"Wealth is a mindset"

What is the Secret? I have heard this question whispered cautiously in secluded corners. For centuries, it has been hidden from the eyes of the public, considered too precious to become general knowledge. Powerful forces have laboured hard to keep this simple truth from becoming public knowledge. But what is it? What is the Secret? What is this information that is so valuable to the powers-that-be? What could be so potent that it had to be protected for so long?

The literary snot in you: "It's the law of attraction; whatever you think about will manifest itself in your life. It's also a pile of bullshit."

You speak only in half-truth, for the Secret, when fully understood, will deliver your every wish. Unhappy in my career, I longed for a change. Having focussed so long on the negative aspects of my life, and cursing the grind of my working day, I decided to visualise what I would prefer to be doing. Within six months I was teaching English as a foreign language, earning a living correcting people, a lifelong passion of mine. The abominable slob that I once was was manifested away by the universe, as I happily visualised myself in the midst of tiresome and sweaty exercise. I visualised my dream girl, and she arrived, as full and interesting a person as I imagined. Alas, her inability to suffer fools gladly, which I so desire in a partner, worked against me, and she soon visualised herself as single.

My testimonial seems trivial, however, when compared to these success stories:


Vladmir Putin, Iron leader of Russia
You have no idea. The power. The power the Secret brings. My every wish willed by the unstoppable power of the universe. I visualise it, and the universe puts it on my lap. And soon. So soon, I'll have it all. [arches back in evil-gasm] You think the Ukrainian crisis just happened? Crimea slipped under Russian control so easily. When the international community feared the worst, and willed negative thoughts about the future, I knew they were fulfilling our destiny, and we just opened our arms with positive affirmation of success. Visualise it as having already happen and it will happen. And you think that this the end? No, no, no, comrades, it is only the beginning! There is no limit to the power of the Secret, and I wield it with my iron hand. Soon an Iron Curtain will descend over this world, and Mother Russia will rise again! And you will have helped me. Your ever-growing fearful, negative visualisations of financial and militaristic ruin will lay the paving stones I'll use to walk all over you. I'll soon have my foot on my throat, and only then, when it is all-too-late, will you realise you should have been more positive in your thoughts. [Spasms in maniacal laughter]
(Translated by Bing)

 Plato, philosopher and purported member of the Secret cabal
[In an desperate attempt to gain favour with fellow Athenians, a near-despondent  Plato has been wandering around the marketplace in a sheet and a mask, claiming to be the ghost of Socrates and praising his own work. Unprepared for such an unusual situation his bemused fellow citizens humour his latest endeavour.]

 

Plato: Wooo! Woooo! It is I, Socrates. I have returned from beyond to lend weight to the arguments of my most prestigious disciple.

Charmides: Most prestigious disciple?

Plato: I speak of Plato, philosopher and founder of the Academy.

Charmides: I am not convinced of his prestigiousness.

Plato: He is surely an exemplar of prestige.

Charmides: Both his reputation and wealth have gone into decline in recent years.

Aristippus: It seems he is more accurately described as the reification of humiliation. He is far from an exemplary practitioner his much vaunted Secret.

Plato: Perhaps. Though do you mean to say that prestige is a synthesis wealth and reputation? Can the wealth of a man buy him prestige. Surely not. And a good reputation is but a story, whose value depends not on the man, but on the ability to construct a favourable story.

Charmides: Against that there seems to be no argument. Upon what then do we evaluate prestige?

Aristippus: Perhaps success, combined with a credible reputation?

Plato: This seems to be as close as we will get to understanding it. To address your previous contention, Plato has been tremendously successful in life due to to his adherence to the Secret. Indeed, the Secret seems validated by his success.

Charmides: Ridiculous! His greatest student thoroughly dismissed his epistemology, and his efforts to edify the Syracusan kings resulted in perilous misadventures.

Plato: Hmm. Yes... It seems we have once again arrived at aporia!

Aristippus: A fearful conclusion. At least we can dismiss Plato's success and the reliability of the Secret.

Plato: Eh, all I know is that I know nothing…

[Plato's Academy lasted long after his death. His posthumous fame flourished after his works, lost for centuries, reemerged at the end of the Middle Ages, demonstrating how far reaching the power of the Secret really is.]



George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States of America
I learned of the Secret when I was in office, and I have used it since. The President is given a presentation on how it works the same day he's given the nuclear codes. When terrorists pierced our armour over 10 years ago, I resolved to protect this country using whatever means were available. I used the positive visualisations of the Secret to keep our country safe from terrorism, but, because of the dangerous nature of the Secret, I could never tell the public. When I gave a speech under the banner of 'Mission Accomplished', I hoped the message would bring it forth into reality. It is critical that we counteract any terrorist use of the Secret by visualising a safe and free America. While flying over a devastated New Orleans in 2005, I visualised it being rebuilt and protected from such devastation. Intervention would have reiterated all the negative thoughts and feelings and kept me from visualising the problem being solved. The timescale can vary, sometimes it takes a long time, sometimes it's instant. When Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at me in 2008, my visualisation of not getting hit happened instantly. I believe my critics are responsible for prolonging the War on Terror, as well as bring about the financial crisis. Visualising only death and debt, despair and collapse, they have asked the universe to worsen our situation. Global warming is more likely caused by the fumes of negativity in our heart than the CO2 fumes from our cars.
We live in a dangerous age, where a President can be usurped by the negative intentions of enemies of freedom, and critical journalists ignore the difficult decisions a leader has to take. In the words of Shakespeare, uneasy rests the crown that wears the head. 



Nigel Fairflower in the 22nd Century, classical blogger
Though I turn 118 on my next birthday, I feel as sprightly and strong as a ninety-year-old, such is the invigorating power of the Secret. We now live in a utopia, where everyone's wishes come true though the power of positive thinking. The consequences we feared about the entire world's population wielding the Secret never came to pass, as we visualised a world that could provide for our collective desires. My wife Susan was greatly coveted by a emosogynist co-worker, who visualised having her. Less than two months later, he found a fully grown clone of her, while driving by a cabbage patch (in a Merc, which he had received after a month of visualisation). She was identical in personality, except a little less intelligent and more impressionable. Everyone is now a millionaire, if not richer; everyone except those who lived on the African and Asian continents. It seems they wished for an early death, as they were crushed under the Benevolent Meteorite. The meteorite, which was about half the size of the planet, hit in 2079, very slowly impacting the Earth and organically knitting itself to our planet, until Earth was a resized globe. It seems this was the only solution open to the universe, though She has been known to get confused. We now have a more modest population, and the wealth of resources to meet everyone's visualised desires. In memory of the beloved symbols of the dancing African child and the woman working joyously in the paddy field, governments around the world ask citizens to be responsible with their imaginations, especially regarding the desire to live by a paradise beach, which is eroding coastlines across the globe.
Message sent via  time-travelling email service

An Inconvenient Truth

James Lovelock

Having finally overcome my illness last year, I have finally been able to visit Britain again (or “the land of the Sasanach”, as I called it when I was sick). The British Science Council had arranged a series of seminars featuring many preeminent scientific minds, and they thought me worthy enough to send an invitation to participate in the audience. They suggested I might be entitled to my own seminar if I were to publish my now legendary magnum opus on biology. I chucked A Trifling Matter: For Posterity into the back of my wardrobe a couple of years ago and told the scientific community I would publish it when biology had finally caught up. The text is a product of a decade of armchair research, which catalogues the entire human genome and exhausts the entirety of human nature. I wrote it using Wikipedia, a calculator, and a my superlative insight into the human character. I imagine they may have allowed me to speak on another branch of science, but the constant referral to Britain as “them across the water”, while I was ill, hasn’t endeared me to them.

Richard Dawkins’s paper on genetics looked interesting initially. However, when I read he was claiming that all atheists had a shared gene which made them the sole bearers of rationality, I thought I should give it a miss. I eventually decided to attend James Lovelock’s paper. It was difficult to discern what Lovelock’s paper was on, as the description I was sent was so littered with sensationalist words like ‘rebel’, ‘contrarian’, and ‘prophet’. After a few perplexed minutes of reading, it seemed to be about the history of Batman. Despite my recent failure to get my Joker book published, I was intrigued. I admire the rebellious contrarianism of this prophetic soothsayer. His rebellious rebellion rebels against the mainstream powers-that-be of the scientific community, and one cannot help but be amazed at his prophetic ability to foresee and foretell that which only reveals itself to those with such prescience. The prophetic prophet profits from his prophetical prophesies, rebelling rebelliously in an act of rebellion.

As surprising as ever, Lovelock had managed to get his paper on the decline of good Batman stories green-lit by the Science Council. Before they had even read the synopsis, many incredulous scientists were criticising him for making a mockery of science, and the controversy ensured a full theatre for his talk. I was lucky to get a seat, as even noteworthy scientists, such as the ‘I Fucking Love Science’ Facebook administrator, were denied access (It turns out there was a strict ban on hyperbole. The administrator was quoted as saying it was “the worst day of his life”). As I sat in the packed theatre, watching the slideshow of various Batman incarnations, I could sense tension in the air. Eventually, a nonagenarian man shuffled through the crowds onto the platform. An assistant followed him, wheeling a large vat and some other equipment. Lovelock gave a perfunctory greeting to the crowd and then began his paper. After a brief outline of the evolution of the Dark Knight, from his first appearance in Detective Comics in 1939 to the Christopher Nolan trilogy, Lovelock predicted that the worst is yet to come. “Ahead lies a fate that will make us all beg for a film as good as Batman and Robin,” he told us. “Many of you assume that I’m referring to Ben Affleck being cast in the upcoming Batman versus Superman film, but this is a mere fraction of the problem.” Lovelock contended that Hollywood has depleted its stores of irony and levity, and that quality self-parody has long since disappeared. In a foolhardy race to create “grittier” and more realistic superhero films, the custodians of the Caped Crusader’s adventures have restricted themselves so much that we can no longer refer to him by that name. The term ‘Boy Wonder’ will never be salvaged. 

The crowd soon began grumbling, and there were mutterings about the value of realism, and the dire quality of Joel Schumacher’s farcical movies. Lovelock had anticipated this dissent, and he soon quelled the would-be antagonists. “Your so-called realism is a pretty illusion.” “Batarangs, ridiculous expectations of the human body, impossible plans and foresight, and a pathetic Bat-voice undermine any realism claims, as do the  many minor continuity errors.” The crowd seemed particularly affronted when Lovelock claimed Will Arnett’s Batman voice in The Lego Movie is better than Christian Bale’s. He then portrayed a bleak picture of the future, where DC films will be mechanically-plotted, unendurable turds of mediocrity, living off the blinkered loyalty of fanboys. The fans will defend mélanges of muted colours and jaded dialogue, preventing us from ever enjoying a DC film again. Stirring more controversy into an already tense room, Lovelock proposed that embracing constant “rebooting” (a pet hate of lovers of cinema) may be our only hope, as the material might finally fall into truly creative hands. Hell finally broke loose when the elderly speaker suggested that Batman Returns was the zenith of the Dark Knight’s celluloid outings, “perhaps pipped to the post by the 1966 Adam West film”. Not since Bob Dylan went electric in the Free Trade Hall that same year had an English crowd been so outraged. “You’re just a troll, Lovelock!” cried one astrophysicist; “Why don’t you stop insulting us,” shouted a microbiologist. “Tell us about climate change.”

Seemingly unfazed, the venerable speaker walked slowly over to the vat by the side of the platform. He slowly donned elbow-length, industrial rubber gloves. Perplexed, the angry voices subsided. Removing the vat’s lid brought silence to the room. “You want to know my views on climate change?” he asked with menace in his voice. “We’re all doomed! The game is over”. Presenting one of many clumps of his own fecal matter, which he had kept preserved in the vat of his own piss, he declared, “The shit has already hit the fan!” Then, with strength unexpected of a man of such advanced years (even his throw is contrary to popular belief), he began flinging the clumps at the audience. A stampede ensued, as the terrified crowd fled in horror. My memory is sketchy after that, aside from Lovelock’s maniacal laugh, which will stay with me forever. I later regretted not attending the Dawkins paper instead. Somebody told me that Richard Dawkins made his audience dress as sheep, and then he had them follow him on all fours across a field littered with bull shit. I think he was joking.

Lovelock at the end of the talk.