The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Sorry Angela, you did ask that before, but the thoughtful responses here occupied the majority of the available RAM in my brain! Really great stuff that I thoroughly enjoyed.Here's a link to a paper about the role of expectation and the placebo effect in Parkinson's patients. It's just one of many though. It happens to be the easiest for me to find now. To see the whole article, you'll have to register at the site, but it's free (and really worthwhile).http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/5532/1164You can find a copy of the Kybalion here:
http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/kybalion.pdfFor understanding basic principles of physics try the book, "God and the New Physics," by Paul Davies. It's a good introduction.A great book is "Science and the Akashic Field," by Ervin Lazslow (current). It's one of the best books I've ever read, and although it's slightly advanced, I think you'll make out fine.A terrific introductory book is "Stalking the Wild Pendulum," by Itzhak Bentov. I think it's available at Amazon. He goes a little out on a limb with some of his ideas, and sometimes more than a little, but he explains the phenomenon quite well and accurately. A fun read too.Hope that helps.   See 20 other replies

You folks are truly amazing thinkers and debaters, and I truly appreciate it.The first thing you have to know about "The Secret" is that it's essentially a repackaging of an earlier work (1912) called "The Master Key System" whose author is actually quoted in the book. Interestingly enough, the above work is based upon an even earlier work called the "Kybalion" (around 1906) which gave the world the first glimpse into the order of Hermetics, who followed an oral tradition handed down since a wisdom school of Egypt (circa 2000 B.C.) headed by Hermes Trisgysimus (sorry if the spelling is wrong), or Hermes, the thrice great. This order had kept their teachings in tight secrecy for several millennia, thus the term, "hermetically sealed."These early wisdom school teachings are remarkable for their correlation to modern physics. I believe this is what most are feeding upon today. They're mixing the two in very interesting ways, some of which very much have merit, but I believe don't take into account the audience as they are now.Relativity theory has been around for 100 years now, but how many of us know what it means? Basically, it means that everything in our sense of reality is energy - patterned energy with information embedded in it. Do they teach that in the schools? No. There are numerous implications of this knowledge, but most don't even know it exists. We're kind of like the people of 1400's still believing the world is flat and the center of the universe. Only now, we have people who are taking advantage of the fact that they know something you don't and bending it to their purposes.In a larger sense, we're probably thinking about ourselves in a way that's entirely wrong and outdated. We may not be victims at all, but creators, only we don't know we have that capacity. Our entire reality may in fact be based on nonsense just as much as it was for those in the 1400s.   See 20 other replies

If you happen to know of article links for the two phenomenon you described, I would enjoy reading them. If not, thanks anyway for mentioning them...fascinating stuff!   See 20 other replies

I'm also tired of all these self help people marketing their own success stories when their success is based soley on selling their SELF HELP NOTIONS!! I mean is there even ONE person out there selling a self help motivational product on how to be successful that did NOT get their success from selling secrets of success in a decade where that is the most marketable thing to do? Anyone with the right connections can right a book on how to be successful and then be a success and then parade that success around as if you didn't depend on the unsuccessful people around you for it. "Don't Be a victim" is another thing thats spouted by this movement which demines anyone who's an actual victim of a crime and says it's their fault if they're sad or unhappy about something that was done to them. If a crime was commited to you you ARE a victim. You can't choose to not be a victim any more than someone can choose not to be black, white, or asian. It is what it is. Being a victim isn't a bad thing and doesn't mean you have to accept defeat or that you're being whiny. I think this woman is basically just telling it like it is that's all.   See 20 other replies