I had an opportunity to see Michele Blood speak earlier in the week. She is the singing Australian self-help guru who has for years teamed up with Bob Proctor, one of the main guys on The Secret DVD. I enjoyed her talk, if just for the fact that she liked to throw the F-word in there a lot, and didn't seem to take herself too seriously.

What struck me was her comments on the issue of manifesting money. She mentioned briefly that sometimes she gets criticized for her focus on wealth. She said something along the lines of: "If you want to accomplish anything, you need the energy of money behind you, and so I don't apologize for that." (I am completely paraphrasing here.)

Hmm. Well, yes, I certainly would like more money, as it would make my life easier in many respects. But do we need to be wealthy in order to achieve anything?

Today was way too hot in Los Angeles. It got to be around 90 degrees on the Westside, and I have no air conditioning, because usually I don't need it with the ocean breeze. I had an errand to run in Venice Beach, so I parked my car and walked down to the sand.

When I hit the water, I immediately saw an entire cavalcade of dolphins playing in the surf. They were splashing around and body surfing in the crashing waves. Children were there with families along the beach. During my walk, a tiny 3 or 4-year-old girl and her smaller brother almost pounced upon me in at the water's edge, grinning and shrieking and happy as pie. "Are you having fun???" she asked me...or, I think she asked me, because she was young enough to be somewhat intelligible, and the surf was loud.

Since I've been very critical of The Secret, every once in a while I will poke around Joe Vitale's blog and comment here or there. (I will also freely acknowledge that his blog gets a lot of traffic, and posting there is a bit of guerrilla marketing on my part.)

Joe, as you might remember, was the guy in The Secret who likened the universe to one big cosmic catalog that you could order a Ferrari from at will. He recently wrote a post in his blog, Thresholds: Is it serving or selling? Here, he gives the typical response to people who criticize the materialism of The Secret, suggesting that those who have a problem with it are just feeling "undeserving."

by Stephanie Brail

I have mixed feelings about the current popularity of The Secret. On the one hand, that the mainstream media are now covering what would used to be fringe is good for all of us who are working to change consciousness on the planet.

On the other, I find the basic message to be somewhat materialistic and simplistic in nature. Yet, there seems to be this rising trend of people interested in what is called the "Law of Attraction," people who are working to increase their personal wealth.