What is the Secret?

It’s that ‘no one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public’. And since TV has turned us all into Americans these days, that goes for anyone hoping for a magic quick-fix to all their problems. Period.

What, you still want to know?

Ok, The Secret is one of the worst movies to be made in recent history. It begins as a breathy Australian chick with a photogenic cleavage discovers the miraculous Secret that all the great people of the past knew – Buddha, Emerson, Newton, Einstein etc – but which the Powers That Be prevented us from ever knowing.

What bastards. Just to think that you could have been, known or done anything you wanted but the Secret on just how was kept out of your hands by the power elite. Fortunately, now you have the power to help bring about ‘a new era for humankind’. You have to hand it to them, they’re not thinking small.

Or are they. The makers of the film, the Secret, worked out that, in the words of Karin Klein, ‘Americans are never too jaded for another get-rich-quick chimera’. Whilst ‘metaphysicians’ in the movie lecture us about we attract everything that happens to us, in the background hangs a pair of scales loaded with gold coins. Not the most subtle visual cue in the world but probably quite effective.

Of course there are always spoilsports like Catherine Bennett who believed that these themes of avarice and blaming the victim make The Secret a ‘moronic hymn to greed and selfishness’.

Thing is, in America, there’s a proud tradition of blaming people for being poor and adulating the wealthy, even if they did tread on a million poor people to get there. Check out the old sign that hung on the wall: ‘if you’re so smart, how come you aint rich?’

Or, as John Steinbeck put it, Americans consider themselves to all be ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’.

Thus what better than a movie that tells you how get what you want with plenty of positive thinking and creative visualisation. Particularly touching was the boy who cut out an ad for a bicycle that he desperately wanted and focused on it for month after month until he received it as a present. Presumably the Law of Attraction caused his parents to realise that the kid wanted his own wheels.

The makers of the Secret essentially realised that there was yet more gold to be mined in the niche of secret truths buried in the collected lore of humankind. Just like the Celestine Prophesy, the Da Vinci Code and the Bible Code, they reasoned that by quoting a whole bunch of historical figures like Plato and Newton out of context they could get the necessary authority to back up their own weak sales pitch. And the best thing about choosing figures from the past to reinforce your argument is that they can’t argue about it. They’re dead.

The real genius though came in calling this latest rewrite of the Positive Thinking manifesto, The Secret. It just begs the question. There are no longer many ‘secrets’, many possibilities and answers, there’s just one. And it’s available to you via their website www.thesecret.tv for $29.95. As Donavin Bennes, a prominent marketer said:

"We all want to be in on a secret. But to present it as the secret, that was brilliant."

Of course if they really wanted to help humankind the makers of The Secret could have made the film freely available after they made their first 5 million bucks – oh, but then we wouldn’t have found that inner motivation necessary for personal change…

If people want to believe this kind of thing, backed up by the all-important endorsement of Oprah Winfrey, that's okay. They can pay $29.95 to discover that life really is much more fun when you look on the bright side and that better things often do come to you. People like positive people and maybe there even is some invisible matrix of fortune, a serendipity that exists on some subtle level that you can unconsciously tap into.

But even if the quantum physics theories do stand up, we could only ever be partially responsible for what happens to us. A million people in Rhwanda weren’t all thinking negatively when they were killed in a matter of weeks in 1994. Winter comes around every year no matter how much you pray for a sun tan in January. In short, we live in a world where there are other people and other forces in action. What if two opposing sports fans both concentrate on their team winning? Well, presumably the one who wins will buy the Secret DVD and 50% is a pretty good sales average…

Or take this whole mania about getting rich. Rich is a relative term. Like strong or tall. If we all wished to be tall then no one would be tall or short any more. It’s all relative. In the same way, we can’t all be rich. There’s only so much money out there. If we all added three zeros to our current savings none of us would be rich or poor but we would have massive inflation.

The real problem with The Secret is that this kind of pop culture trash discredits any other philosophy or world view that even resembles it. People who are consistently victims do need to ask themselves why that is. The woman who manages to find three violent boyfriends in a row isn’t just plain unlucky, she’s good at spotting psychopathic types and inviting them into her life.

Likewise, people can manifest illnesses. Just as they can manifest cures. Check out the power of the placebo and how sugar pills have cured people of conditions that they’ve suffered for years. Even Prozac had to pass several tests before it could out-perform the placebo. But suggesting that people can re-grow kidneys and spinal tissue just by wishing for it is the worst kind of make-believe.

Still, we tend to focus on the good things that come into our lives and ignore the times when our theories don’t stand up. As Maureen Dowd commented, in a world of The Secret,

‘There will be parking spots for everyone.’

And Karin Klein reports her sister’s disapproval of her criticism of The Secret:

‘She, after all, had manifested a fine leather satchel. And I have to admit, if there were designer leather goods to be had out of this, I was interested.’

It seems fitting to end this slating of The Secret and the Shiny, Happy People in it (who make their living from pretending to show the rest of us the Light) with a quote from one of the ‘most important people in history’ who allegedly knew the Secret. And perhaps he did.

Take it away, Einstein:

‘Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.’