The Secret or the law of attraction has attracted a huge following, with 3.75 million books in print and 1.5 million DVDs sold as people discover what has been known for thousands of years.
The law of attraction states simply that "like attracts like." Each of us vibrates at a specific frequency, giving off thought waves that act like a cosmic magnet drawing back to us what we mentally broadcast. So, the "thinking" goes, think like a rich person, and you become rich. Visualize a beautiful home, and it will manifest. In essence, you get what you think.
The Secret video and book begin with scenes surrounding a mysterious green tablet--the Emerald Tablet--and an eight-word excerpt attributed to the Emerald Tablet, circa 3000 BCE: "As above, so below. As within, so without." But after that brief acknowledgement, the team of best-selling authors and coaches never again mention the Emerald Tablet nor the Hermetic philosophy and teachings associated with it.
In his well-researched book, The Emerald Tablet: Alchemy for Personal Transformation (Penguin, 1999), Dennis William Hauck writes extensively on the history of the Tablet and Hermeticism: "The Hermetic tradition emphasized the existence of a supreme force called the One Thing, which has no perceptible form until it is 'grounded' or expressed in material reality....The Hermeticists saw the One Thing as a primordial, plastic energy that takes the form of the idea or thought projected by the One Mind." Hermeticists believed that calming the mind and focusing our intention through meditation, prayer and invocation allows us to consciously communicate with and influence this force. The Hermeticists' ultimate goal was to achieve divine consciousness.
The Emerald Tablet was the precursor to the Corpus Hermeticum, which was based on a number of ancient manuscripts assigned to Hermes Trismegistus (appears to be a syncretism of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes) and translated by the Greeks from the Egyptian during the second and third centuries. Copies of the Corpus were widely circulated by scholars and influenced the civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome, India, Persia and eventually Europe. Hermetic principles and passages were also quietly integrated into many major religions and belief systems, including Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Paganism, and Christianity.
In 1912, the Three Initiates, an anonymous group with ties to the Masonic Temple in Chicago, published The Kybalion. This book put into writing the "Secret Doctrine," a version of the Hermetic philosophy that had been carefully shared and passed down for the previous two thousand years through various secret societies. The Kybalion explains the seven fundamental principles of Hermetic philosophy:
1. Mentalism. Everything that exists in the reality that underlies all manifestation, known as the universe of matter and energy, is spirit in the form of an infinite living mind. The All is Mind; in other words, the totality of the universe is consciousness.
2. Correspondence. There are always correspondence, harmony and agreement between the laws and phenomena that affect the seven planes of existence. The widely known maxim "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below" reflects this principle.
3. Vibration. Everything is in constant vibration, and the rate of vibration manifests matter, energy, mind, and spirit. From lead to gold to table salt, human beings, and the distant stars, everything is energy that emanates from the place of All is Mind, the universal consciousness.
4. Polarity. While everything emanates from the One Mind, everything that is manifested has a dualistic nature, containing pairs of opposites with untold degrees between the extremes of the poles. For example, joy and sadness are poles of emotion separated by a plethora of feelings.
5. Rhythm. There is a measured motion to everything that exists: in and out, rise and fall, back and forth, swinging like a pendulum between the two poles, a perpetual action and reaction.
6. Causation. Every cause has its effect, and every effect has its cause. The precision of the universe is such that nothing happens by chance. There is continuity among all events precedent, current and subsequent.
7. Gender. Everything that exists contains masculine and feminine properties. Gender manifests on all planes, including the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Creation requires both the masculine and the feminine properties.
The Kybalion further states: "Mind (as well as metals and elements) may be transmuted from state to state, degree to degree, condition to condition, pole to pole, vibration to vibration.
The idea that our thoughts influence the manifestation of our reality is neither new nor radical. Perhaps, the best gift The Secret gives us is the impetus to fully consider who we are and what we want.
Source: SHIFT: AT THE FRONTIERS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, June-August 2007