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A lot of people are talking about a book called The Secret these days. It's a book that tells you that you can have anything you want in life by merely visualizing it internally. It's inspiring, it makes you feel like you're a Jedi Knight and can use the Force to bring personal wealth, fame, and happiness to you just by sitting quietly and imagining it.

First of all, how is this any different from praying? I challenge anyone to prove a functional difference among praying, wishing, and visualizing.

There's nothing new here. This is substantially the same content that you will find in many other books, chief among them The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. It's the same principles and methodology, and the same promises and unfounded claims.

But let's pretend for a moment that there is something new and exciting in The Secret. And lets say, despite a perpetual lack of supporting evidence, that it works reliably, predictably, and in all scenarios for all people. Hooray, we're all going to be rich! Or are we? How ego-centric and silly is it to expect that the Universe, being everything that exists across all possible dimensions, honors you above everything else it encompasses, so much so that it warps its natural path to suit your needs? And if everyone had the same wishes for fame and fortune and successfully visualized it and the Universe made it happen, then every person on the planet would be rich and famous, and no one would clean bathrooms or work in fast food restaurants or mow lawns. Imagine the fallout of everyone being a movie star.

Religious people already understand that wishing/praying/visualizing is merely a petition, not a command. They include "if it's Your Will" in their prayers, which provides them with a safety net for their beliefs, should their prayers go unfulfilled. So you prayed for something, but God The Magical Sky Daddy did not grant your wish, ergo it was not meant to be. This implies that there is a secret pool of possible wishes that can be granted, but only if you ask.

I wonder if the implication here is that the most successful people took a shotgun approach to wishing/praying/visualizing and stumbled fortuitously on all of the wishes that they were entitled to, upon request?

This thinking, no matter what book or religion or philosophy is pushing it, is dangerous. It is a philosophical diet pill; it is intellectual poison. It says, "You don't have to work hard over a lifetime to achieve success -- you just have to know the right way to wish for it!"

My last day at church was about 15 years ago. It wasn't a bad church, Episcopalian, newly remodeled, and the people there seemed nice. When I was younger, I served as an acolyte and participated in the services and ceremonies. When I was even younger, I went to Sunday school there. When I was born, I was baptized there. The church was familiar to me, and though I thought, as a teenager, that it was kind of boring and I hated getting up early enough on Sunday to go, I liked that church.

The priest was somewhat new at the time. I don't know if he's still there or not -- probably not, since priests and pastors tend to move on to other communities after a certain amount of time. In fact, that's how that particular priest came to that church; his predecessor had been there for nearly 20 years, and decided it was time to move on, and the new priest in turn had decided to move on from his original community. Oddly, they were both British. Throughout my childhood I thought that you had to be British to be an Episcopalian priest because the only two I'd ever known were both of the same origin.

I didn't know the new priest all that well, but he was one of those people who could remember every one of his flock, so he knew who I was. I felt guilty for not having gone to church more often. In fact, I half-expected some kind of rebuke from him even though he was a friendly guy. I had plans to leave out the side door after the service so I wouldn't have to shake his hand and explain my absence to him as I walked out with everyone else.

A little more than halfway through an Episcopalian service is a ritual known as "The Peace." The priest charges the congregation to have peace amongst them, and so everyone turns to the people around them and either shakes hands or hugs their fellow congregants and says "Peace be with you." To me it was terrifying and wonderful at the same time. Terrifying because I was deathly afraid of social situations, and wonderful because it was the only situation that I knew of where I could feel good about briefly meeting new people and wishing them well. I started out scared, and ended up feeling great.

My last day at church was the exception, and that's why I never went back. On my last day, I happened to be sitting on the end of the pew, near the windows. It was customary for the priest and other church staff to walk up and down the aisles during The Peace and get all of the people on the ends of the pews, who weren't surrounded by quite as many people and therefore had the privilege of being wished peace by the priest himself (or a seminarian, should the priest choose the other side of the room). I had been shaking hands with the few around me, wishing them peace, when I was taken by surprise by the priest -- there he was smiling, holding his hand out. I was immediately horrified that I hadn't seen him instantly, and instead of saying "peace be with you," I stammered: "Oh, hi!" He lost his smile. "It's not a greeting," he said. I don't recall if I corrected myself; I'm sure I did, so let's say I wished him peace in an embarrassed, sheepish tone.

When all the well-wishing was done and the priest took his place on the stairs in front of the altar, he informed the congregation that he was concerned that we thought The Peace was a greeting, and proceeded to inform us of its higher purpose. I felt like a complete and utter asshole; I was humliated. In retrospect, it's silly to feel that way because only the three or four people around me would have known who the subject of the public rebuke was. Still, I felt attacked for what amounted to an innocent and ultimately harmless mistake. I said "Oh, hi!" instead of "Peace be with you!" and that ended my church-going career, weak as it was at that late juncture.

I'm sure the priest said something to me as I left; I'd forgotten my plan to sneak out the side door. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible once the service was over. I may have apologized for screwing up The Peace, and he probably smiled and told me it wasn't a problem and that I shouldn't apologize. That seems like the thing he'd have done. But to me, that church had become a place of pain and embarrassment, and I never wanted to go back again.