Mistaken Identity

This is from an article by writer-director-actor-comedian-songwriter Stuart Davis, written at the height of The Secret's popularity, but I think he identifies one of the key symptoms of the current state of spiritual decay and delusion.  I see the same sort of confusion among folks who will quote snippets from the Nag Hammadi scriptures and related texts like "the kingdom is within you," from the Gospel of Thomas, without understanding that the "you" referred to is not the fallen and corrupted psyche, but an entirely different Center of knowing and being. This mistake is key to what Jorge N. Ferrer calls "the pandemic spiritual narcissism."

The Secret takes a truth like

The Self is one with the Universe,

and then immediately inserts the wrong self; The Ego.

Throughout, The Secret conflates ego (the frontal structure, personality) with Self (an unbounded, unlimited reality which transcends but includes all qualities). In doing so it engineers an unabashed Spiritual Narcissism. Ego is God. The vicissitudes of your ego, its preferences, its unresolved cravings, become the vestments in a regressive ritual. See? It's MAGIC. You caste a spell, voila', the Universe responds. Cuz you're God. Why exactly an entity that IS everything would need more is not clear, why a Divine Being that is all powerful would need to appeal to another power is perplexing, but.. To cement this Kosmic Delusion, The Secret hypnotically repeats "The Universe" and "Your thoughts, your feelings" until the two are braided into a phantasm that places your Ego squarely in the Center of Reality, in control of all that comes in and out of being. What do you want to do with your Divine Power? Free all sentient beings? Awaken every sister and brother from the Dream? Dissolve the source of suffering? No. You want cars. And girlfriends, and boyfriends, and a new red bike and a big new house.

The Secret snags the self by flattering it into masquerading as the Self. As an egomaniac, I can attest to the efficacy of that strategy. And also to its disastrous results....

Read the full article here.