The Secret® is a book and film based on positive thinking, drawing heavily on the New Thought spiritual movement. It claims to teach techniques for success that have been intentionally hidden. Critics argue that it has little practical effect and can be harmful.
The Secret® is the name of a book, a film and a popular technique for success. The book was written in 2006 by Rhonda Byrne, who has also worked on various other works for the New Thought spiritual movement, which traces its roots to the late 19th century. The Secret® draws heavily on an earlier book, The Science of Getting Rich, written in 1900 by Wallace D. Wattles, also a New Thought philosopher.
The principle behind both The Science of Getting Rich and The Secret® is that of positive thinking. Wattles called it “the sure way” and Byrne called it “the secret®”. This principle was based on Wattles who saw that he was able to use early New Thought techniques to help change a number of things internally and also to change his state of physical well-being. He then began to wonder if the same techniques could be applied to change things like personal success, wealth or relationships.
The idea is just that if you truly believe in something, you can achieve it. That positive thoughts attract positive actions in the world and negative thoughts attract negative actions in the world. Therefore, almost everything we experience in our daily lives can be attributed to our state of mind. The trick, therefore, is to learn to control our thinking, to keep ourselves positive through a series of exercises and learned behaviors, so that we can achieve the goals we desire.
The title of The Secret® comes from an internal claim that although these techniques have been known for centuries, they have been intentionally hidden away. While it is true that they have been known since at least the mid to late 19th century, when the Law of Attraction was heavily promoted by New Thought philosophers, there is little evidence that they were actively hidden. Many books were published prior to The Secret® outlining the same principles and many had relatively wide distributions.
The marketing campaign accompanying The Secret® was extensive, with a particularly massive online marketing blitz accompanying its release. This campaign used viral videos that promoted the idea that The Secret® could help people get rich by teaching them to change the way they think. These clips showed people who allegedly used the technique, describing how it changed their lives for the better.
Not long after the book, a film based on The Secret® also came out. The franchise shot to fame in the United States when Oprah featured him on her show, and quickly became a huge success that dwarfed many other self-help books. Many people continue to promote The Secret® as a set of life-changing practices, while others criticize it.
Most critics believe that the techniques provided in The Secret® have little or no practical effect on people’s lives and can in fact demean people into taking real actions that can help them. Someone in need of psychiatric or physical care, for example, might interpret some parts of the text to imply that they can simply think of ways out of their problems. At the same time, those in tremendous pain or severe hardship may interpret the book as telling them that they are responsible for whatever is happening to them, allowing negative thoughts to enter their minds.
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