Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2009, Page 55
cost is not a metaphor. And I would have to ask, ―What is New Thought without belief in
supernatural forces and magical thinking?‖ Price seems to believe there would be something
left to it. As I have gotten to know them over the years, New Thought practitioners are
particularly vulnerable to the ―alternative‖ healing modalities. This is not to say that my
Christian or Jewish cousins avoid alternatives (I am Roman Catholic).
Despite my personal reservations, I think Top Secret is both a penetrating criticism of the
topics and gurus covered and a subtle apologetic for the goals of the New Thought
theological seminary that the author teaches for (at this writing). As an example of what I
call his New Thought apologetic, Price finds some value in the advice of the neo-Kabbalah
guru Rabbi Michael Berg, or ―Madonna‘s Guru‖ (252):
In sharp contrast, I think, to the earlier advice to read the Hebrew text
uncomprehendingly, comes Rabbi Berg‘s suggestion that individual scripture
passages be memorized for meditation as odd moments through the day
permit. It is like chanting a mantra, but it has nothing to do with belief in
magical invocation. It is rather a technique to launder the inner speech of the
mind. All day long one is incessantly engaged in random chatter anyway,
much of it negative and critical. Why not run some detergent through the
machine instead? Why not think upon edifying texts, and thus alter one‘s
pattern of thinking and one‘s attitudes? ...If that sounds like the mental
techniques of New Thought, the similarity does not stop there. Rabbi Berg
believes that the habits of giving and sharing we must inculcate in order to
stretch ourselves for spiritual growth will, almost as a side effect, bring them
worldly compensations too. (263)
In other words, good thoughts with related good behavior can bring good results whether
you believe in a magical universe or not. What Price argues against is making this neo-
Kabbalah religion into a ―science‖ as if thoughts were quanta in the physical realms. He is
also against the implied blame-the-victim approaches endemic in many New Age/New
Thought cults: If the affirmation brings bad luck or you get sick and die, you must have bad
karma. It‟s your fault. You create your own reality. New Thought properly applied, Price
surmises, is a practical psychology and a social psychology, not a religious science. If this
strips New Thought of its magical elements, so be it, says Price, because it ―may be backed
up by recourse to more mundane, psychological conditions‖ (37). Price rightfully takes a
host of pop-gurus to task over this same misapplication of sympathetic magic (law of
attraction in The Secret) and they include Wayne Dyer and Shakti Gawain, as well as ―team
Secret‖ Berg, Chopra, Tolle, and Chödrön.
Through Price we learn that Joel Osteen falls into the New Thought milieu as an heir to the
preaching of Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, and more recently Reverend Rick
Warren (The Purpose Driven Life). Price does a remarkably good job exposing Osteen‘s
message for what it is: New Thought recycled, cosmetically theological, ornamentally
scriptural, dubiously anecdotal as to evidence, inconsistent, and superstitious. Of all the
chapters, this one finds Price reaching his stride best as scholar and social scientist. Price‘s
theology-geek humor spills out (I thought it was funny) when he shows how Osteen the
Bible preacher in Your Best Life Now was ―scripturally accurate.‖ Osteen inadvertently
reflects a passage that Price says is found nowhere in the Bible but is found in the Buddhist
Dhammapada. (283)
I said earlier that the topic of Top Secret was inscrutable, meaning that when human beings
mine transcendental territory, they often come back with fools‘ gold. It is not so much what
they find as what they pretend to find. Mystical experience is what it is, whatever it is but
whenever human beings dumb it down into familiar images or native language, the result
can seem lofty or bizarre. We may sometimes find elegant poetry (Dante, Lao Tze, perhaps
cost is not a metaphor. And I would have to ask, ―What is New Thought without belief in
supernatural forces and magical thinking?‖ Price seems to believe there would be something
left to it. As I have gotten to know them over the years, New Thought practitioners are
particularly vulnerable to the ―alternative‖ healing modalities. This is not to say that my
Christian or Jewish cousins avoid alternatives (I am Roman Catholic).
Despite my personal reservations, I think Top Secret is both a penetrating criticism of the
topics and gurus covered and a subtle apologetic for the goals of the New Thought
theological seminary that the author teaches for (at this writing). As an example of what I
call his New Thought apologetic, Price finds some value in the advice of the neo-Kabbalah
guru Rabbi Michael Berg, or ―Madonna‘s Guru‖ (252):
In sharp contrast, I think, to the earlier advice to read the Hebrew text
uncomprehendingly, comes Rabbi Berg‘s suggestion that individual scripture
passages be memorized for meditation as odd moments through the day
permit. It is like chanting a mantra, but it has nothing to do with belief in
magical invocation. It is rather a technique to launder the inner speech of the
mind. All day long one is incessantly engaged in random chatter anyway,
much of it negative and critical. Why not run some detergent through the
machine instead? Why not think upon edifying texts, and thus alter one‘s
pattern of thinking and one‘s attitudes? ...If that sounds like the mental
techniques of New Thought, the similarity does not stop there. Rabbi Berg
believes that the habits of giving and sharing we must inculcate in order to
stretch ourselves for spiritual growth will, almost as a side effect, bring them
worldly compensations too. (263)
In other words, good thoughts with related good behavior can bring good results whether
you believe in a magical universe or not. What Price argues against is making this neo-
Kabbalah religion into a ―science‖ as if thoughts were quanta in the physical realms. He is
also against the implied blame-the-victim approaches endemic in many New Age/New
Thought cults: If the affirmation brings bad luck or you get sick and die, you must have bad
karma. It‟s your fault. You create your own reality. New Thought properly applied, Price
surmises, is a practical psychology and a social psychology, not a religious science. If this
strips New Thought of its magical elements, so be it, says Price, because it ―may be backed
up by recourse to more mundane, psychological conditions‖ (37). Price rightfully takes a
host of pop-gurus to task over this same misapplication of sympathetic magic (law of
attraction in The Secret) and they include Wayne Dyer and Shakti Gawain, as well as ―team
Secret‖ Berg, Chopra, Tolle, and Chödrön.
Through Price we learn that Joel Osteen falls into the New Thought milieu as an heir to the
preaching of Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, and more recently Reverend Rick
Warren (The Purpose Driven Life). Price does a remarkably good job exposing Osteen‘s
message for what it is: New Thought recycled, cosmetically theological, ornamentally
scriptural, dubiously anecdotal as to evidence, inconsistent, and superstitious. Of all the
chapters, this one finds Price reaching his stride best as scholar and social scientist. Price‘s
theology-geek humor spills out (I thought it was funny) when he shows how Osteen the
Bible preacher in Your Best Life Now was ―scripturally accurate.‖ Osteen inadvertently
reflects a passage that Price says is found nowhere in the Bible but is found in the Buddhist
Dhammapada. (283)
I said earlier that the topic of Top Secret was inscrutable, meaning that when human beings
mine transcendental territory, they often come back with fools‘ gold. It is not so much what
they find as what they pretend to find. Mystical experience is what it is, whatever it is but
whenever human beings dumb it down into familiar images or native language, the result
can seem lofty or bizarre. We may sometimes find elegant poetry (Dante, Lao Tze, perhaps
