secrets? We don't need no stinkin' secrets!"

The Fourfold Path, Zuni People: "Show up. Pay Attention. Tell the truth. Stay open to the outcome."

Bhagavad-Gita: "Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is."

Nick Helfrich: "All-That-Is is All-That-Is."

Basho: "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."

Alfred E. Newman: "What, Me Worry?"

Endnotes:

(1) Adventures in Consciousness: An Introduction to Aspect Psychology (1975), Psychic Politics: An Aspect Psychology Book (1976), The God of Jane: A Psychic Manifesto (1981).

(2) Klimo, p. 103.

(3) For more information on the science behind them follow this link to an article on Emerging New Worldviews.

(4) For those interested in how Elias' ten foundational belief systems relate to stages of development, they form a horizontal dimension or typology found within each major stage of development. So we will be able to track the ever-increasing vertical embrace or widening awareness that occurs within each worldview system by examining the specifics of these ten belief systems in each stage.

(5) According to Dr. Wolf, "... regarding the movie The Secret and the LOA talked about in that movie. Do like things really attract each other? Actually in quantum physics we find that like doesn't attract like, and if you notice I never made that point in the film. Like charges repel each other (+ repels + and - repels -) and unlike charges attract (+ attracts -). The better metaphor might be resonance, that two things that vibrate together have more energy as compared to two things that vibrate out of phase with each other in which case they have no energy." Retrieved February 07, 2007 from http://fredalanwolf.blogspot.com/2007/01/update-to-those-who-blog-012707.html

(6) For more info, see Seth's nine families of consciousness and Elias' essence families; an overview.

(7) Interestingly, this is also a way to imagine what Elias calls "the shift in consciousness," a mass event to be completed by the year 2075 that propels humanity into a new collective worldview stage. For more info, see Elias' shift in consciousness; an overview.

Seth's version includes a transition or shift in collective human consciousness toward greater use of inner senses and a more individualized type of spirituality - without "outside" mediation - by the year 2075. This is one of the few predictions in the Seth material couched in terms of a religious and spiritual reformation intended to push calcified translative religions toward authentic transformational formats. Seth Discussed in detail in Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul (1972).

(8) Seth combines the insights from The Nature of Personal Reality (1974) and The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events (1981). Taken together, they include four moral imperatives:

1. "Thou shalt not violate" (Nature of Personal Reality)
2. "We have never told anybody to do anything, except face up to the abilities of consciousness." (Mass Events)
3. A call to Practicing Idealism (Mass Events)
4. "The ends don't justify the means." (Mass Events)

The first and fourth are the innate, natural deterrents that let us know when not to repeat behaviors that violate. The second and third are clarion calls to personal growth, realization, and transformation toward worldcentric and postmodern worldviews. The former entreat us to act in harmony with natural law, the laws of the inner universe, and the latter to avoid fanaticism, murder, and other violations to achieve our goals in life. Scale that up to six billion people in varying stages of moral development, and we have a frothy mix indeed.

Seth does not provide a complete moral theory in these two books, because he couldn't possibly explore every variation, but instead presented a general outline. However, when we integrate his cosmology (involution/evolution in physical, subtle, and causal fields), knowing (high intellect that combines physical senses, reason, and inner senses), being (I-I-I), doing/moral imperatives, along with research on moral development, we find a broad framework in which to adequately outline a moral and ethical approach.

Bones, Bones, Where are my Bones?
by Serge Joseph Grandbois

My bones, they have gone,
but my thoughts, like dandelion seeds
are carried by cosmic breezes,
down the corridors of time.

Over the decades, the centuries,
roots digging, reaching deep into
fertile soils of unknown
continents, unknown lands.

Seeds of pains and memories, joys and
tears, moments of being,
all cherished, loved, with
echoes of Eternal secrets,
suspended, waiting; anxious, in my soul.

New life growing, sparks of wonder,
mysteries forever flashing,
like faces before my eyes,
universal songs, the seedlings
of my loves...

Where are my bones now,
what worlds do they walk,
what cemeteries do they fill.,
whose fields do they enrich,
whose closets do they hide in?

Whose new born forms do my bones
learn to walk with?

Do they give an old man the strength
to feel life flowing like
a mighty river, through his veins?

Are my bones food for worms,
or the fingers of tiny infants,
of loving mothers,
and intimate lovers?

Are my bones an archeologists' dream,
dusty artifacts in ancients crypts?

Do they feed the fish in deep oceans,
are they part of you?

Where are my bones now?

Are they in the hand
writing these words,
or in the hands holding
this poem you are reading?

Will you look for your bones,
in the crevices of time,
the annals of history,
the lives of us all?

When you think,
do your bones feel the goodness of life,
and do you rejoice that
they give of their strength
of their song, and do you think
on these things?

It seems that since
forever,
we have sought old bones,
new bones, any bones.

It's because we feel that
our bones sing ancient songs,
ancient tunes heard from deep within,
so deep are our bones.

We keep those songs
alive, the minstrels of
our souls, psychic voyageurs
hitching rides,
to inner worlds, inner
glory, our bones,
our dearest bones.

Spiritual Predator
by Jan Ramsey

Spiritual Predator

Come, warm my soul

Show me the ways

Of the East


Spiritual Predator

Come, love my soul

Show me the ways

Of your mind


Spiritual Predator

Whoever you are

Show me the ways

Cause its obvious I’ll never get there by myself.

The Study
by Greybear

A place quiet; darkened ceilings
High and hidden by the shadow
Of dim light from a single candle.
Worn carpet on the floor.

Heavy curtains frame a window
Set high above a busy street.
Dim lamps light the way,
Coated in a fog wafting to and fro.

I see one standing at the window;
Looking out. Then all at once
His eyes are mine. I see groups
Of people making their way.

They are cloaked with high
Hats; reminiscent of a scene
From a painting long ago;
Hurrying as the night deepens.

I sense the calmness and
Serenity of the scene. Behind
Me I know there are rows and
Rows of books.

I can smell the leather of the
Bookcovers. There is a wealth
Of unimaginable wisdom lining
The room from floor to ceiling.

I(?) turn away from the window
And the scene vanishes. I awake.
Wondering. What is this place?
Whose eyes were these?

Perhaps I will know.

Announcements, Links and Shopping

Buzz Around Upcoming “Lotus Mind” Workshop

John Hawkins-TORONTO-MAR0307 | KRIS, THAT CHARMING ENTITY channeled here in Toronto by Serge J. Grandbois, has been making some startling claims about his workshop entitled *‘The Lotus Mind’, coming up in June. Apparently, in this workshop, we are being offered the opportunity to get off our fences - and our couches - and become active participants in ‘The Shift’. To quote Kris…

“It is not by reading and intellectualizing, but by participating in the transformation of your own life, that the process begins…”

The Secret Behind ‘The Secret’
My name is John Hawkins and I attend, as your faithful reporter, almost every Kris presentation – public anyway – and post my recaps on *New World View. This gives me a ring-side seat on this phenomena and Kris has taken us on some amazing journeys over the last couple of years. Of course we should take all of this stuff with a grain of salt, but we also give credit where credit is due.

Certainly the world is changing before our very eyes. You may have seen ‘The Secret’ or watched recent Oprah or Larry King shows about ‘The Law of Attraction’. Many may not know that the origin of this ‘secret’ is channeled material from a number of different sources, including Abraham-Hicks.

Kris is a channeled ‘energy personality essence’ in the same line as Seth, Abe, Elias and etc. While many of these channeled sources present similar material, there is wide variety in their tone. Kris’ outspoken but compassionate tone has been compared to Seth, another outspoken but very compassionate and down-to-earth essence channeled by Jane Roberts.

Kris has suggested that the real secret is our imagination, not so much this ‘law’ of attraction they talk about, but more an innate property of all of consciousness, even All That Is. Allowing our playful imagination will manifest wonders on our behalf, as Kris tells us…

“…as soon as you make the proper allowances, then all events, circumstances and situations are to your advantage, as far as your personal construction of reality is concerned.”

The Lotus Mind Workshop
Kris has told us that ‘The Lotus Mind’ workshop is not for the ‘faint of heart’. The focal point will be the lotus plant, with its roots in the muddy water feeding the lovely blossom floating on the surface. By contemplating the lotus we gain a new understanding of our whole selves and immediately start harvesting the benefits of honoring the ‘muddy roots’ of physical life.

The analogy of the lotus is usually used to show us how to transcend our base, material origins, and achieve a beautiful new life far removed from our humble beginnings. Kris is adamant that we need to embrace our physicality and ‘get our hands dirty’ to appreciate our whole self as expressed here in physical life. We get nowhere by trying to deny our physicality – this is an increasingly frantic game that usually ends badly.

Being at a Kris Workshop
I have been to a couple of workshops with Kris and can tell you what to expect. Bring a blanket, exercise mat, or ‘throw’ of some kind, because you may spend some time on the floor for various activities.

Usually Kris speaks, or officiates, during most of the workshop so you will be getting Kris ‘online’ for up to four hours a day for the two days. This means there is usually lots of time for questions and interaction.

Kris will often lead us in group activities; perhaps something as elaborate as a Sacred Ceremony involving water, leaves, seeds, and grains of rice, or perhaps something as simple as a group hug. Whatever the activity, Kris is an active participant, front and centre.

What Kris is Offering – ‘In his own words’
“So it is our humble attempt with this workshop to bring about an entirely different, integrated approach to understanding material nature and the physical world from a different point of view. One that neither negates nor annihilates anything but takes into consideration the very psychology of consciousness! So this is not for the faint of heart. It is not a workshop for the intellectually lazy, but a workshop for those who wish to be on the forefront and the leading edge of revolutionary consciousness perceptions.

“Many people, including some amongst yourselves read about the Shift, think about it, ponder it. Well this is the time, then, to stop it! Stop thinking, stop sitting and pondering and start doing! It is not by reading and intellectualizing, but by participating in the transformation of your own life, that the process begins at ground zero.” —Kris: Lotus Mind, Feb 4 07

The Lotus Mind: WORKSHOP – June 9-10 - for more info visit the Kris Chronicles website.

The Seth Bookstore and Audio collection & New Awareness Network Inc present

Rick Stack's Seth Workshop in Dallas and Chicago

Dallas, TX Sat March 10 & Sun March 11, 2007 & Chicago, IL - Sat April 21 & Sun April 22, 2007

For Further information go to link: http://sethcenter.com/pages/workshop-2006.html

This 2-day workshop will focus on Seth's teachings on the importance and methods of achieving "higher" states of consciousness, "spiritual" exploration, and communication with our own greater being. It will also address the connection between these higher states of consciousness and the art of creating your own reality, including the elimination of any limiting beliefs that interfere with our energy, growth or fulfillment.

Throughout the body of the Seth Material, Seth discusses a major step in our growth which involves moving out of the "official line of consciousness," the conventional framework of viewing reality. Again and again, Seth encourages us to take the steps that will lead to a new birth of consciousness, a new far more effective and far more expansive mode of operation, that he has alternately described as the "higher intellect," the "spacious mind," an expansion of identity," the "magical approach," and "spiritualized creaturehood."

Using a variety of "consciousness expansion" and "inner sense" exercises, discussion, belief work, and interaction with people of like mind, this workshop will provide a concentrated and experiential presentation of key areas of the Seth material. Select Audiotape excerpts of Seth speaking on these topics during Jane Robert's classes, including some never before published, will be integrated into the workshop. Topics covered will include:

a.. How to trigger the "higher intellect" and "accelerated states of consciousness"
b.. Using direct links to the wisdom of the inner self
c.. Letting Go - Joining with the spontaneous self.
d.. The "inner senses" and our capacity for "Direct Comprehension"
e.. Conscious creation - The art of using your unlimited energy and power to create your ideal life. . .
f.. Reconnecting with your non-physical "entity."
g.. Expanding your concept of identity and becoming a "new, larger" you.
h.. The "magical" approach and the pitfalls of the conventional "rational" approach.
i.. Moving out of the "official line of consciousness" - How to break free from stubborn cultural limiting belief systems

INSTRUCTOR:
Rick Stack, M.S. Ed., is the President of New Awareness Network Inc. and publisher/editor of The Seth Audio Collection, The Early Sessions (Books 1-9 of the Seth Material), The Personal Sessions (Book 1-7 of The Deleted Seth Material), and other books by Jane Roberts. He was a friend and student of Jane Roberts and personally attended over 100 Seth sessions given in Jane Roberts' classes in Elmira, NY. Author of "Out Of Body Adventures" (Contemporary Books 1988), he has been teaching workshops on the Seth Material, Dreams, Out of Body Experiences and metaphysics throughout the United States and abroad for over 25 years. He has been on the faculty of many schools throughout the United States including Omega Institute in NY and has appeared on numerous radio and television shows. He is currently continuing work with Robert Butts on the publication of the remaining unpublished Seth material.

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SUMARI SHOPPING
A collection of products and services offered by Seth fans around the world.
If you have a product or service you'd like to see listed here, feel free to contact us at SNJ@newworldview.com

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Explore the works of Visionary Artist Shirley Hadley!

The photographs you see below were created by Shirley in her studio, and not through electronic manipulation. Each photo is available in 5x7 or 8x10 and includes a poem that goes with the photo.

Entrance to Awareness
The journey of the self is
to see without using your eyes
to hear but not with your ears.
Listen to your inner voice, it will lead you
to an awareness of new ways to view your
selves and the world you live in.

Rainbow Dimension
Mysterious shadows suspended in the sky
rainbows connected, self-awareness is reflected.
Shades of color and dimensions of light,
holographic images, illusions of night

To see the full selection of photos and for purchasing information please visit
Shirley's Gallery.

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New from Sharon Hackleman, author of Marion the Magnet



MIND TIME CARDS

"Mind Time Cards are a deck of 31 inspiring positive daily affirmations created by Sharon Hackleman and illustrated by Jessica Glickman. The SOUL purpose of creating the Mind Time Cards is to teach teens about the magical powers of positive thought and the importance of feeling good about themselves-
Spirit, Mind, and Body!

$9.95
FREE SHIPPING
when ordered on mindtimecards.com

"We are all connected...intertwined...by a universal energy so divine." - Sharon Hackleman

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Free Seth CD from New Awareness Network

This CD contains additional Seth excerpts that are not on the sethlearningcenter.org website)

This CD contains selections of Seth speaking on a variety of topics along with explanatory notes by Rick Stack, former student of Seth and Jane Roberts and President of New Awareness Network.

For ordering information, Click here.

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Sethworld - A board game based on the Seth Material

Explore your beliefs! Stretch your imagination! Delve into your dreams! Challenge your creativity!

Seven years in the making, I am so pleased to be able to offer you SethWorld - The Game of All That Is! SethWorld is a totally unique game, the first metaphysical board game based on the Seth material - maybe the first metaphysical board game, ever! It is designed to explore and uncover beliefs while having fun. There are no winners, no losers, and NO RULES! A 24-page pamphlet included with the game gives a probable framework for play, 6 sample "moves," and a glossary of 61 concepts.

SethWorld -- You've never played anything like it!

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WHAT A COINCIDENCE Understanding Synchronicity In Everyday Life
by Susan M Watkins

Overview:

What if all those seemingly insignificant little What a coincidence! moments you've experienced were actually connected, were part of a larger, more complex coincidence story?

What if they were hinting at something very personal and important about yourself—and about the workings of human consciousness?

Would you listen?

Susan Watkins does. For more than 35 years she's been documenting and studying the coincidences that have happened in her life. What she's discovered is that seemingly simple coincidences—thinking of an old friend and their calling seconds later, for example—are often pieces of larger, more complex and meaningful "coincidence clusters."

A former newspaper reporter and the author of five books, Watkins has always been intrigued by coincidences—what they mean in our everyday lives, and in the grander scheme of things. What, she asks, do these coincidence clusters say about human consciousness and human connection? In What a Coincidence! she presents coincidence clusters that are utterly astounding. What they reveal is life- altering.

What a Coincidence! is an exciting, groundbreaking journey. Along the way Watkins offers profound insights as well as practical pointers on how to become aware of the coincidence clusters in our own lives. She also shows us how to document coincidences so that we, too, can reap their valuable rewards. We'll never brush off those What a Coincidence! moments again.

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When you're not looking, I'm just a waveform

Just one of the great metaphysical t-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons, mugs and clocks available from the Conscious Creation Shop by Kristen Fox and John McNally

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SETH CONNECTIONS

Meetings of both the physical and non-physical kind

If you have a Seth group or are planning a get together for Seth fans, and would like to see it advertised here, email us at SNJ@newworldview.com

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Seth Network Japan

Dear friends, I'm happy to announce that Seth Network Japan,was created in December 2005 by a small group of Japanese Seth fans, . We also have a website that introduces the Seth Material to our visitors.

If you know any Japanese speaking person who might be interested in Seth books, we'd be glad to welcome him/her on the site. For those who feel like having a look at Japan, we have a small slide show that presents different parts of the country.

So, you are all welcome. :-)

Cheers,
Masa

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Greetings from the Portland-Metro Seth Readers' Guild

We meet the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of every month. Our first meeting of the month is for reading aloud and commenting. Right now, we are reading "The Seth Material" in the first half of the meeting, then we take a break for drinks and treats and conversation. During the second half of the meeting we have started reading "Seth Speaks". We end the meeting variously with a psy-time, or reading from the Seth deck of cards. Of course the reading goes slowly, because we always have a reason to stop the flow for comments--current events, family or personal tie-ins, etc. This is how we use the material, and it seems to work.

Our second meeting of the month is what we call the experiential

meeting, which can range from a past-life hypnosis psy-time, to a video of interest on a current topic, or a time of general discussion. We did some remote-viewing experiments with pretty good results.

Our meetings start at 7 PM and go to 10 PM. The host provides tea, coffee or other drinks, and we bring finger food. There is networking, friendship, and stimulating talk on all kinds of subjects during the break. We aim to keep our focus on our primary reality, and learn from each other how to deal constructively with the secondary reality of our greater world.

Drop-ins are welcome--call Marie 503-232-6469 or email harakne@yahoo.com for our meeting locations or any cancellations."

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SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW

Seth Sessions Listing – compiled by Mary Dillman.

See what we look like. Add your own picture! – John M. set up a webpage where we can add our photos. It also features a global map that shows where folks are located.

The Personal Sessions, Vol. 7 – The series deleted sessions dealing with personal material are now available. Vol. 7, now in process, will complete publication of ALL the Seth Material! By Rick Stack and New Awareness Network.

Sethnet Speaks, January 2006 – compiled by Paul Helfrich.

The Classic Seth Portrait by Rob Butts This is a low resolution scan for those interested.

Check out the Mindscapes Music CD - Listen online to 22 tracks of music from Paul Helfrich. Also available for purchase.

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Cool Conscious Creation Resources on the Web

2007 Conscious Creation Calendar of Events

Sethnet Basics - get the most out of Sethnet

Sethnet Archives - lots of free articles and material

Random Seth quotes

Conscious Creation Links – Conscious Creation Publishers, Book Stores, Websites, Journals, Newsletters, Mailing Lists, Message Boards, and more.

The Elias forum - website by Paul & Joanne Helfrich contains an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Mary Ennis.

What if the Seth material was a foundation to be expanded later by other channeled sources? Can any perennial source ever be considered complete AND infallible?

Seth readers will want to check out:
Introduction & Overview
A Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!)
Digest: Seth, Jane Roberts

The Kris Chronicles - an expansion of many of the conscious creation concepts introduced by Seth/Jane Roberts, channeled by Serge Grandbois.

A Kris, Seth, Elias Comparative Overview (Updated!) - a preliminary comparison of core concepts in the Seth material, information offered by Elias, and Kris Chronicles

Otherfocus.com the personal website of Donald R. Johnson

Explore the creative worlds of John McNally and Kristen Fox Cofounders of the Conscious Creation Website and Email group John and Kristen share interests in writing, art, photography and cooking which they explore on a variety of websites:

John's weblog: Parabolic Mirror
Intuitive Astrology site: Psychic Weather
Writing: Mind Altering Fiction
Photography: Telepathicfrog
Cooking: Food Follies
Shop: Telepathic Frog Designs
Shop Powered By Tshirts

Kristen's weblog: FoxVox
Art & Photo Gallery: Art of FoxVox
Art & Photo Prints: Deviant Art
Floral Designs Shop: Flower Bed Gifts
T Shirt Reviews Tshirt Casserole

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Visitors: