Overhauling with Oprah

At a Starbucks coffee shop on Montgomery Avenue in Bala Cynwyd, Lorna Levy is explaining how to harness your thoughts to manifest wealth, combat cancer, and account for, but not eliminate, hunger and suffering in the world.

"Whether or not we are conscious of them, our thoughts create our reality," explains Levy, a technical writer from University City, whose true passion is in leading gatherings such as the one she's organized this night - a group of nearly two dozen men and women who came together through Meetup.com about a year ago.

Levy's is one of 37 groups in the area studying the Law of Attraction, a centuries-old belief popularized most recently in The Secret by Australian talk-show host Rhonda Byrne.

Thanks to Oprah (yes, that Oprah), who featured Byrne on her show last year, there are already hundreds of such study groups nationwide.

And now comes Phase 2.

Winfrey, who features self-help books all the time on her show, for the first time selected one as her Oprah's Book Club pick - A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, by Eckhart Tolle.

And, Winfrey has made Tolle's tome the focus of a first-ever, 10-week online interactive class on Oprah.com. The fourth class session is tomorrow at 9 p.m.

"I think this can change the world," Winfrey told listeners.

She often speaks in superlatives, but with A New Earth, her words took flight: "Groundbreaking . . . A wake-up call for the entire planet . . . Revolutionary . . . The most significant thing I've ever done."

Oprah's Book Club started in 1996 and each of her picks has become an immediate best-seller. But this time the sales figures are even more notable.

Penguin Press released the paperback in August 2006 and sold 160,000 copies in the first six months - until Oprah announced it as her Book Club pick on Jan. 30. Then sales jumped to 4 million, in a matter of weeks.

Barnes & Noble reports selling more copies of A New Earth than any of Oprah's other picks.

And when the virtual doors to Winfrey's class opened at precisely 9 p.m. Philadelphia time on March 3, half a million people in 139 countries stormed in. All those simultaneous log-ons created traffic jams and computer freezes and as a result, thousands reported being unable to view or participate in the program. With that problem fixed, the folks at Harpo Productions now report that more than 2 million have experienced the classes, which continue through May 5.

But here's the head-scratcher. All this fuss is over a book whose text is confounding. Consider this, on Page 5:

"Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals . . . transparent to the light of consciousness?"

Say what? At least The Secret delivered its message in easy-to-digest, bite-sized snippets, with an accompanying DVD.

"It's a little difficult," Winfrey said of Tolle's book. "Don't expect to immediately understand this book. But keep at it, because we need to change the world."

So, what's the big secret?

That there exists a Law of Attraction, a concept as true as gravity. That when used properly, the law turns thoughts into reality. And that every sage since the beginning of time has known this to be true - but kept it hush-hush.

The Secret encourages "using the Universe [also known as God or Source] like a catalog. You can pick whatever you want and draw it to you." As evidence, the DVD version shows bright red sports cars and lavish beach homes.

The idea is not new. According to The Secret, Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, Hugo, Beethoven, Lincoln, Emerson, Edison and Einstein were aware of the Law and used it to their advantage.

The Law applies to negative as well as positive thoughts, conscious as well as unconscious. And because it relies on the Universe to provide, the individual is off the hook, so to speak. It's about receiving, not achieving.

If manifestation goes both ways, that means the millions who live in underdeveloped countries without access to clean water or vaccines actually intended that life for themselves, Levy says.

Cancer, spinal cord injuries - all are intentional, according to this belief system.

"In some lives we're crippled or retarded," Levy says. "In another life we may be brain surgeons."

And we choose these lives not because we're on a path to heaven or hell, but simply for the experience.

"There is no final destination, no location we're moving toward," Levy explains.

Those ideas can sound harsh and difficult to accept, says group member Lora McKenna, and that's because Americans culturally value sacrifice more than pleasure.

The Law of Attraction emphasizes "self-love and feeling confident of your place in the universe," Levy adds. "When you get that you realize the money is not important. This is about personal satisfaction."

"This teaching brings me into my soul," says McKenna, adding that she has been studying the teaching for 20 years.

Group member Kim Moore says the Law of Attraction is about finding joy in life.

"And your joy might not be about money," Moore said. Women far outnumber men in Law of Attraction and now, A New Earth groups, probably because women have always had a greater propensity to talk intimately with strangers.

Peter Ashman, who attended the March gathering with Levy, says he wants to use the power to get a Range Rover and, so far, has manifested enough of a jump in his credit rating to lease a truck.

Tolle's book is less focused on material goods and more serious about evolving to another level of consciousness. An English-born Buddhist now living in Canada, Tolle says humanity is in a sorry state because of individual egotism. That situation can be reversed, he says, through a shift of consciousness achieved by reading his book.

Calista Dorsey, who read Tolle's book in 2005, favors that approach.

Dorsey is organizing a series of panel discussions, designed for people without Internet access, at the Center of Peace, a transdenominational spiritual community in East Falls.

She says the teachings have helped her become more accepting of others and herself, more confident in her abilities, and clearer in her decision-making.

Still, like The Secret, A New Earth contends that if readers are confused, it is because they themselves "are not ready" for such a mind-altering concept.

That's just "blaming the victim," says Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of popular culture.

"The parts of The Secret that focus on gratitude, personal responsibility, and living the examined life - these are good ideas," Thompson says. "The rest is shameful snake-oil salesmanship."

The concepts in The Secret are popular, Thompson says, because Americans are basically gullible.

"With the exception of Native Americans and slaves brought here against their will, this is a nation of immigrants - people who came from the old country because they heard and believed the streets were paved with gold.

"The founding of this country was one big self-help project," Thompson says.

Andrew Newberg, who studies the biology of belief and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania in both the School of Medicine and the Department of Religious Studies, says that like many popular ideas, this one hinges on an element of truth.

There are indeed measurable changes in the brain that can be linked to our beliefs, says Newberg, coauthor of Why God Won't Go Away (Ballantine Books, 2001).

In studies of "distant intentionality," the academic term for being able to effect things at a distance, such as praying for someone to get better, Newberg says only a minuscule positive effect has been found.

"If you'd been wishing for a million dollars, you'd get 10 cents," he says. "That's how small the effect is."

"People have been interested in these things forever," because we live in a world that is ultimately very scary. We never know when a car is going to cross the median and kill us. And these ideas offer some control."

In addition, he says, Oprah's endorsement carries particular weight because she is seen as someone who achieved success against all odds, and that's something many people would like to emulate.

On the other hand, Newberg says, "it does upset me to hear that the people in Darfur are there because they want to be."

Ashman counters that manifesting wealth for oneself is akin to donning your lifejacket on an airplane before helping your child.

"If I'm poor," he says, "how can I help you?"

You can participate in a University of Pennsylvania online survey of spiritual experiences at Neurotheology.net.

Lorna Levy's Law of Attraction group meets 7 p.m. the first and third Thursdays of the month at Starbucks, 138 Montgomery Ave., Bala Cynwyd. www.thelawofattractionteacher.com.

A new Ambler-area group meets 7 p.m. the first Thursday of each month at Sweet Bytes Cafe, 28 N. Main St., Ambler. http://lawofattraction.meetup.com/575

The Center of Peace series, designed for people who do not have Internet access, meets 6:30 p.m. April 4 and 8 at 4700 Wissahickon Ave., Philadelphia 19144; 215-843-7707.

Oprah Winfrey's 10-week online study of A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle continues Monday nights through May 12 at Oprah.com. Previous sessions can be downloaded there.

A 90-minute film version of The Secret can be viewed online for a onetime fee of $4.95 at Thesecret.tv. The first 20 minutes of the film are available free on Youtube.com - and there's a lighthearted parody, Secret Secrets of the Secret Revealed by Mark Day, also on YouTube.

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