I received some good news this morning. Apparently, I am destined for an amazing life. “Perfect health, incredible relationships, a career you love, a life filled with happiness and the money you need to be, do and have everything you want.”
Brilliant. I’d better start packing because I’ll be moving to New York soon where I’ll open an art gallery. I’ll live in a loft and drink American martinis with men who look like Paul Auster. I can’t wait.
Unfortunately there is a catch. If I want to experience all of this good stuff, I am required to read and practice the advice given in ‘The Power’, Rhonda Byrne’s allegedly long-awaited sequel to ‘The Secret’. “Rhonda believes that everyone is meant to have an amazing life,” promises the blurb.
After only a few pages it becomes obvious that ‘The Power’ is basically a reprise of the law of attraction. To recap, in Rhonda’s words: “Whatever you think and feel creates everything that happens to you and everything you experience in your life.”
This is a preposterous theory, and one that has been widely demolished of late by everyone from Hugo Rifkind = two words, Adolf and Hiter — to the New York Times. And for all ‘The Secret’ sold massively, 19 million copies at the last count, there is precious little psychological evidence to back it up.
In ‘The Power’, Byrne suggests that all we need is love. “Give love through good feelings and you will magnetise everything you love to yourself.” Alas the only research I could find on this was via Dr David Hamilton, a former research scientist and author of Destiny Vs Free Will. “Some studies have shown the benefits of positive states of mind. It has been shown that thinking thoughts and feeling the feelings of gratitude or compassion, for instance, can make heart rhythms more coherent and boost the body’s immune system.” But absolutely nothing about unlimited wealth or Ferraris. And in any case, surely there can be little psychological value in believing that everything is possible. Everything is quite patently not possible, no matter how hard you visualise, or send out loving thoughts to the universe — as any viewer of Saturday’s X Factor will testify.
Indeed, in a Psychologies article on the ‘magical thinking’ that Rhonda Byrne promotes, some psychologists even suggest it might be harmful. “Ask yourself a simple question. Are you imagining how you are going to actually do the thing you want to happen in your life, or are you just imagining the happy outcome of having the thing, and all the good stuff that’ll happen to you as a result?” says Jane Risen of the University of Chicago. “Focusing on the faraway outcome is not going to help you navigate the environment you need to create in order to succeed, and so it will remain just that — wishful thinking.”
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