Petrus
09-02-2006, 06:15 AM
Hey everyone,
Just finished watching The Secret with my girlfriend. The subject matter is
similar to What the Bleep...?, but I was pleased to discover that this was
considerably less pretentious. I will confess that the latter parts of What
the Bleep...? also had difficulty holding my interest, and I was also later
disappointed to find out that that film had largely served as an infomercial
for Ramtha.
Although the same may be true in the case of The Secret, (the channel being
promoted in this case being Esther Hicks) I found the material here
considerably more focused and worthwhile than that in What the Bleep...?,
and although the words energy, frequency, and vibration get thrown around
somewhat, there also isn't anywhere near as heavy an adherence to New Age
stereotypes.
In terms of why I refer to both films (What the Bleep...? considerably more
so) as pretentious, I noticed that in introducing some of the larger scale
ideas, they made sure to use a very heavily conventionally qualified
individual to talk about them...the words "quantum physicist," were
particularly strongly emphasised.
I think the reason why that bothered me is because I (as one individual,
anyway) am not someone who assumes that a given idea is the Gospel truth
simply because a scientist happens to be the one talking about it; I would
have been just as likely myself (in fact more likely, given that the
strategy began to feel like manipulation) to believe a visibly illiterate,
homeless person talking about the same ideas. Personally I believe in the
reality of a lot of things which mainstream science has dismissed as
garbage. (astrology and the possibility of overunity energy generation being
only two of them) I therefore have a tendency to be of the opinion that
mainstream science doesn't know what it doesn't know, at least to some
extent. Hence, the "it's true because a scientist says so" trick didn't
work with me...although I'm aware that it would with members of the
mainstream population, which is also presumably the reason why it was used.
I think these films do serve a positive purpose in that if nothing else,
they at least get people to think...but I would be infinitely more
appreciative if, at the beginning of the next such film, it was stated up
front which particular channel the film was promoting, rather than the film
attempting to pass itself off as being more universal/agnostic than is
genuinely the case. As it stands, the approach used feels at least vaguely
deceptive.
Just finished watching The Secret with my girlfriend. The subject matter is
similar to What the Bleep...?, but I was pleased to discover that this was
considerably less pretentious. I will confess that the latter parts of What
the Bleep...? also had difficulty holding my interest, and I was also later
disappointed to find out that that film had largely served as an infomercial
for Ramtha.
Although the same may be true in the case of The Secret, (the channel being
promoted in this case being Esther Hicks) I found the material here
considerably more focused and worthwhile than that in What the Bleep...?,
and although the words energy, frequency, and vibration get thrown around
somewhat, there also isn't anywhere near as heavy an adherence to New Age
stereotypes.
In terms of why I refer to both films (What the Bleep...? considerably more
so) as pretentious, I noticed that in introducing some of the larger scale
ideas, they made sure to use a very heavily conventionally qualified
individual to talk about them...the words "quantum physicist," were
particularly strongly emphasised.
I think the reason why that bothered me is because I (as one individual,
anyway) am not someone who assumes that a given idea is the Gospel truth
simply because a scientist happens to be the one talking about it; I would
have been just as likely myself (in fact more likely, given that the
strategy began to feel like manipulation) to believe a visibly illiterate,
homeless person talking about the same ideas. Personally I believe in the
reality of a lot of things which mainstream science has dismissed as
garbage. (astrology and the possibility of overunity energy generation being
only two of them) I therefore have a tendency to be of the opinion that
mainstream science doesn't know what it doesn't know, at least to some
extent. Hence, the "it's true because a scientist says so" trick didn't
work with me...although I'm aware that it would with members of the
mainstream population, which is also presumably the reason why it was used.
I think these films do serve a positive purpose in that if nothing else,
they at least get people to think...but I would be infinitely more
appreciative if, at the beginning of the next such film, it was stated up
front which particular channel the film was promoting, rather than the film
attempting to pass itself off as being more universal/agnostic than is
genuinely the case. As it stands, the approach used feels at least vaguely
deceptive.