Before submitting The Secret for publication, Rhonda Byrne had brought together this supposedly life-changing information for her movie, The Secret, which has proven to be a phenomenon in its own right. However, I found nothing new in the secret since the central idea expressed in The Secret is reminiscent of the belief in The Power of Positive Thinking that was written by Norman Vincent Peale years ago. The Secret like Peale’s book centers on the concept of the “self-fulfilling prophecy, where people can bring things on to themselves by believing either positive or negative things and then stating them. Given that I cannot accept that negative thoughts was responsible for the deaths of all the people killed in the Holocaust as Ms. Byrne implies. One of the other problems I had with the book, however, is that the author took it a bit further than Peale did in that she expressed the thought that one can simply wish for something to be so and then expect it to happen which from my perspective is a little beyond reality. That is not to say that I don’t believe that you can achieve specific goals by beginning with a wish and then tailoring your actions and efforts towards making that wish a reality. Ms Byrne’s book is a perfect example of what I am saying, as she didn’t just wish for the book to appear she researched it, put her concepts into writing, and then found a publisher to fulfill her dream of publishing a successful book.

While what The Secret suggests has been found in literature, as well as, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries this is the first time, all the pieces of this philosophy have been brought together in book form with the intention of explaining to the reader how they can apply it to every interaction in their lives. However, I found it somewhat selfishly motivated with its primary focus seeming to be on acquiring wealth not on some new methodology to achieve a state of nirvana or a way to bring positive things into one’s life. For example an excerpt from page 6 states, “People who have drawn wealth into their lives used The Secret. Their predominant thoughts are of wealth. They only know wealth, and nothing else exists in their minds.” Then, a bit further, down that same page the author continues the thought with, “You may know of people who acquired massive wealth, lost it all, and within a short time acquired massive wealth again. …their dominant thoughts were on wealth…then they allowed fearful thoughts of losing the wealth to enter their minds, until those fearful thoughts of loss became their dominant thoughts.”

Another problem that I personally had with the book was that the author obscured the identity of God with the universe as to make them one-in-the-same. I do not know of other religious perspectives on God but I am fairly certain that none of them teach that God is the universe rather than an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent spiritual being.  Additionally, since the book is a compilation of opinions from a group of professionals in several fields, it would be more accurate for Ms. Byrne to present herself as the editor, rather than the author of the book.

Saying all that, I found the concepts expounded in the book beautiful examples of what we could achieve if we explored our potential, but felt that overall the book was somewhat dangerous for some readers as it failed to convey that simply wishing something, without doing something to make it a reality can only lead to disappointment. However, the success of this book shows how hungry we as a consumer based society are for someone to tell us that change happens magically without having to confront our demons and without taking responsibility for the life we created. Most of all though I think the book is objectively wrong in trying to spiritualize greed to the world’s largest consumer economy and implying that when bad things happen to people, it is their fault for thinking negatively. I further believe that anyone who buys this book in search of becoming successful is doing the exact opposite of what successful people do because successful people do not waste wealth on something that can deliver no rate of return. Instead, they invest their time, energy and yes money into something that will appreciate in value, therefore my advice - forget The Secret and check out The Circle by Laura Day where you will be shown how to write down your goals and make them happen.

Tags: the secret, rhonda byrne, philosophy, positive thinking, norman vincent peale, self-help book, self-fulfilling prophecy