Cultish: The Secret - Exposing the Cult of Toxic Positivity, Pt. 1

Apologia Studios

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Cultish: The Secret: Exposing the Cult of Toxic Positivity, Pt. 2

00:00

Hey what's up everyone, we are super excited to announce that we will be making our first appearance on the road in Simpsonville, Kentucky July 28th and 29th at the

00:08

Called to Freedom conference. If you are disentangling your faith after experience in a hyper -fundamentalistic or legalistic church group, this event is for you.

00:19

There will be panel discussions, table discussions, inspiring testimonies, all from Christians who have rebuilt their faith, and even a game night guys.

00:27

It's a weekend of rebuilding theology, rebuilding community, and rebuilding faith through God's words.

00:33

So definitely check that out. Also Jerry and I are going to be speaking there and we're also super excited to meet you in person.

00:40

You can register for the conference today at bereanholiness .com forward slash conference. That's B -E -R -E -A -N holiness dot com forward slash conference.

00:50

Also until May 31st you can use the promo code CULTISH in all caps at checkout for $50 off the purchase price.

00:57

We hope to see you there. Now back to the episode. All right, welcome back once again, ladies and gentlemen to Cultish entering the kingdom of the cults.

01:08

I am back with you. Andrew is off again today. He has taken some time off to be with his family and their brand new baby boy who is healthfully born not too long ago.

01:21

So he'll be back shortly. But I am back here running solo today. Well, not completely solo.

01:27

I am co -piloting along with John Clash. Good to have you back again, man. What's up?

01:32

What's up? All right. So this is a brand new series. By this time you would have already heard kind of your story about getting out of Santeria.

01:39

And I figured, you know, since you're in town, it's always great when you have a guest in studio versus, I mean, Zoom is always fun, but it's always nice being able to do that.

01:47

I think what we're going to talk about today, which I was intrigued about, is the law of attraction. Well, you know, we've had a good friend

01:53

Melissa Doherty on to kind of talk a little bit about new thought. We haven't really done something specifically about the law of attraction as a whole.

02:02

And it is actually interesting. So in prep for this, I've had a lot going on just with a new year, newly married, kind of still getting adjusted.

02:09

It's like, man, I'm still trying to like land, like grab and like land and get in the coasting.

02:15

And that's probably going to be like the rest of my life being newly married and all that sort of fun stuff. I watched

02:21

The Secret the other night. I'm sorry. You're going to need to get delivered from demons after watching it.

02:27

And so we are going to manifest together a series, this episode together on how to deal with it.

02:34

So it was very, and I'm going to tell you my cliff notes, what I remember of it, because I was, I was pressed for time and I feel bad because, you know,

02:42

I'm working like a second job right now just for extra income, just for their financial goals with my wife and stuff like that.

02:48

And so my time is valuable. So I'm like, I don't really want to watch, spend a whole hour and a half. So I watched it like it's 1 .6

02:55

speed and I got bored during it. So I was actually like just in my room and I was doing,

03:00

I was doing like pushups and sit ups and doing like, yeah, I do like manifesting your perfect body. Yeah.

03:05

On my medicine ball. It was like in the, in the office where like Dwight's like, I'm working out my core, you know, and he's like on that bouncy ball.

03:12

So I'm trying to like just pass the time. All right. So I'm watching this at the very beginning of The Secret. It talks about how this is something that's been hidden, right.

03:20

By these like hidden forces and you see, you know, this like a, like a breaking and entry, like an old school squat, like a second century

03:27

SWAT team, like break in and someone's like no. So everyone, you know, all the, all the elites are like stealing this thing.

03:34

And so then you, then you have all of a sudden, you know, different people that are notable. So I remember, uh, we'll, we'll talk about it.

03:41

And so network mark, we've been asked to talk about network marketing and MLMs. So what's interesting is that, um, there's times where I've kind of been in that niche like a long, long time ago.

03:50

And in that, uh, we'll, we'll talk about that is like a lot of the personal development. One of the guys who is well known is that Jack Canfield.

03:56

Yep. And he's in The Secret. Yeah. He's, he's in The Secret. Uh, you have other people too. And a lot of it initially like seems interesting.

04:03

Okay. That would make sense. You know, you hear about, uh, like top performance, like Tom Brady or people who are in sports or who are in, uh, like the music industry who are like a concert they have to perform at the top level, you know, for, uh, three hours at a time.

04:19

And so there's a lot of people who kind of like visualize that, like going out on stage just to mentally manage all of that.

04:25

And that makes sense. But they're talking about something that is, uh, is it sound like they're talking about, uh, the, they come on time with the universe, right?

04:33

I'm trying to remember is the universe, but they're talking about like, it's this impersonal consciousness and how the universe is the one who brings all these things to you.

04:42

And then it, like the longer it got on, it started slipping in further and further and further.

04:47

And then the very, very end around maybe like 15, 20 minutes left, one of the people in being interviewed basically said that you are

04:55

God. Yeah. You're divine. You are, you are God and you are divine. And that's really the secret is under, is like a really unreleasing, like who you are.

05:04

And so I was like, oh, okay. And there it is. Yep. So yeah, there's a lot to unpack because I think a lot of people have questions about, okay.

05:10

Well, what is that? A lot of those things seem legit. Like how do we, where do we even start with all this?

05:17

Yeah. So first let's, let's define it, you know, define what the secret is and we'll give a pretty general description.

05:24

So the law of attraction is like attracts like, right?

05:29

So they believe that, um, that if you, if you focus on something, you will attract that thing to your life, right?

05:37

So if you focus on a Lamborghini, you're going to bring a Lamborghini into your life. If you focus on a million dollars, you'll bring a million dollars into your life.

05:44

If you focus on your dream spouse or dream house or dream car, and if you focus on that, you can bring that into your life because your thoughts have power there.

05:54

Your thoughts are a frequency, quote unquote, right? And that frequency goes out into the universe and connects with the frequency of whatever it is that you're thinking of.

06:03

And as long as you stay on that frequency, you're going to attract whatever it is that you want into your life. So, um, you know, they, as you said, they believe that the universe is an impersonal force.

06:13

So the law of attraction is working all of the time. Your predominant thoughts are bringing whatever it is you have in your life right now has been attracted to you by your predominant thoughts, right?

06:24

So if you are not happy in your relationship, you've attracted that with your thoughts. If you're not happy at your job, you've attracted that with your thoughts.

06:31

If you are not happy in anything, you've attracted it with your thoughts. And if you have good things in your life, you've attracted it with your thoughts because this is like quote unquote science, right?

06:40

So, um, you know, they say that everything is energy, right? And since everything is energy, you know, your thoughts are energy and, and it's just this whole mess of you attract what you focus on and it always seems to be, you know, money driven and like things of this world, you know?

07:00

It's interesting that the law of attraction offers, offers you pretty much everything that Satan offered Jesus in the desert, you know?

07:08

Yeah. Well, I'm just curious too, cause I want to put a couple of different things together is that interconnect them.

07:14

So we even, I came like, Oh my gosh, here we are. So we've been asked a couple of times whether or not we'd ever do like a podcast or episodes on like network marketing or MLMs.

07:23

Like, it's interesting because like there's level, there's layers in which it somewhat makes sense because there is sort of like an infrastructure where in order to be like on the, in the top earning percentage, you do have to sort of become a cult of personality.

07:37

Yeah. Like I was thinking, cause there's a while where I've kind of, I toyed around with an industry and I was like, man, like, okay, why?

07:42

I like, so I like these products. I, I still have a hard time. It's just that whole like networking and like selling, but not selling.

07:52

They would just, it just wasn't for me. Yeah. But also there's always a thing like, is there a way to sort of get into it without becoming a cult of personality?

08:01

I don't think it's really, that's, that's the, that's the caveat. That's the line you got to walk, right? It's like, so sometimes it's like, you can have great products, but like,

08:08

I have to sort of become this other person, which I don't think I am in order to sell something I believe in. So I was always conflicted.

08:14

Yeah. No, there's, there's definitely a line you got to walk. So there's obviously like thousands, I think of network marketing companies out there.

08:21

So when we, we painted with a broad brush, there's obviously companies that are worse and definitely more cult -like than other companies, right?

08:29

So I've, I had a lot of success relatively speaking in network marketing, right? And God actually used that network marketing company to bring me to God.

08:36

Um, also, you know, he, he got me around people who actually believed in God, which I wasn't around before until I got involved in network marketing.

08:43

So praise God for that. I'm also a part of another company now too, that's out here in Phoenix. And, um, the products, as you said, it's like, yo, they, they have changed my life.

08:53

Like my, I have stomach issues and until I tried these products, they didn't, you know, I'd be in the, in the bathroom, like all day.

09:02

It was so bad and they really helped me. But you have to be aware of what's going on because, you know, there are many companies in, and I speak about this in my book where their whole identity is actually wrapped around the law of attraction.

09:16

Right. So you do need things to keep people motivated. You do need like inspiration and motivation and, and, uh, you know, the leaders in these companies are professional speakers.

09:27

Like they may not have started out as professional speakers, but this is why I always suggest people should probably do two years of network marketing, uh, just because you'll polish some skills that you need in life, which is, you know, presenting, learning how to, um, combat objections in life.

09:43

Um, personal development is also important as long as you don't go off the deep end. With it, which brings you to the law of attraction.

09:49

Um, until I was involved in network marketing, I didn't know I could change as a person. I thought,

09:55

Hey, this is how I am. You know, here I am, you know, been on and off drugs, selling drugs, uh, you know, pardon part of, uh, you know, being around gang members and robbing people.

10:06

And I was just a wild dude. Yeah. And, but I had accepted as, Hey, this is who I am, you know, either take it or leave it.

10:13

And it wasn't until I got into network marketing and, you know, some of the people who were earning big money were like,

10:18

John, you can't be like that anymore. Yeah. You have to stop, you know, acting so crazy.

10:24

If you want to do well here, you're going to have to work on yourself just as much as you're working on this business.

10:30

So there, there is a lot of good things that come with it. It's just when you go too far, right.

10:37

And the, the company essentially becomes all that you are and you're putting it before. And I've, I've ended up in places like this where I was putting the company before other things, you know, before family before this.

10:49

And it was because, you know, you, you have this, the carrot at the end of the stick, right. And in network marketing, the carrot at the end of the stick is achievable.

10:56

I hit one of the highest ranks, you know, uh, under 1 % of all people who joined the company get to where I was at.

11:03

Right. Right. And, uh, so a lot of good came from it. I got into volunteering, uh,

11:09

I was part of a travel club. And one of the things we did was build schools in Guatemala. So I got invited to go on a trip and now

11:14

I build schools every single year, you know, so there's a lot of good that can come from it, but you just, you have to be aware, right.

11:23

And you have to, you have to make sure that you don't get consumed with the materialism of it, you know, cause there was a, so one of my spiritual mentors,

11:33

David Peach, he is a Uber like millionaire from network marketing.

11:38

One of the most biblically sound guys ever. You know, he's the first person who told me to get a study

11:43

Bible, read the scripture literally, you know, don't take it allegorically, don't take it out of, out of place and, and, and use that in your life subjectively.

11:52

The scripture means what it means, you know? So it has a lot of cult like tendencies depending on which company you're in that can be higher or lower, but you do have to build a, it's like people who love

12:08

Nike, right. Or people who love a baseball team, the Yankees, right. You do have to kind of identify with it in a way or not, if you're going to be successful because people need to associate you with whatever it is that you're selling.

12:23

Right. So that way when they want it, they know who to go to, to get it. Right. So there's a, you know, and then you can also dig into, um, you know, if you go to Amway, uh,

12:34

I think they, they have like some connection with, um, you know, Esther Hicks and that's connected to the law of attraction as well.

12:40

There are companies out there who... Does that connect to Abraham Hicks? Yeah. Abraham Hicks. Yeah. So Esther Hicks is

12:46

Abraham Hicks, essentially. She just, yeah. Abraham is the entity that possesses her. Right.

12:52

Yeah. Okay. That's, that's definitely, that's definitely cultish. Yeah. Just a, just a little bit. Right. So, you know, you, you have all this, all these elements there, but you also have, um, you know, it's a, it's a melting pot of people.

13:05

So it's not a Christian thing. It's not a, there are companies who, you know, may be owned by Christians.

13:11

Um, right now the, the president of our company is a, is a Christian and we talk about God all the time.

13:16

And, uh, then he also, you know, we work on, uh, building the schools in Guatemala and stuff like that.

13:22

So there's a lot of good things to it. I would say that you have to pay attention to what you're getting involved in, who you're getting involved with, and you gotta be spiritually discerning, but you can be successful.

13:32

They're worldly, you know, quote unquote successful. If you put in the work and I, why I say people should go through two years of network marketing, like go to the trainings, go meet the people, go try to show your family, your presentation so you could get punched in the face and get used to rejection and learn how to build teams and stuff like that.

13:50

These are all skills that are immeasurably, um, um, uh, valuable, you know, and it's also helped me with communication skills prior to being involved in network marketing.

14:03

I didn't know about communication skills. I didn't know that people had different personalities. So you have to speak to them differently so they can hear what you're saying.

14:11

It's like if I came in here and I started speaking Japanese to you, you wouldn't be able to understand what I'm saying.

14:16

Unless do you speak Japanese? I know. I remember. I think I can count to 10. No, from, from martial arts, martial arts.

14:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can count to 10 in Korean. Ichi, ni, san, shi, yo, roku. That's it.

14:29

But you get what I'm saying. So you can learn a lot of skills there. It's just don't let it consume you, you know?

14:35

And then there's, so there's a company that I discussed in the book that, uh, was partnered with Bob Proctor and they changed their company from, uh, um, it was called,

14:45

I know it was called iMarketsLive, right? And, uh, they do like Forex trading. I actually signed, excuse me,

14:52

I signed up for it to, to learn how to trade. And, uh, but then - Oh, like day trading? It's like Forex trading.

14:59

Oh, okay, yeah. So I signed up for it to, to learn how to trade at like a really low point when like things were going crazy.

15:04

And, um, then I learned that they had connections with Vima. So Vima was like a whole mess. So I just, I, I bailed out on it because, uh, you know,

15:13

I, I, so anyway, I'm saying all that to say this, they changed their name from iMarketsLive to I, uh, to I Master Academy or something like that.

15:22

Right. And they say that they wanted to change the name because it fit their affirmations, right? I am a, so I am followed by,

15:29

I am great. I am this, I am that. Right. Meanwhile, the reason they had to change their name is because, uh, they, they like, they had like problems with the

15:38

FTC or something. And so they had to change their name, but then here they changed their name and then they disguise it as this rebranding to be more in alignment with what they believe as a company, which is affirmation, self -affirmations and nobody blinks an eye, you know?

15:52

And, uh, so Bob Proctor used to be able to work alongside that company and sell all of his, um, so if you don't know who

15:58

Bob Proctor is, he's a, like the law of attraction OG, he just recently passed away, but he would sell his, his law of attraction stuff, you know, to the, to the customers of that, um, company and they were partnered.

16:11

So there's a lot of that. There's another company that a bunch of my friends went to today where they're like all about the law of attraction.

16:18

I, I remember. Um, well, it's a, it's a caboose that's attached to a lot of things, not just network marketing, but in health and wellness, you go into any, any whole foods, any sprouts, um, like almost anything.

16:33

Like there's so many things like those are just two, those, those two examples that come to mind, but it's definitely everywhere for sure.

16:39

And that you definitely see that too, like in the MLM world, like a huge, like a big amount of time. And cause I remember one, it was like,

16:45

Oh, he's Jack Canfield. I remember when I was kind of like in that world a little bit. And like I said, there's positives to like,

16:50

I remember there's one personal development coach, I can't remember his name, but he always talked about ABC, always be connecting.

16:57

And part of like, even like I attribute like the success of cultish is like to some of the, uh, a lot of different things, especially like the studio and, and like my, our, my pastor,

17:06

Jeff, who came up with the idea for even doing this. But a lot of it was just like, well, how do you, how have you found like all these guests?

17:11

We'll just like ABC always be connecting, always be networking and all that sort of stuff. And it's like, you know, you, who, you know, and all that and all that.

17:17

But yeah. And like one other thing too, is that when I was involved, like I, there's like, here's an example of a caboose that I found is, um,

17:26

I had people within my network, I would say that was, um, they got, they recommended think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill.

17:35

And even in that, it was like, it was very interesting because in the very beginning it drew me in because he talked about the guy who wanted to work for Thomas Edison and he had all that, you know,

17:43

I'm talking about, and you have this like big desire to work for him. I got really, cause I was always intrigued by the whole rivalry between Nikolai Tesla and Thomas Edison.

17:50

That's super interesting. That's a whole like cultish historical, like that thing. That's a whole nother rabbit. You do a documentary on it.

17:55

Oh, for sure. For sure. But it was like, when you start getting into like what he was talking about, especially when he got into like how he defined

18:01

Jesus, I was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, what is this? So it's definitely goes to show that there is a, uh, there are things in there that are tangibly real and, but then there's a caboose that's attached to it.

18:13

So why don't we talk about this? Like what, when you talk about like law of attraction, like what is real, like what's biblical, what actually makes sense without it being new age, but then where does it, where does it like go off?

18:24

Because a lot of the times when they, cause they talk about when I'm watching the secret, there's things that like, okay,

18:30

I agree with a lot of what they're saying. There's principles to it that are true, but there's other things that this is off.

18:36

It's crooked. So where does it go? Crooked. So practically speaking, right. And just from practical standpoint of, is it better to think positively than negatively?

18:47

Yes. Yeah. You know, is it, is it good to, if you're chasing after something, is it good to spend all your time focusing on that?

18:53

If you really want to achieve it? Yes. Is it good to, you know, it's studies have been done where sports players, if they visualize, you know, their home run before they go out there, they perform better.

19:04

So is there benefits to visualization? Yes. But where you draw, where you start crossing into weird territory is that once you start thinking that because you're thinking positively, now the universe is bending to your will, you are now treading the line of sorcery.

19:22

Right. And you're also, uh, you know, if, if we peel back the layers to what the law of attraction is, they play this neutral role.

19:31

They say it's like Santeria, you know how they say it's an, it's a neutral thing. You can attach it to any, any religion. Right.

19:37

They say the same thing with the law of attraction. They say that no matter what faith you are, this is a law of the universe.

19:44

So it's active whether you believe it or not. So you might as well believe it. Right. So, but if we peel it back and go to its origins, right.

19:53

Yeah. There's a guy named, uh, Andrew Jackson Davis, not, not Andrew Jackson, like on the $20 bill, but, uh, who was like an

20:01

American spiritist. He was the first one to really say the words law of attraction. But then you have

20:07

Helena Blavatsky who came, you know, and, and she put it, uh, the law of attraction in her book,

20:14

Isis Unveiled. Right now, Helena Blavatsky is considered the, the, um, the mother of the new age.

20:20

Yeah. And if you just look up anybody listening right now, after this podcast, look up some quotes that she has on Satan, you'll be blown away.

20:27

Just look at photos of her. Oh yeah. That's pretty scary stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and then she even had a magazine entitled

20:34

Lucifer, right? So she published a magazine named Lucifer. She hated Christianity.

20:40

And, um, she, she even is quoted as saying that she would like it wiped from the face of the planet. Right. So this is what it's rooted in.

20:49

And then you, you peel it back even more. They believe in this all is one

20:54

God, the God of like pantheism. Where everything is God, which is completely, uh, not biblical.

21:03

Right. So they're, they're saying that you are God, I am God, everything is

21:08

God, but they're using science to say it. Right. They're saying, oh, it's quantum physics. It teaches us this.

21:13

Meanwhile, you know, quantum physics, as spooky as it is, is still physics.

21:19

Yeah. You know, we're, we're studying the physical world here. Right. So you can't equate that with God. God cannot be the universe.

21:25

Hey, what's up everyone. We love that you are enjoying our content on a weekly basis, but this program cannot continue and wouldn't be possible without your support.

21:35

So if you want to go to the cultist show .com, there is a donate tab. You can either support us one time, or you can become a monthly partner with us.

21:43

That will allow us to continue this program, allow us to continue to be salt and light to the kingdom of the cults.

21:49

So please go to the cultist show .com forward slash donate, and you can support us one time or monthly.

21:55

Also make sure you check out our merchandise store, go to shop cultist .com. You can see all of our great designs.

22:02

A lot of you have gotten merchandise from us already. So again, either go to shop cultist .com and check out all the awesome merch back to the show.

22:11

Let me, uh, set you up for this. Cause I, you know, they mentioned scientific. I want to read this to you and I, it's just so funny. Like, uh, this literally got tweeted.

22:18

What's the date today, January 24th. Okay. This, by the way, this,

22:24

I feel like this month has been like the longest month of all time. Like this has been the longest, like you might've manifested it.

22:30

I know it feels like New Year's was like three months ago or something. It's been the longest January. But anyways, um, definitely been the coldest.

22:37

Yeah. But ironically, I guess you could say, or just perfect timing, whatever you want to call it. Uh, Steve Hasson, uh, from, he wrote the book combating cult mind control.

22:45

He's talked a lot about undo influence and the bite model, behavior control, information control, thought control, emotional control.

22:52

He actually just tweeted this. And again, he's someone who's not a Christian, but he's a critical thinker and he has done while he's not a

22:59

Christian, I think he's done a lot of really contribute to what a group think and undo influence how people can be manipulated, even like self psychosis, which is what he kind of deals with.

23:09

And he says, uh, let me see if I can find it here. Oh, he goes, uh, it's like power of isolate.

23:17

I guess he tweets, this is several tweets. He goes, uh, Steve Hasson says power of visualization to help motivate and direct us with insight and creative manifestations.

23:26

Yes, there are many mysteries. I have experienced fully formed poems coming out with any, uh, conscious intentional planning.

23:33

I believe in the power of the mind to control pain and speed healing after injury or surgery.

23:39

Likewise, stress, uh, excessive anxiety or worry is harmful to functionality. That's scientifically true.

23:45

Uh, the law of attraction is a belief that states that thoughts, feelings, and actions can create results in the world.

23:52

Advocates of this idea claim that concentrating on positive thoughts and committing to positive actions can bring about those desired changes to your life.

24:02

There is no scientific evidence to support the claim that positive or negative thoughts can create physical changes in the world.

24:09

Beware of anyone teaching this. Amen. You are close to the kingdom. What are your, give me your, what are your, what are your immediate thoughts on that?

24:18

Definitely. Um, there, there is no scientific, uh, you cannot find, um, rarely.

24:25

Okay. I don't want to say you cannot, you will find handpicked physicists who will agree with this stuff, but nobody who is teaching at a credible university, right?

24:36

So when, um, when the, when the law of attraction talks about science, right?

24:42

They kind of shoot themselves in the foot because first they'll say quantum physics proves the law of attraction.

24:48

Then they'll say, well, no, uh, the law of attraction is a natural law in the same way that gravity is a natural law, right?

24:55

So the reason that that contradicts is because quantum physics acts differently down at the quantum level.

25:01

Physics act differently at the quantum level than they do, uh, at the macro level that you and I are at now, which is, you know, uh, regular physics, right?

25:10

So whenever you have somebody saying that quantum physics or science proves the law of attraction, ask them how, right?

25:19

Like how, how does it prove it? Because there's at least a dozen different interpretations of quantum theory, right?

25:26

So you gotta ask them, all right, cool. Which, which quantum theory, you know, in, in quantum physics proves the law of attraction and you know, they'll give you whatever one that they think, right?

25:37

They say, then you could just ask them, all right, cool. Uh, write it out for me, write out the mathematics for me of, of that theory of quantum physics.

25:45

Then I would like you to write out the other theories that contradict that theory in, you know, give me the mathematics on it, get, you know, get a chalkboard, let's write this out.

25:53

And then I want you to compare and contrast why these theories are the wrong theories and that theory is the correct theory.

26:01

Nobody can do that. You know why? Because nobody knows quantum physics except quantum physicists, right?

26:09

So when these people are like, yeah, quantum physics proves it. Yeah. Okay. Show me the math, show me the mathematics on it.

26:15

You can't, right? And, uh, there's a quote that I have in my book from somebody whose name I will completely mess up.

26:21

So I got to make sure that I get it right before we record the audio book. But, um, he was quoting a colleague in which he said, if you ever hear the word quantum come out of somebody's mouth, who is not a physicist, you can be sure that you are going to get a whole quantum of BS dumped on your head.

26:36

Yeah. Right. And I'm sure that BS, he meant barbecue sauce and nobody wants barbecue sauce on their head. So these are, you know, uh,

26:43

Rhonda Byrne in the secret says, you know, she never really paid attention in school, but when she reads complex books on quantum physics that she fully understands them because she wants to, but it's so bugged out because even quantum physicists will tell you that yes, they can measure what goes on in the quantum realm.

27:06

They can predict things. But the reason there's so many different theories is because nobody knows exactly why these things are happening.

27:13

So all quantum physicists agree that they don't know which one is the correct theory. Obviously there's ones that they believe more than others.

27:20

But to just give a blanket statement of, yeah, quantum physics proves the law of attraction.

27:26

It's good if you're trying to sell something because I call it a smoke bomb, right?

27:31

Yeah. There's a, there's a, um, I look at it as, uh, the, the dark night rises.

27:37

Right. And, um, it's with when Bane, you remember what, when, uh,

27:43

Bane and Batman first meet and, uh, Batman shuts off the lights and he throws smoke bombs at Bane's.

27:50

You think darkness is your ally? Yeah, yeah. You think darkness is your ally? I was born in that time.

27:55

He was basically a robotic Sean Connery. Yeah, yeah. He said, uh, theatricality and deception.

28:03

Yeah. Powerful agents for the uninitiated. Yes. Yes, I might have put that more than once. I know.

28:09

I enjoy doing that. But, um, so we are not initiated into the quantum

28:14

Wu gang. Call it the Wu -Tang clan. Right? Like we, we don't, we don't know this stuff.

28:19

Yeah. You don't know it. I don't know it. And the regular everyday person who is believing the lies of the law of attraction doesn't know how to differentiate between the different theories of quantum physics.

28:29

So when they have somebody who has what they want in life telling them, Hey, this is true because quantum physics says it's true.

28:36

And here's like a basic description of why, you know, quantum physics says that it's true. You as an unsuspecting victim to their, uh, to their games, just believe it and say, yeah, quantum physics proves it.

28:49

Right. How do you differentiate? Well, and this is a question I would have too, is that in the law of attraction, you obviously were talking about worldview issues that we can definitely unravel and unpack.

29:02

But one thing that is just part of human nature is the fact that we are all incredibly suggestible.

29:08

Oh yeah. The power of suggestion. Yeah. So when you talk about auto suggestion, well, there's also self psychosis and self suggestion where there's people who think that they're well, but they're not.

29:20

Um, and, and, and as a, and have like actually created injuries upon themselves or put themselves in a worse place because they're delusional.

29:27

They think that they're okay to walk out of the hospital in the example when they shouldn't. But, uh, one example I'll give, and it was really interesting.

29:34

I remember, I can't remember what it was. I had, you know, I was in sort of that industry and niche and I had figured out this way to market on YouTube on YouTube.

29:44

It was like, I think it was like YouTube pay -per -click or YouTube promoted videos. And so you used to, you used to like pay like kind of Google pay -per -click, but you could pay to have like an ad in the upper right hand corner.

29:54

And I figured out a way to generate leads. And so people actually have this like mini course I created that was selling.

29:59

And so I actually had this, this couple, this group that flew me into LA to do a, uh, for their seminars that they're doing because they wanted me to be like part of their conference, like teach them how to do this.

30:11

And, but as a consequence, I had to hang around for like the entire, this conference that I had no interest in.

30:18

It was from eight in the morning to like seven at night. And I'm like, Oh, you know, get me out of here.

30:24

But it was interesting. And one of the times they did a visualization practice in the morning.

30:30

And I think if I remember they did something where you, you,

30:35

I think you stared at your like right hand and you basically said like, tell it, you told it to grow and he kept on saying, grow, grow, grow.

30:45

Then if any, you kept on doing it for like five minutes, then you'd like close your eyes and then you, and then somehow like your eyes, your mind would trick you to let your finger would actually like a look a little bit longer, but it was all like an optical illusion.

30:58

But it was trying, it was trying, it was trying to indicate that if you focus on something, it will become your reality.

31:05

But it's like, my finger is actually the exact same way. Like I self -suggested myself into a way.

31:11

So like, how do you, like, like how, like a lot of this, a lot of people, a lot of this can be like self -suggestion, self -psychosis and all the law of attraction, wouldn't it be?

31:19

There's a few things that happen. Right. And I forget the exact term for it, but prime example.

31:25

When, when I first started in, uh, in network marketing, I got introduced to the law of attraction, right.

31:33

And, um, there was a silver BMW that I could earn, right.

31:38

I could, you know, make enough sales and I'll get the silver BMW, which I eventually did get it. So, um, but when

31:44

I started focusing on that, I started seeing silver BMWs everywhere. Right. So in seeing all these silver

31:51

BMWs everywhere, uh, I, I started tricking myself into thinking that that's because I was going to get it.

31:58

And I don't know if I was not full blown into the law of attraction at this point. I had just like heard about it a little bit.

32:03

It wasn't until later on that I really, really got into it. But, you know, little things like that, where, you know, if, if, if I say, um, you know, blue Jeep, right.

32:16

Now you start seeing blue Jeeps everywhere. It's not because you're attracting it. It's because you're now aware of it.

32:21

Like it's, it's moved to the, the, the forefront of your mind. Right. I forget. I think it's like the

32:26

Bader Hoffman effect or something like that, where, you know, you, you, you have made yourself aware of something and now you're seeing it everywhere.

32:36

Right. Like, I want to, I really want a Bronco. I'm not going to buy one, but I really want a Bronco. Now me and my wife, we see

32:42

Broncos everywhere. Is that because the universe is, you know, attracting them to us? No, it's because we're aware that we want a

32:49

Bronco. So now we see it all the time. Right. Well, it's kind of like, there's times where we'd be in Mexico, like on a mission trip when

32:56

I was younger. And we, I think we were like in Mazatlan. We started playing slug bug. Well, a slug bug would be if you see like a, like a, like a bug, like a

33:05

VMW bug and all of a sudden, and you gotta, you gotta like punch buggy, punch buggy. Yeah. What people call that.

33:10

So all of a sudden it's like, we're, we're, we're like manifesting. We, we weren't trying to like to manifest these bugs into reality.

33:17

These VW bugs. We're just looking for a way to like, we're just trying to be the next person to punch someone. And now you see them everywhere.

33:24

Yeah. Yeah. That's very true. And to, uh, to go back on the whole, like self psychosis into, into thinking you're well when you're not right.

33:33

If, uh, if maybe at a point when you were working out, watching the secret, you might have paid attention to this, but there's a woman who said that she healed herself of cancer by using the law of attraction.

33:44

Yeah. That's where I'm like, this is starting to get into like Christian science territory. So it, it, you know, she said that, um, that she healed herself from cancer and, uh, just using the law of attraction.

33:55

Right. Her name is Kathy, Kathy Goodman. And it turns out that she actually died of cancer.

34:04

So here we have in the secret still being played today, this woman saying that she is healed herself of cancer by using the law of attraction and refusing modern medicine, just using the law of attraction.

34:18

Then she later dies of the same thing that she has told millions of people that she was healed from by using the law of attraction.

34:26

This is when you, you go from, you know, some of my, uh, former colleagues are like, John, why do you care so much about this stuff?

34:32

Just let people believe the law of attraction. Like who cares? So what are you talking about? If, if, if just like 1 % of the 35 million people who have, uh, you know, purchased the secret believe that they can heal themselves from cancer with just their thoughts, that means that there's tons of people who are now, um, running the risk of putting themselves in danger simply because they think they can think their way into good health.

35:04

And that was kind of one of the catalysts for me writing the book. When I, when I found that out, I was like, oh no.

35:10

And then you also go, you know, this is why I say it's a gateway drug to spiritual heroin. Another guy in the secret, uh,

35:16

James Arthur Ray, he, um, he has these spiritual retreats that he did.

35:22

Right. So he, he did this sweat lodge, um, event and three people died.

35:27

Was that the one Sedona? Yes. Yeah. He was in the secret. Yeah. Really? Three people died in the sweat lodge.

35:34

What's his name? He did, uh, James Arthur Ray. James Arthur Ray. But he was at, so he's actually in the doc.

35:39

Yeah, he's in the secret. I'm going to keep him. Yeah. I'm gonna see if I can find that. So, you know, people say, oh, is it really that serious?

35:46

Do you think that those people who, who died in that sweat lodge, do you think they just ended up there?

35:52

No, it's because they went down the rabbit hole of chasing spiritual high after spiritual high. Maybe they got introduced to new age spirituality by the law of attraction, but it's because they're searching for a breakthrough that they'll never find in this false spirituality, you know?

36:05

And, and they, they not only go to the sweat lodge, but they paid $10 ,000 each to go to it. So think about it.

36:11

If there's 50 people there paying $10 ,000 each, that's $500 ,000 that this dude made and two people die.

36:18

He actually did, I think like two years in jail for, uh, I think negligent homicide is. Yeah.

36:24

Yeah. It looks like he's still around. Like I just looked up. Oh yeah, he's, he's, he's rebranded himself and he's still out there doing, you know, teaching these courses.

36:32

And so this latest video with 24 views, uh, the modern alchemy podcast, 24 views.

36:37

Yeah. Too bad he hasn't manifested one, a not guilty verdict and two, um, you know, some more views, but you know, this is, this is why

36:47

I say that the law of attraction is a gateway drug to spiritual heroin. And once you're hooked on it, it's like you're just chasing spiritual high after spiritual high.

36:55

And if, if exposing this stuff can prevent one person from, you know, their, their sweat lodge experience, then,

37:01

Hey, let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so here's, here's another interesting thing too, is that, you know, even

37:09

I'm trying to just like pick up parts from the documentary I was watching at the very, very end there, they're, they're even giving it, well, the law of attraction is the way to like bring about world peace.

37:18

Oh yeah. Um, but it was like, okay, well, Raising the vibration. We need to raise the vibration.

37:24

Well, it's like, well, the standard of it's what you attract, right? Well, what about the people who want to, uh, who want war or let you talk about the military industrial complex, the people who actually want to create manifest wealth, but they work for a military contractor, they want to start focusing in and manifesting things that will make their business thrive.

37:46

Or all of a sudden it's like, Hey, I want to make, make my military contracting business succeed. And now, now we're in this war in Ukraine.

37:53

I'm just throwing a hypothetical, right? But it's like, now, uh, I have this opportunity. Now my company can make the grenades and make whatever, like a ship over there.

38:01

Like whatever the contract is like, that's part of, that's part of the nature of war, the military industrial complex.

38:06

But it's like, who's, who's the arbiter of what, what's manifested, what's not manifested.

38:12

It's more of an impersonal force, right? It's an impersonal force. And since it's an impersonal force, you can manifest whatever you want, which is why, when they try to use, um, scripture in order to, to promote what it is that they, what they believe, you know, they'll say, look, the

38:26

Bible says, ask and ye shall receive, believe that ye have it in it. And, and it's already yours. You know, they, they twist these scriptures, but they fail to, to realize that, uh, you know,

38:36

God does not deliver prayers that have sin, you know, attached to them. So, uh, there's a part in the secret where this guy wanted to, um, he wanted to attract three dates a week.

38:47

He wanted to date three women a week. And you and I know what he probably means by date. Right. And, you know, they said that they, that he used the law of attraction in order to do that.

38:57

Here's the thing. You cannot say that this is biblical and use these scriptures because God will not answer prayers like that.

39:04

Right. He will not answer, uh, you know, he will not deliver to you, um, for you to date three women a week and, and sleep with them because that goes against the, the way that we are supposed to, um, approach our relationships with the opposite sex, you know?

39:19

So when they, when they twist these scriptures in order to prove their point, they kind of prove themselves wrong.

39:25

But then also they don't believe in the God of the Bible. They believe in the pantheistic, uh, God that all is one and that he's, that you are

39:33

God, I am God. So they appeal to scripture, but scripture has a different God than the

39:38

God of the law of attraction. Hey, everyone. If you are watching this right now on Apology of Studios YouTube channel, you need to know that cultish would not be possible if it wasn't for this studio.

39:49

So if you want to support Apology of Studios, which also makes cultish a possibility for you to enjoy every single week here on YouTube, go to apology of studios .com.

39:59

You can become an all access member and you will also get a lot of great additional content, which will also help support the studio, which will allow cultish to be a possibility as well on a weekly basis.

40:11

So we thank you all for watching us. And now back to the episode. What are some other ways that, uh, it's a gateway to like other torches.

40:19

You said like spiritual heroin. So it's not just, you gave the extreme examples of like, not every single person's going to say why

40:24

I'm, I've listened. Like, I understand. I'm not going to end up in a sweat lodge. I'm not going to have these other things, but I, Hey, I've actually trying this and this is working for me.

40:32

But when you talk about other forms of, of counterfeit spirituality, for example, we mentioned in the previous series who did with you how everything tends to be kind of like step or real, they're all stepping blocks, but you can always reassemble them.

40:45

Yeah. Where does the law of attraction like take people in other ways, like spiritually in ways that are spiritually dangerous?

40:51

Well, yeah. I mean, if you just peel it back again to where it's rooted in, which is a cultism and uh, you know,

40:56

Helena Blavatsky and Satanism. And when you peel it all the way, all the way back to that and without trying to, you know, commit any genetic fallacies or anything, that's what it's rooted in.

41:05

Yeah. So when you start participating in this, it's like trying to separate, um, uh, the spirituality and yoga, you know, they're inseparable, right?

41:16

So when you start practicing in this stuff, it, it opens the gateway. One, I truly believe to the demonic, you know, you're, you're practicing something that is rooted in, uh, in a cultism.

41:28

So that's one thing. Then what happens, I call it the secret cycle, right?

41:34

When you first get introduced to the law of attraction, your whole entire life changes. Cause now you're like, what?

41:39

I got to start thinking positively. Let me think positively. Okay. Positive, positive, positive. And now you're this like more positive person.

41:45

You're on a spiritual high. You're, you know, thinking that the world is yours. You can bend the universe to your will.

41:51

You're a superhero. You're, you're thinking all of this stuff that eventually wears off, right? So when it wears off and you're, you're not seeing attraction, you're like, you're not attracting the things that you want.

42:02

You start looking for spiritual hacks, right? Like how do I hack the universe? And if you go searching, depending on what spiritual guru you ask, they're going to have a different answer for you, right?

42:14

Maybe you'll have to, all right, Hey, you got to buy these crystals. Make sure you wear this crystal on your necklace because it puts off the, the, the exact frequency that you need in order to attract what it is that you want.

42:25

So wearing it is going to affect the environment around you and you're going to attract it. So, you know, it can be as innocent as doing stuff like that.

42:32

Like, all right, now I'm going to buy, you know, these, these crystals and then I'm going to align all the crystals in my house.

42:37

Right. So it starts off like that, but then what happens? That wears off, right?

42:43

You're like, oh, this ain't, this ain't working. What do I, what do I got to do next? All right. Maybe I need a new book. I need a new guided meditation.

42:48

I need, you know, what, what's next? Then when that doesn't work, all right, what's next? Let me go, let me go to this seminar and where they're teaching the law of attraction.

42:56

Let me sign up for this law of attraction course. So I, so I can remove the blockages. Oh, wait.

43:01

So I'm, I have spiritual blockages. Oh, now I need to go to get, get a Reiki session to remove the spiritual blockages.

43:08

And it's just one thing after another, after another. Once the spiritual high weighs off, you're always chasing the first feeling, right?

43:13

That's why I call it spiritual heroin, because most heroin addicts, they're, they're no longer doing it because they, they want to be high.

43:21

They're doing it to avoid this, the, the bad side effects. But it originally started from trying to chase that first high that you can never achieve.

43:29

So with, with all new age spirituality, it's spiritual heroin because you're chasing that high, that spiritual feeling of, of, you know, essentially the ever elusive carrot at the end of the guru stick that they call enlightenment, you know, and you'll just, you'll pay whatever you'll pay to get it done.

43:50

You'll see whoever you'll see. You'll do whatever you'll do, uh, in order to attain the carrot at the end of the stick.

43:56

And it's, it's all worldly stuff. Yeah. What was some examples when you were kind of, when you kind of, because you initially,

44:03

I mean, you wrote the book, which, uh, that book, is that you're still working on getting that published? Yeah, it's right now it's being formatted and we're, we're looking for a

44:11

March, like late March, early, early April, early April release date.

44:16

Hopefully we can manifest that happening. Exactly. Exactly. Now, initially, you know, you're talking about that.

44:22

You wrote a book about the negatives, but initially you got into it, like believing this was like a real thing. Like what were some ways that you said, like initially, because, you know, you thought this is what was happening and it seemed to be kind of working at the beginning just because you had the perceptions of, you know, at that time, how did it sort of, what were areas where all of a sudden it started not to really,

44:44

I mean, it delivers a bag of good. It promises a bag of good, but not necessarily delivers. Yeah. Eventually, like how did it, what was a ripple effect?

44:52

Like tell, talk about like the negative aspects when you're thinking you're trying to make this work. Yeah. So when I first got introduced to it, it's funny.

44:59

I was just brought to a friend's house and then they like played a DVD and I was like, wow. And then the next day I thought like nothing of it.

45:06

I went right back to my life. Was it the secret? Yeah, the secret. Of course. That's how a lot of people get it, get into it. So anyway,

45:12

I had a, I had a point where business was going well and then I plateaued, right? And in business, all businesses plateau, right?

45:19

It's just the way it is, but I never did business before. So I had no idea. So I went seeking, you know, cause in and out law of attraction stuff,

45:29

I didn't really know it was the law of attraction. I knew it as the secret, right? But then it wasn't until I reached out to people that were in the company.

45:38

I'm like, Hey, I'm at this plateau. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And they're like, bro, you got to listen to the secret.

45:43

You got to do the law of attraction. And I was like, Oh, how could I have forgotten my one tool in my belt of, uh, in my

45:51

Batman belt that can help break this plateau. Yeah. Right. So I, I went all in on this law of attraction stuff.

45:58

I remember like vision boards and, uh, you know, just all in on it, listening to meditations.

46:05

And, you know, I even, um, was like humming because apparently humming, you know, the um, like it gets you on the vibration of the universe.

46:14

And so now you're attracting. Yeah. So I was just all in on it, but nothing was changing.

46:21

Right. Like it just, it wasn't delivering on it. And then I don't know what it was that made me want to look into the law of attraction and the, um, like the origins of it might've been this, the, you know, after digging into, um, the, you know, the truth of the gospel and everything, because I was a

46:43

Christian. So I was not a Christian when I was doing law of attraction. And then I became a Christian. Then I still was doing law of attraction stuff because I did not know that it was rooted in the occult or anything like that.

46:54

And so it wasn't until I started really just looking into it in my life. Wasn't, you know, wasn't amazing.

47:00

I didn't attract everything that they said I could attract. And I started looking into the origins and I was like,

47:06

Oh my gosh, this is bugged out. You know, finding out about Helena Blavatsky and finding out that they, um, that they believe that we are

47:16

God. And, uh, Talk about just real quickly, cause we just sort of mentioned her in passing. You did some research for her in the book.

47:23

Um, cause I, cause a lot of times you can sort of throw out a, uh, a name and without really knowing the context, it can be like a pejorative, you know, where it's like,

47:31

Ooh, Blavatsky. But the reality is like, she had a worldview. I think

47:36

Walter Martin talked about her. She was a Russian occultist and she was, had a huge role in really bringing, normalizing the occult here in the

47:45

West. Yep. Um, yeah. Tell everyone just about her. Yeah. So Helena Blavatsky was a Russian occultist.

47:51

She started the, uh, her and somebody else started the Theosophical Society, right. And it's, it's just a whole bunch of occultism, you know, um, pantheism, but with a real hate for Christianity.

48:04

And, and like digging in on witchcraft and, uh, you know, um, sorcery and she just really was into all of this stuff.

48:12

And what's, what's interesting too, is as interesting as Helena Blavatsky is, um, if you look at somebody like Aleister Crowley, right.

48:21

Who's, you know, he was labeled, um, uh, I think it was like the most evil man in existence or something like that.

48:29

Right. And there's parallels between them because as she is considered the mother of the new age and has done all this, you know, occultism stuff.

48:38

Uh, it's also said that Aleister, Aleister Crowley has added more to, you know, the mystical arts than anybody else.

48:46

And if you dig in on Aleister Crowley, he, he has, he got kicked out of Sicily for somebody dying after like a blood ritual, you know, and this.

48:55

Oh yeah. He has hands in a lot of places. Yeah. So when you have like Aleister Crowley, you have, um, you know, Phineas Quimby who actually triggered the new thought movement.

49:04

Yeah. Right. Um, you have all of these guys, all, all kind of interconnected. These, these, these are the founders essentially of this worldview that the law of attraction resides in.

49:16

So yeah, digging into Helena Blavatsky, I say in my book, somebody needs to make a

49:21

Netflix series out of her life because she traveled, you know, she supposedly traveled everywhere, like India and Bangladesh and like all these different places to learn, um, to learn about the occult and to kind of, she, she brought it to, uh, to the attention of, of, uh, a lot of like the modern society now, you know, and, and worked on normalizing it.

49:45

And there's people that are, that love her even still today, even knowing all the stuff that she said about Satan and how much she praises him and magazine called

49:54

Lucifer. They still love her. Yeah. Do you think that, um, this really is a, what really is what you want to talk about?

50:02

Like law of attraction, what attracts people to the law of attraction? Do you think it's entitlement? I think it's a,

50:09

I think it's lack, you know, um, we, we chase physical highs as well, right?

50:17

Yeah. Yeah. We chase spiritual highs with spiritual heroin, but in society we are, we are told that we're nothing if we don't have, you know, if, if we don't have the wife of our dreams, if we don't have the dream house, if we don't have, you know, financial abundance and all of this stuff, we're, we're told that, uh, we're not as good as other people.

50:36

Right. So here you have something that, that is offering you a solution.

50:42

Say, Hey, you could be these people. You could be better than them. All of the greats from the past believed in this.

50:48

And now here you have this hidden knowledge that nobody else has. You're automatically better than somebody else.

50:54

That was the very beginning of the secret. Yup. You know, you now have this hidden knowledge and now you can use this hidden knowledge to progress you in life, but it's all worldly stuff that is, that is offered to you.

51:06

But we try to fill, you know, we, we have a God shaped hole in our heart and we try to fill it with everything, but God, you know, and the

51:14

Bible says, I think it's in Ecclesiastes that, you know, God has placed eternity in the hearts of men.

51:20

And if we try to fill what is, um, you know, focused on eternity, if we try to fill that with anything temporal, it's, it's just, you're going to keep, you know, feeding stuff in and nothing is going to satisfy except Christ.

51:34

Yeah. Well, in, in the new age and in the occult, you know, it's, it's, like I said, it's very easy to sometimes you get sensationalized with the aspect where obviously it is demonic and it's satanic.

51:46

Yeah. But, but then you realize that the people who are trapped in this is like their image bearers of God who need to know

51:52

Jesus. And that's where Walter Martin said, we need to have compassion, the love of Christ for people who are seeking out for help, but not from thee, but from the forces of evil.

52:00

Like, I think though, in all of this is that there's always like the other edge of the looking glass, other glass, or like the rough end of the stick.

52:09

So in a sense for like someone who goes like astral projection or lucid dreaming, like a band cars talks, eventually that stuff turns in you and there's a dark side to all of this.

52:18

Yes. And I think there's also a dark side to the law of attraction because people want to like,

52:23

Hey, I want to manifest these things in the same way with a health and wealth, prosperity gospel when they don't get well.

52:29

Well, that's your fault. You didn't have enough faith. Well, yeah. So we're, we're, we're quickly where I'm going with this is that when in the law of attraction, when all of a sudden you get faced with life, like, like 2020 happened, there's a lot of people who died.

52:44

There's a lot of people who got laid off. There's a lot of people who lost their businesses. Like a lot of times there's things like outside of your control that like happened to you.

52:53

But if like the law of attraction takes you, it's like, Hey, this is all your fault. You brought this into your life.

52:59

And the only point of reference is you and you're, you're, you're your own savior, but you're overwhelmed that leads to depression and despair.

53:07

Yep. It definitely does. Especially because it's your fault. Yep. Right. And, uh, so I have a chapter in the book called, um, uh, false claiming.

53:16

Right. And there's a, all of these false claims that, that the law of attraction makes that are just not true, but then you have unfalsifiable claims, which the law of attraction banks on.

53:28

Right. Because if it's not working for you, it's not the law of attractions fault. That's your fault.

53:34

You're attracting all of this stuff into your life. Bob Proctor, um, was asked by, I think it was either

53:39

ABC or NBC. I have the quote in my book, but he was asked about a country that was full of starving children.

53:45

Right. And he's like, you know, the, the host asked Bob Proctor, do you think that the starving children have attracted this to them?

53:54

And Bob Proctor responded with, I think that the country has, and that's how you have to be when you subscribe to the, to that worldview is zero compassion.

54:06

And this is, this goes to the caste system in, you know, in India where it's like, you're born into this, you're staying at, at where you're at.

54:16

This is why they don't help the poor, why they don't do anything. It's because of, you know, karma, you've attracted this to you from your last life, you know, and that, you know, if you're in a place where let's say you're somebody who had a family member who died and you are, you know, this is, let's say this is somebody so close to you and you're somebody who wholeheartedly believes in the law of attraction.

54:41

Now you run the risk of blaming that person's death on you attracting it into your life because you attract everything.

54:51

You attract every car accident, you attract every job loss, you attract every good or bad thing.

54:56

But if you really think of it, the universe, quote unquote, doesn't have good or bad.

55:02

It's all subjective. It just gives you what you're focusing on.

55:08

So here you can find yourself in a depression of believing that this family member or this loved one died because you attracted it into not only your life, but their life, maybe from worrying about them dying.

55:20

Now you've attracted it. Right, right. And this is the logical conclusion that we come to when, uh, when you fully subscribe to a worldview like that.

55:28

Yeah. And here's an example too. And you talk about how suggestible people are. There's a book that I read a while back is called suggestible you and in it they gave this and I've talked about a couple of times they did this study and it was somewhere in California where they have a bunch of like, you know, outside of San Diego where they have like the wind turbines.

55:46

Have you seen those? Yeah, yeah. We have those in Puerto Rico. Okay. Yeah. Well, they, they, uh, I guess they're building up a bunch of new ones, uh, somewhere by this one town and they did an experiment where they told half of the town, um, that the, there's a bunch of studies that show that these town actually, it brought, you know, it, it pushes, it brings out all of the, uh, different allergens and stuff because of all the wind and it blows into the city.

56:11

So there's actually a lot of health risks and health hazards with, um, like with these with these, uh, turbines being built and they told another big portion of the town.

56:22

No, actually these, um, this is actually a really healthy thing because it's, it's, this is a safe green alternative to pollution and they gave them all the facts, all the data, all the manipulated data on both sides.

56:38

It was an experiment, a social experiment and literally like the people who got that, like got like the people who got the positive, a reinforcement of the, uh, of like these wind turbines, they started getting, feeling like very well and great and they actually show like they physically tested them and they showed that.

56:57

And then, but the other people who they gave all the negative implications of what this is, all of them were had like colds and these like respiratory health symptoms where it was just, it was because it, and I don't know, like some people would say, oh, well that's proof that they could, they manifested their reality.

57:12

No, I think that's proof that people can be duped and you can be suggestible. And that's part of, you know, even what

57:18

Steve Haslam warns about with like that. And that's why even a Haman, I'm not being a Christian, like he understands undue influence.

57:23

Like we all outside of a rep out, we all of us have the ability to be deceived and you have to have a standard outside of yourself because that's the problem with the law of attraction too, is that you're, you're the ultimate authority of like what's good.

57:39

Like who determines what good? Like you. Yeah. Well, what about the person who says, Hey, I want to manifest a wall, like a, some more money into my life.

57:46

Give me your wallet. Yeah. Yeah. Like where, like, where do you get the ethic from that? It's, it's bananas.

57:52

And it's funny that you're saying, you know, the, the power of suggestion. I remember even with crystals, there's like a, there was a,

57:58

I think it was a double blind study of where, um, they told people that these crystals were real and these ones weren't and whatever.

58:05

And they had them like meditate with them. And they, they came back to say, um, you know, did you feel anything?

58:12

Did you feel any energy from the things? And, you know, the people who were told that they were real crystals were like, yeah,

58:18

I did. And the people, um, who were the, the people who had the real crystals and people who had the fake ones, you know, they, they all experienced the same thing or whatever.

58:28

And it was literally just the power of suggestion. Right. Um, and then also people being duped, uh, one of these motivational speakers

58:36

I heard, he said, um, he said, deception wouldn't be deception if it were obvious. If you're being deceived, you're the last one to know, you know, and that is what the,

58:48

I would say the law of attraction system banks on because it's a money machine. You could go down the list of all of the contributors in the secret, right?

58:57

Just go down the list and see what they're doing with their lives. They are all selling, not all of them, but the majority of them are just selling law of attraction courses, manifestation courses, spiritual retreats, uh, life mastery courses.

59:12

It's like they don't have anything else except to sell you that you can manifest all the abundance of the universe.

59:19

But the only reason that they are quote unquote manifesting the abundance from the universe is because they're attracting money from your wallet into theirs.

59:25

Right. So it's almost like another, its own version of Scientology. Hey, pay five grand.

59:31

And these, these retreats, like no joke. Like it's like, I know people who are in that niche.

59:36

I know people who do like conferences for like five grand, five grand a pop. People would just rush the stage and they would just give their, you know, give their spiel.

59:46

And it's amazing what people would give over just to like experience a little bit of that. It's also FOMO, you know, fear of missing out.

59:52

Yeah. You know, if, if everybody else is on board, what are you going to do? Turn against it?

59:57

We go with the crowd. That's what people do. Well, that's also like another thing too, as we wrap up here, um, is that, uh, it's not just, it's not just a lot of attraction, but like the occult as a whole is just a huge, the amount, the amount of money that comes out of not just, you know, law of attraction, but even in the last series we did together, uh,

01:00:16

Santeria, um, like the amount of money that comes out of that, how much money like is in that industry?

01:00:22

It's like millions, billions of dollars, right? Just the new age industry alone, like spirituality is, is ridiculous.

01:00:29

I, this, this may be a misquote, but, um, I think it was like $8 billion or something like that at one point, which it, that I might be undershooting it, but I wrote it, um,

01:00:42

I read it in a, in a book that was comparing and contrasting different spiritualities. But yeah, the new age alone is like, it's a multi -billion dollar industry that people are,

01:00:52

I mean, just look at the self -help, you know, that's, that's the secular side of it that bleeds into, um, new age spirituality.

01:00:59

It's like one's right next to each other. And just, just that industry is a billion dollar industry.

01:01:05

And then you, you have people who are opportunists, you know, and they look at people as opportunity and say,

01:01:13

Hey, I know that you have some struggles in your life. I have the answers, pay me for it.

01:01:19

Yeah, no, that's huge. And in fact, um, what's, what's interesting too, is that like, it reminds me, uh, uh, just one last thing is that in the book of Acts, you talking about the industry, it's, it's idols, right?

01:01:30

So you think about, uh, one of my favorite passages in the book of Acts is, uh, I like,

01:01:35

I love it because it's the vantage point of, uh, of the church from like the enemy's perspective, people opposed to the church.

01:01:43

So if I was at, I mean, people get all, everyone gets so caught up in the chosen. I don't even think it's that great of a show.

01:01:49

I haven't watched the, uh, the new season. Yeah. So I, but anyways, I think that if I was to be in charge of like directing a series, because even

01:01:58

I understand people have like convictions about the second commandment and that sort of stuff. I would like to do, if I had, if I had the ability,

01:02:04

I would like to do a movie or series about the new Testament church, but strictly from the vantage point of pagans, it's all about them and them, like their lives being disrupted by like how the gospel is like changing their city.

01:02:17

And the reason my, my thought of this is that, uh, there's a vantage point in the book of Acts of Demetrius, the silversmith, and he gets everyone, this, this whole group of people that are like riled up together.

01:02:26

And this is like, this is like the idol industrial complex. And all of a sudden, like they're upset and they're pissed off because they're losing money because all these people are like, we don't need no idols.

01:02:38

We got Jesus. And so they're taking, there's the point in Acts where they put all the aisles together and they burn them and then whatever the amount of money it was, it was a lot of money at the time.

01:02:47

Right. And they, they didn't try and sell those off to like, Hey, we can use this to raise money for the poor. None of that.

01:02:52

They burned it. Right. And so there's a moment where he's like, if this keeps on happening,

01:02:58

Artemis, who's known throughout the world is basically going to become yesterday's news. And people are filled with rage and they're like, greatest

01:03:04

Artemis of the Ephesians. Yeah. And that's like the part of this, this, uh, industrial complex where it's like, the more you bring the gospel into this world is like,

01:03:13

I don't need that. Like I don't need to pay five grand. Yeah. Like I've been blessed with air, a spiritual blessing, the heavenly places.

01:03:20

And not only that is like, you have a cat and this is a whole nother thing, but you now have a cat, you now have an Orthodox and catalyst to understand suffering one to understand that, you know, one that is part, like God sometimes brings hardships and suffering into your life.

01:03:35

Um, but there's also times where stuff comes about because of your, because you're being dumb because you're being stupid.

01:03:42

And Dave Ramsey says, uh, you're paying stupid tax. Now you have to, now you have to take ownership responsibility and, and take care of it.

01:03:51

Like, you know, and, and, but do it in a way, and of course in a biblical way. Um, so yeah, man, there's a lot and just tell everyone, when does this book come out and where can people, uh, you know, what's going to be called or.

01:04:00

Yeah. It's called, uh, it's called law of attraction, a gateway drug to spiritual heroin. Okay. Yep.

01:04:06

And in it, I'd not only discussed the law of attraction, but how it's bled into the church, which I guess we can get into.

01:04:12

Um, yeah, we'll, we'll get into it. We, yeah, we'll get into that in the next podcast. And yeah, by the time this podcast drops, hopefully your book will be published by then web links in the description.

01:04:20

People can get it. I just skimmed through is really good. Didn't you send Josh Peck? Didn't he write the forward to it?

01:04:25

Josh Peck wrote the forward to it. He wrote the forward to Steven Bancroft's book too. Yeah. Well he, no, they, they partnered and they partnered.

01:04:31

Yeah. Yeah. He partnered with it. I was like, cause I know I haven't read his book, his book in a long time. And I was like, man, it sounds so good.

01:04:37

Then I remembered it. Josh Peck really helped me with, uh, with that book. That's awesome. That's awesome. All right. Well, I thank you guys for hanging out for part one.

01:04:43

We're going to jump into part two. We're going to talk about how the law of attraction hasn't been in the church. And I might even, uh,

01:04:49

I'm going to sort of do a roulette challenge of sorts. So I'm going to throw out a couple of Bible verses to say, well, wait a second, this proves the law of attraction and I'm going to,

01:04:57

I'm going to, I'm going to do a little devil's advocate here. So we're going to go out the fun, have some fun in the next podcast. All right.

01:05:02

If you guys enjoy the first part of this episode, definitely know what you thought. And as always, a program like this cannot continue without your support.

01:05:07

So please go to the cult to show .com, go to the donate tab, donate one time a monthly. All that being said, we'll talk to you next time on cultures.