Pagan Godspell

Hello my beloved friends! Guess what? I know The Answer to all of your problems. Yup. I do. How do I know this? I know it because:

a. God told me and I’m His messenger
b. A light-being from the Pleiades told me, and I’m its messenger
c. It came to me in a dream
d. I’m a megaooptigazillionaire who owns my own string of islands, so I must know
e. All of the above

First, let me tell you what your problems are. It’s easy for me to know them, partially because all people are one-dimensional lesser beings than myself, but mostly because once upon a time, I was just like you. Hard to believe, that I was once as common and ordinary as the rest of you, but yes (hardy laughter), yes, it’s true! And though I’ve risen to such delirious heights of spiritual illumination and material wealth and personal grandeur, I’m very proud to say that I’ve never lost my connection to my humble beginnings, and more importantly, I’ve never, ever, forgotten you, the little people. And thus, this exuberant fondness for you – indeed, love…I do everything because of love – is what has driven me to finally share the unbelievable, amazing, never-ever-heard-before Answer to your problems. But how I do get carried away! First, your problems: You hate your job and you wish you had more time/happiness, which equates of course to having more money with which you can buy time-saving appliances, trips to your own island on your own polluting jet (Me, you ask??? Polluting whole swathes of the planet all by myself? Yes! It CAN happen!), and servants and personal assistants to wait on your every corporeal need (don’t worry about them – they do it because they want to, because they’re just good people who like serving others – and hey, they probably feel honored to serve you, after all, you deserve it!). Am I right? (Fakey robust laughter) Ha ha ha! Of course I am!

Now – do you want to know The Answer to making those ooptikerzillions, just like I have? Do you want to live a life of soulless ease and effortless, planet-devastating wealth, made even easier by being backed by claims to spiritual secrets and the blessing of God/The Universe? Do ya? Do ya? Huh? Huh?

Of COURSE you do! And you can! JUST as soon as you watch my video. And read my book. And attend my workshop. It’s that easy. For me.

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So no. I’m not a fan of The Secret and its hoopla. It’s really really nothing new – it’s just got a slicker marketing campaign than similar Get Rich, It’s Easy! infomercials, that’s all (for instance, they’ve wisely avoided jackets covered in question marks). And it is pretty slick. I admit: I’m a sucker for a secret – always. Months before Oprah gave it her all-powerful Guaranteed Bestseller Stamp of Instant Success, I heard about The Secret and poked around on the web site. Not feeling terribly comfortable paying for something that seemed to hold a hell of a lot in keeping it all hush hush until you paid for it, I kept pokin’ around until I learned the basics. And the basics weren’t new. And when I say not new, I mean really really not new. It’s not even new in the past couple of years (the whole “Quantum physics proves I can have the perfect life I’ve only dreamt of if I just concentrate hard enough and think glittery spiritual thoughts!” approach was thick in the hyper New Agey What the Bleep Do We Know). Only thing that’s new is the packaging…lookin’ all DaVinci Code n’ stuff.

I once saw one of the best damn TV preachers I have ever seen deliver the slickest Prosperity Gospel sermon I have ever heard. She was absolutely captivating…when I think about those Good News Pagan Tent Revivals I dream about on occasion, this is the preacher I want to see – she was on fire, righteous, holy fire. I mean, I didn’t agree theologically or otherwise with a single word she said, but I will say that she had enormous vocal and performative talent. She’d say that God gave her that talent. I don’t doubt it. I do wonder if God wanted her to use it that way, but then, I don’t know her God – maybe he does, in which case, she’s doing a great job. The crux of the sermon was this: When she gave her heart and soul to God, God gave her wealth; the more she gave to others from that wealth, the more God gave to her; therefore, the more you give to her (her mission and her church, etc.), the more God will give to you. After a good 45 minutes illustrating this message (you betcha I watched all of it – I really mean it, she was good), she said God had instructed her to instruct the audience to get out their checkbooks and each write a $300 check (I nearly fell off the hotel bed – that’s seriously bold – I mean, that’s no small change). Sure, you could give less, but God wants you to dig deep. The deeper you dig, the bigger the blessing later. That’s prosperity gospel. She didn’t say anything about what would happen on Tuesday if you bought God a hamburger today.

Prosperity Gospel and The Secret are bosom buddies, excepting that when it comes to God, The Secret would rather suavely have you insert quantum physics, The Universe, your own intellectual/spiritual power, and other New Age aphorisms instead. It’s Prosperity Gospel for spiritual seekers. Very hip!

But more important to me, the message behind it all is the claim that monetary success can be gained through spiritual means – and indeed, is a sign of God’s blessing, personal worth, spiritual enlightenment/purity. The perfect union of bootstrap capitalism, American hyperindividualism, and contemporary monotheism. A sign of Doing Something Right, as an individual. The opposite of course being that if life has handed you the short-end of the wealth-stick, you must be Doing Something Wrong – not giving enough, believing enough, praying enough, whatever, and thus, God’s (or the Universe’s) blessing ain’t there. Simple cause and effect, right? Like, a law of attraction maybe. Looking for or acknowledging any other reasons why it may be harder for you to get out of debt or have that Ferrari or buy that island than it is for Bill Gates, Paris Hilton, Oprah, etc., is chalked up to some terrible excuse game played by lazy/unsaved/negative people. I can only believe it must feel really really really good to buy such a neat and easy little package.

Now – the Pagan and New Age movements have been hip to a culture of positive thinking, manifesting, and magic for decades. And the basic principles behind it all can be found in varying interpretations across many religions, spiritualities and cultures. Of course, you can manifest individual good. Certainly it has been shown that communities can manifest community good, and community not-so-good (worldviews – you’re soaking in ‘em). Choosing how we react to our situation or choosing to concentrate our efforts and thoughts towards radical bliss, world peace, personal spiritual fulfillment, and yes, a stable and fulfilling life that feeds your physical, emotional needs is possible, beneficial, and will help you manifest these things in life. Everything’s a web. Learn to see it, touch a strand here, touch a strand there, harmonize, hear all the strands singing, breathe, work for good, pray for ecstasy, pray for peace. Sure. It’s not easy, especially when you happen to be attempting to manifest things that are up against enormous obstacles – shifting a worldview is not something you just wake up one morning and do. The web is big, the tapestry is beyond understanding. You may move your sail, but ultimately the ocean moves your boat, and things swim below it that have been around longer than you. Do I really understand all that? Nope. It’s a mystery. But it’s there. It’s vastly more complicated than anyone really understands, but it’s there.

What’s not a mystery is that there are situations that are not the responsibility or the fault of individuals living in them, and that those individuals/communities did not draw their circumstances to them, and that there are enormous systemic forces in play, like racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, etc. etc. that work tirelessly to thwart the comfort and peace of millions of people around the globe every minute, and thus, it may be just a wee bit simplistic, if not downright appallingly insulting, to propose that individuals living under the burden of these enormous forces might be able to escape them by thinking glittery thoughts, and because they don’t, they must be perpetuating their own misery.

But the question remains. Can you manipulate the web for your own personal gain that ignores the importance of things like harmony, justice, planetary integrity, the interdependent web? Yes, I guess you can. And lo, isn’t it remarkable that it is easier for privileged folks in privileged countries to pull that off, and then market it and sell it to other privileged people? Huh. So yeah, you can learn to focus your intentions on mansions and big bucks and shiny cars, and when combined with a ruthless sense of capitalist know-how, you might could see those things happen. But should you? Ah. Should you. A question I’m feeling the folks behind The Secret probably don’t spend a hell of a lot of time pondering. And why should they? In a capitalist worldview that focuses on hierarchy, power, individual personal wealth, progress, etc. etc., of course an ancient spiritual notion is going to be twisted to serve that worldview, with the added bonus of freeing the privileged from any responsibility for others living in underprivileged situations. And voila! It has. Civilization perverts authentic spirituality – why wouldn’t it pervert Magic too?

That’s my opinion, and you can have it for free. WOW!!!!!!

Some outstanding criticisms of The Secret have been popping up lately in the progressive and Pagan ‘netsphere:

An Alternet piece by Courtney E. Martin talks about The Secret’s gross emphasis on “things.”

Kay at Songs of Unforgetting has this great post rounding up several arguments against the Law of Attraction craze.

And Dianne Sylvan talks about the Law of Attraction’s relationship to Magic and Miracles.