Soul's Code

We don't mean that, like, literally . . . The only reason we've brought up Oprah at all is because Byron Katie, a post-modern mystic, made a rare live appearance in the Bay Area the same day that Oprah's show hyped the move The Secret and the "law of attraction" craze.

The difference between Oprah and Byron Katie is that Oprah explicitly pitches to America's victim-culture -- millions who don't like the way they look, their job, their love life, their history, etc. Oprah pitches prescriptions to fix the personality's grievances. Counter-measures. Byron Katie offers a radically different way out of pain.

Why would you care? Katie, as she goes by, comes as advertised. We won't write that she has 'achieved enlightenment' -- that is, a person who is free of internal conflict -- because we already anticipate her rejoinder. Katie would turn one of her famous four questions back on us, and ask: "How would you know? Can you absolutely know that that's true? Do you have any proof?"

No, we don't. We have an impression from being in the hall this past week in her presence. This woman is utterly fearless, and radiates a clarity of mind that is so raw and electrifying that it crackles through the room, opening up fissures in people's psyches.

Katie's point about the "law of attraction" business is that it's likely another forum for the mind to be at war with itself. If you jump on the bandwagon and practice visualizing the more money/happiness images from The Secret, the reason those key messages feel like such a chore is because you have a whole history of *not* believing that things work out that way for you. But you can't change your belief system because you saw a movie, or an episode of Oprah. We still have an undercarriage of streaming thoughts driven by the values we've interjected decades ago.

"You're thinking that you should believe in this (positive laws of attraction), what you're visualizing up here, but you really don't," Katie told the audience. "What you really believe is these other thoughts deeper down that you keep having. And after a while you'll think, 'Oh, I'm not manifesting success and all these other new things -- I'm failing.'

"Or alternatively, your life might suddenly get better and you'll say, 'See! I manifested that -- and I'll show you how you can do it, too.'

"Man, you can build an identity out of that for a lifetime."

Actually, that ego-building exercise sounds exactly like the "story" that The Secret's main producer, Rhonda Byrne, is retailing:

And on that spring day in 2004, when a small, old book called The Science of Getting Rich was put into her hands, and Rhonda's whole life suddenly pulled into spectacular focus, she knew exactly what her mission was to become. She was going to take this knowledge to the world. She was going to make a movie to carry joy to every corner of the Earth. And so the great journey that was The Secret began.

In early 2005, when The Secret was simply a name and a (momentous) vision, Prime Time Productions was made up of Rhonda, Producer Paul Harrington, and Director Drew Heriot. Paul, who had worked with Rhonda at Prime Time Productions virtually since its beginning, and Drew, who had directed several projects for the company as well, became, with Rhonda, the foundation for The Secret team.

As for Katie, she said she had no personal interest in practicing the tactics touted by The Secret. "I'm a woman without a future," she said. "I don't need one. If I needed a 'tomorrow,' I'd imagine one.'