Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Writing a Self-Help Book

For those of you who wish to market a new self help book on "the new Secret" of the "law of attraction" I hope you read these thoughts before you go ahead. There are many books out there, even more than I can imagine, written by people who have seen "the secret" or "the bleep" and think they have a unique insight to teach others techniques for personal growth.
I give a lot of seminars, and I personally don't teach people techniques for realizing their potentials and other such ideas as I have found that they simply don't work and are in their own way spiritual "diet books" which may work for a while but in the end fail. Spiritual techniques advocated by people who have never made a serious study of spiritual teaching or base their books on quantum physics principles without studying the subject at length and who really don't know enough to teach others techniques based upon these deeper "secrets" make me really wonder why such people write such books other than the obvious one to make some money. Does your book do other than that? Or are you just another person trying their own hand at writing another imitation "think and grow rich diet book"?
It appears to me that any author who does not understand the quantum field and is only quoting what has been written by others who do understand it and have written for others from the point of view of knowledge, will create a lot of noise and little light. Should your book appear to be written from such a point of view, I would rethink it. Come from your own experience. For example are you a financially successful business person? A book which explains how you made it would be good, but a book advocating spiritual quantum physics techniques based on the quantum field by someone who has no such background in quantum field theory rings a little false to me.
A quantum field consciousness-spirituality and growth book may sound wonderful but it is possibly misleading if you think that this field can give you anything you desire.. First of all the quantum field is not really an energy field and secondly consciousness can not exert a force. Nor is consciousness energy. Consciousness and energy are not the same things at all. Thirdly if everyone could just tune into this hypothetical field and just by doing so create anything they wanted to create, the world would be in a worst mess than it is right now.
For example suppose my neighbor wanted to tune in and create a fence between our two houses higher than my window or have a million dollars appear in his bank account without taking appropriate actions to do so. Innocent enough? But if his wish did create such a fence and the next instant a fence were to appear between our houses or workmen came out and erected one I would lose my view of the mountains. Then I would have to knock down his fence or make a fence low enough to see the mountains and my neighbor would be pissed off at me and on and on our little wish-duel would go. If he just wished for a million bucks to magically appear in his account without appropriate actions, maybe it would appear, but if it did in my account, I would suspect the bank had made a serious error and that someone else was out a million bucks. If I didn't care and only wanted my selfish desires satisfied, the world again would be worse off. Do you get my point here?
The real quantum field has such checks and balances and in fact when it creates from nothing a particle of matter it also creates a particle of antimatter and they cancel each other out in a very short instance. Hence just wishing for things from this field does not make it so.
Our universe works and things are always balancing each other to make it work--such are the laws of nature.
Hence in a world where "wishes were horses" would simply not work. Your creation could very well by an other's annihilation. Let me put this another way.
Reading a self-help book written by someone who really doesn't understand the nature of reality is like listening to someone play a violin who watched a great master play a violin in a silent movie and decided to play for real by just imitating what she or he saw. Undoubtedly it would sound like something near to what the master was playing, but it would give many false notes. Is your book ringing out false notes? Such books appear to me to be like that. Oh by the way, I get a lot of requests to blurb such books, nearly one a day so the field may be getting glutted.

26 Comments:

Blogger Yogadawg said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

February 28, 2007 at 4:15 AM  
Blogger Yogadawg said...

Thanks for posting this Fred. I have the same reaction when I hear some Yoga teachers overhyping claims for Yoga. Makes me laugh for the most part but did ended up satirizing it on the My Third Eye Itches website.

All the best.

February 28, 2007 at 5:34 AM  
Blogger isabella mori said...

thank you for this post! i also find movies like the Secret a bit problematic, for many reasons, one of them being that the claims there are utterly unsubstantiated. ("believe me!" doesn't exactly constitute proof :)

it's too bad, because people like napoleon hill (who i imagine is the grandfather of this whole moement) were really up to something.

HOWEVER - he did not just engage in wishful thinking. from what i understand, all he does is suggest to get clear on what you want and then do the leg work to go for it. pretty straightforward, really, and what that has to do with quantum physics is beyond me.

we should not overlook, though, the amazing effect this movie has had on some people. i know someone who gave up a serious drug addiction after seeing that movie and someone else who saved his marriage by watching the movie with his partner. so obviously, there is something quite powerful in that movie.

March 15, 2007 at 11:54 AM  
Blogger Lana Walker-Helmuth said...

Thank you so much for publishing your thoughts about the Law of Attraction. I've linked to this post several times in my blog at http://www.you-unplugged.com/blog.

I'm a lover of truth, whatever it is, wherever it is! And The Secret ain't it.

I hope you'll be invited to appear on Oprah or Larry King or Montel or some other popular show!

March 17, 2007 at 6:14 PM  
Blogger Jakob said...

Fred,

As soon as I see a self-help guru throw around words like "quantum self" or "quantum energy" I'm instantly skeptical of their claims. It seems like physicists have a hard enough time embracing these concepts, so I find it all too likely that others are misusing them as just buzz words.

On a related note, even as a nontheist, I'm able to take your ideas much more seriously when it comes to the metaphysical or spiritual realm because you often speak of this in relation to the principles of quantum physics and I know you're not conning me.

PS Would love to see you blog more. :)

April 22, 2007 at 6:44 AM  
Blogger Dave Saunders said...

great points: I enjoy the movies The Secret and Bleep but I'm sometimes concerned when I see others confuse perspective and assertion with "fact" and "truth."

I guess that makes the journey all the more fun ;-)

-Dave

May 3, 2007 at 9:19 AM  
Blogger Haffi said...

I'm very interested in your studies and perspectives. Is it possible to have a talk with you through the internet, maybe MSN or yahoo?

Anyways, I just wanted to ask you if you think that "The secret" concept isn't like a new religion? Just like Christianity promises eternal happiness in heaven "The secret" promises that you can achieve anything (if it's achievable) which is kinda like eternal happiness.

Hope you can feel my aspect, I use the secret every day :)

May 4, 2007 at 4:46 AM  
Blogger ciciricky said...

Okay. Been warned. Still think my book is doing something other than that. Brains are sooooo lazy. That's 5 o's.

My brain knows that justice just is. My brain knows that hygiene is a greeting as well as something that may or may not have anything to do with soap. When [my] Uncle Fred's body went into the fertilizer business, I say, Uncle Fred is lying in the box. True. Uncle Fred is not in the box. It's a lie. Uncle Fred Is lying in the box.

I'm a political theorist, not a theoretical physicist. The engineering building and the business school are between you and me. I can still see you. Can you see me?

I won't use the words QM if you don't go layman Plato on me. Too late. You already did. Hint: He's a realist, man. But nobody listens to him because they think he's an idealist.

I say: Tell the people that the words they hear and say [and how they use their bodies, too] is critical to how the neural nets grow, which I also know nothing about.

Robbert's onto something. I'm going right now to publish for free. To become free is the reason for this book anyway. So has to Be Free.

You know, publish and perish anyway. Or jes play hide and seek all day in the membranes. Change color. Heal.

May 11, 2007 at 12:29 PM  
Blogger Lapis Lazuli said...

Can you imagine if we burnt all the books and magazines and eliminate the tv, the radio and the internet...

who would you be ...

Hi Fred, I just discovered your blog today and I laughed. I had no idea as of one hour ago that I could post a comment on your blog. I didn't even know your blog existed.

One year ago, I discovered that I love to write. I have been racking my brain for 17 years to try to explain to my friends what is Quantum Physics.

As above so below means that what you see above your head at night, the distance between the stars and the planets is a perfect mirror of what it looks like deep in the Quantum world of the brain, where the minuscule world of possibilities exist. Macrocosm vs microcosm. Our brains are the most advanced and complex machines of all times and we only access a minute portion of it.

We are told we use less than 10 % of our brain capacity. You can only tap in the 90 % if you have no anger and only if you are the observer without the chatter of the frontal lobe. To trance thru the midbrain to access the lower cerebellum is the key to unlock the door to a magical world where fantasy becomes reality.

The media has brainwashed many who cannot think for themselves, they can only repeat. To be an original thinker makes you stand out of the box of a rigid social structure.

I truly believe we are the flatlanders. Trapped in a reality cursed with death of the bodies. I am contacted by many on the internet, a bunch of wannabes who lack the research for their claims.

You cannot buy enlightment nor pretend to be spiritual if you repeat other's words. Philosophy and knowledge are limited to books.

Fred Thank you for blogging,
Caroline, Yelm Wahington

May 13, 2007 at 4:14 PM  
Blogger Lapis Lazuli said...

I remember most of my dreams. I actually have a very poor short term memory yet a photogenic memory of my dreams. I have many livid dreams and some are prophetic, predicting the future accurately.
I was trained for 17 years to predict the future accurately.
In 1994, I was lying on the ground in a sleeping bag among a thousand RSE students. The exercise was to lay down without moving for 2 1/2 days without getting up to go to the bathroom or eating. The discipline is called "Twilight". So for 60 some hours, you trance in Delta where the dream world exist.
The future is revealed but you don't know when it will happened.
In 2006, the dream unfold into my reality for real. The dream world is the blue print of a potential that may or may not unfold in your real life. An endless sea of possibiliites. Infinity at its best.
What if this time it is reversed. That the reality has to form first at our level before it becomes the blue print. What if the myth of old only exist deep in the Quantum of our past which we think is of the future. We remember our past yet we do not remember our future, why ? We are backwards and a bunch of barbaric spirits that only knows how to use but a minute portion of the brain. Like the only thing you know about driving a car is to insert the key. That's it. We don't even know how to turn the key yet.

What if in 2007, we are the unfolded dream of a blue print of the future.

Caroline again

May 13, 2007 at 4:39 PM  
Blogger Lapis Lazuli said...

lol opps I meant vivid dreams

May 13, 2007 at 5:02 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Did anyone try to download the supposed "free download"

May 15, 2007 at 4:16 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I need your help......or I wanted to know if you can find an individual who can timetravel... to come speak with me in the past.......... two -two1/2 years ago...and express to me not to merge psychically with another being......and other selves.....because I would sparcify into every direction to the point of losing my lifeforce and nearli dying....because they were not forgiving me.........for sparcifying and.....losing my many selves, having tourrettes-like splitsecond spontaneousthoughts that were opposed my true perceptions....and saying something quickli with the aenergi within the body that I was onli joking but.......

the aenergies took it seriousli...and many desiredmetonotreintegrate while several desired me to integraete...., but I did not do it quickli enough...and I may die...

I would give everything I have to the beings that I lov......... I onli and the metatheoryand my metaspiritual universe, I just wish for anything that you can help...please help...


To view me and what is going on...


please view my websites:

http://paedimonic_lim.livejournal.com
http://starlypt.org/mapV.html

http://xpaerimtlslaekv.livejournal.com



my greatest lov in the infinite universe...is the metatheory..., of thought in-formation inspace..[ofspace..... and viscerae instrict aerchistrictures, inrestrictures......

"we write threnologies, we write with explosions"...


some of my artwork is included..:

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53481609/

May 17, 2007 at 5:48 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Again...I have a metatheory...of in-formation of space that I was working oncompleting when I psychicalli merged....two 1/2 years ago.......


I was utterli utterli utterli utterli brilliant, and I would do absoluteli anything for the beings I lov...and the universe, die for them with my aenergi together in a second.....

and live to bring manifestaetion[to the third world] and the ...metatheory to the world...


absoluteli anything and I can do....


absoluteli anything...

but I thought I did not have control...andcouldpullalltheaenergies together...

when the many selves splitoffintoaeverydifferent direction.....and my will was no longer just myown....



please please help....


It will never happen...butImaydiewithout aconsciousness and a heart..
It will never happen...


but please help....


I have studies C.S.Pierce, Hayek....
Whitehead, ......template overloading and advanced computer architectures ....doneextensive art and music...
.......and many many many others...


created/accomplished a visceraelisomorphic interior space...of tactile..architectures within the body/sound....


posted politically......for the palestinians...and..
regeneraetion/reintegraetion....

non-zero sum....and intersections of tension in and was coming up with a metatheory of meta-spirt.......

as praegmaetic physic/sense , 3rd and higher order logics of systems...


and....

I went for 1 month and several times for 2 weeks only eating a single jar of olives with almonds in them...... and kombuchu tea and ....and living off of myaenergi....



I liv to save theworld....And I sparcified to the point that I could...no longer feelthecontrol of...


focus breaking into serialorder consciousness of many selves of many bodies reflecting the self.....



I had all of it....and would giv anything for the universe...


please please help...


I only have days left...


Please contact me in the past...........


and Explain to me using my words..[that Iwilldethread/fragmaent...out into serial...orderconsciousnesswith the many selves becoming serial...making it increasinglidifficult to...reexplain themetatheory and reintegraete to the point ofdying...[evenwithoutaconsciousness or everything I liv for...]I created better artwork than ever before....but nearli lost absoluteli everything,.,[even mysense ofself]
nearli absoluteli...in potentiality or...


please please please please please please please help......


please help... I have very little time left..

2.5 years ago, I was in Juneau, AK...

with the email admin@starlypt.org


take a look at my sites:
http://starlypt.org/mapV.html

http://paedimonic_lim.livejournal.com
http://xpaerimtlslaekv.livejournal.com

I lived for..it...LIVE for it...

Live for it...There is absoluteli nothing I would not do for it.....
Absoluteli NOTHING I would not do for the...universe......... and all the beings that I lov...the metatheory...

The Metatheory...and There is nothing I wouldn't do forit .....

Nothing......
please let me help...the world...

May 22, 2007 at 3:12 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I know you can...But I cannot do it alone...I need to actually regain my originael viscerael aenergi centers...


And actually change the past.. I need to actually be warned not to do it...


All the beings that I connected with....can be reintegraeted if needed with all of their original aenergi as well...


please please please please please please help.

May 22, 2007 at 3:17 PM  
Blogger submersible said...

Hi Fred,

I just came across your site today by the "law of attraction." Nice to meet you.

I agree with everything you write here. The fence you talk about stands erect between the writers of books like The Secret and us. They create their own "matter" at the expense of the anti-matter created in our bank accounts when we actually go and buy the books they publish. The Secret works, only for the holders of it! (by the way, you are counted in the master list of "secret" holders in their site--a faux pas on their part, or is it a check and balance thing?)

As to the quantum of the matter of secret, it justifies and falsifies itself at one and the same time.

TO BE FIRST, TO NOT TO BE LATER
or is it the other way round?

Best regards...

May 23, 2007 at 12:49 AM  
Blogger Molly said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

May 25, 2007 at 7:43 PM  
Blogger Pedrinho said...

Well
I'm from Brazil and my old is 20.
My all life i wanted to be a ambient engineer... but also I always liked physics =)
Here the system to be accepted in the college it's different and we have to study our entire college life to do one test in one day...that's is sucks...I wasnt accepted to enter in the course that I really wanted.
Now im doing management in agribusiness.
So, one day i saw the movie "What The Bleep do we Know?"
and my interest for the physics reborn, was very cool saw this movie, now I always search and look for to study a little. And this made me with that now I try to enter in a physics college =)

Sorry by my dumb english, but i would like to share this experience =)

Thanks!

One last thing, your blog it's helping to me trains my English and i hope that someday it be good enough to talk more ^^

May 30, 2007 at 1:07 PM  
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September 1, 2007 at 5:11 AM  
Blogger Nicole Borheier said...

Fred,
thanks for this blog, I enjoyed reading so far and I would be glad if you continued writing!

A friend lent me "Bleep", that's how I found you resp. your blog. The movie has done a lot for me, some amazing things have happenend in my life since I simply choose :)

So, thank you very much for your work and please keep blogging...

Best regards from Germany,
Nicole

September 5, 2007 at 12:57 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hey there Fred.
Thanks for your rationale. I think the combination of science and spirituality is great. Many people who are too scientific embrace equations and "rationality" to answer all of life questions at the expense of ignoring the inner voice, and on the other hand, people who live too much in the spiritual realm tend to not be grounded and are living in an "airy-fairy" reality.
I DO dispute a couple of points though. I think the Secret film uses the "genie" as an analogy more than anything. If you look at the computer graphics, you'll often see a field of energy emerging from the person when they release a thought. That, to me, indicates that what you have said is exactly what THEY are saying. The "universe is within and without." It is EVERYTHING. :-) Second of all, the man on Larry King saying he "attracted the heart attack" is very simplistic and easily misunderstood, but no inaccurate. He was obviously living a lifestyle that led up to a heart attack. He would not have done such a thing if he was in-tune with his physical health, and wanted more than anything to be healthy. On some level of consciousness, he needed this wake-up call for himself. People sometimes need to experience pain in order to grow. I think his heart attack deals directly with a life experience he was meant to have to teach him something. You use the term "random events." That's just it - I don't personally believe there is any such thing as a random event or coincidence.
And I think the LOA works almost exactly like the people in the movie say, but the universe (a.k.a. everything... because everything is GOD) cannot distinguish between what you want and don't want. If you're focused upon something for an extended length of time you'll get it, like it or not. You can want upon want upon want upon want something, and say affirmations over and over "I am healthy and happy," "I have money" or whatever the case may be, but if you don't make the effort to get into that mode and FEEL it, then it won't happen. That's in line with what YOU said. :-) That people feel and believe something, and act accordingly. A lot of these people who have been doing positive affirmations... I'll bet they aren't working hard enough on genuinally FEELING those affirmations, and believing they already have them.
Thank you for bringing scientific logic to the Secret, I think it really works, AS THEY SAY, I just think it is very misunderstood... and requires more work than the Secret leads you to believe. The movie is designed to get people excited about the concept.. but what many people probably don't realize is... the end of the movie is where the work begins.
Shyla

November 9, 2007 at 3:26 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Alan Wolf:
Te conozco principalmente por "The Secret", creo que estamos con los mismos intereses en el amor.
Pertenezco a una asociación española que se llama Amor Universal, puedes encontrarla en Google. Me gustaría que pudieramos colaborar conjuntamente con amor rafa

January 11, 2009 at 2:27 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

I am a dreamer and not a doer. I have been investigating "faith" and belief for as long as I can remember. The Secret and The Law of Attraction as well as many books on the Power of Intention and Affirmations seemed to resonate with me. Most people I know would call me lazy. I just want to declare that it worked for me and I won the lottery.

August 31, 2009 at 3:06 AM  
Blogger Joe Rapisarda said...

I understand your point of view. I agree that it seems illogical for someone to teach something they have only read about. I am currently being forced to make these principle work in my own life by healing myself from a long term sickness. My book is about my experiences using these principle in my life. I agree that action is often needed to help manifest things in life. I am writing a book and would like to simply like to use your Dr. Quantum Double Slit Experiment video on www.Youtube.com as an example of how that experiment works. Can I do that under that fair use law or will you give permission to do that?

August 2, 2010 at 11:43 AM  
Blogger Joe Rapisarda said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

August 2, 2010 at 11:43 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

If a self help book is from anyone.
And that anyone with no real information, but wants to make money is OK to do so. The reason.
Is if this one person writes partly or one thing that resounds with someone else, to help that persons world, then it is all worth it. Some knowledge can be very expensive to get, and it may not be much to some standards, but it may be the all to some others. So write and be all that you can be, even false, because some meanings may ring true.

December 20, 2010 at 11:16 AM  

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