Illusions and all that (self-help) jazz

I am a huge fan of Richard Bach and, in par­tic­u­lar, Illu­sions. That said, I’ve always had some issues with the prin­ciple that “we are all in con­trol of our lives” as a very apolit­ical pos­i­tion divorced from a com­plex socio-eco­nomic analysis.

Now, Salon has an excel­lent cri­tique of this philo­sophy gone mad in the shape of Oprah’s new favor­ite book The Secret.

Pos­it­ive think­ing is essen­tial to my well-being and to con­tinu­ing to fight beyond seem­ing set­backs. The idea that you can’t “catch” dis­eases unless you think them into your life is utter tripe.