The Secret Movie conceived and produced by Rhonda Byrne took the world by storm in 2006 proclaiming that it was bringing a great insight to the world which it implied up until then had been hidden or otherwise withheld from the common people.   The Secret being The Law of Attraction.

The reality is that there never has been such a “secret”.

At the beginning of the movie Rhonda makes a reference to being given a small hundred year old book by her daughter which fired her imagination and set her on the path to discovering “The Secret”.   The listener is left wondering what the book is but the movie moves on at a rapid pace and that question is soon forgotten and overshadowed by the information being presented.  I think her failure to divulge the title of this book was just part of building a sense of mystify around this supposedly secret information.

Rhonda has since acknowledged the actual book as her major inspiration for The Secret in an interview on the Oprah Winfrey web site.   The book is called The Science of getting Rich by Wallace Wattles and was first published in 1910 so not yet 100 years old but already on the public domain.

The fact is The Science of Getting Rich has never been out of print and is one of many publications over the past hundred years containing much the same ideas and all freely accessible to anyone interested.

Anyone that watched the film will remember the sensational opening sequences portraying the alleged history of the secret which included the Emerald Tablet being copied and buried, a knight Templar giving a scroll to a priest, an alchemist, St. Germain, Rosicrucian Order, drawing of Azoth and a modern board room where sinister looking businessmen are holding an apparently secret meeting.   This is all meant to convey a conspiracy to withhold this information from us.

It is true that many of the ideas portrayed in The Secret do have a long historical pedigree and can be found in the writings and teachings of philosophers and sages throughout the centuries.

Proponents of the Law of Attraction have been able to pull supporting quotes from just about all the major religious teachings and philosophical works.  Some of the quotations used are open to interpretation and the proponents claim they were not originally understood but this argument works both ways.  In many cases these quotations are taken out of context and viewed in isolation of the author’s full belief system which often included other ideas that are in conflict with the overall message of The Secret.  Yet it is implied that all these historical figures also knew The Secret.

Even referring to the ideas as a “secret” is not new.   One of the highest profiles in The Secret is Bob Proctor and he is seen by many as one of its greatest proponents.  Learn more about Bob and you will discover that his teacher and mentor was Earl Nightingale and when you go back and listen to his original material you will immediately notice that  Bob’s has borrowed heavily from his work and this is perfectly acceptable and readily acknowledged by Bob who holds Earl in the greatest reverence.  In the 1950s Earl published a work called The Strangest Secret and the message is that our thoughts create our reality.

The idea of The Law of Attraction is part of a metaphysical New Thought movement that began in the United States in the late nineteenth century which focused on the power of positive thinking and the law of attraction using creative visualization.  This was far from being a secret movement but it wasn’t until Rhonda produced The Secret that the ideas of the New Thought movement received widespread publicity making The Law of Attraction a household phrase.

For me The Secret is more like a grade school first reader.  While the ideas presented are powerful and for many revolutionary they are an over simplification of things and like a first grade reader a great place for anyone starting out but quickly out grown once you have grasped the basics.

While many people are fast to criticize the simplistic approach of the movie I have great admiration for how the movie was able to cover and communicate so many powerful ideas to such a mass audience in just 87 minutes.  It should be considered nothing more than an introduction and in that context it can be considered a brilliant production regardless of what you think of the ideas it promotes.

If the idea of The Law of Attraction has some resonance with you then I encourage to you go beyond The Secret and look at some of the material of the people featured in the movie such as Mike Dooley and his Infinite Possibilities audio book which I highly recommend.  You can read more here about Mike Dooley’s  Infinate Possibilities

If you reject the idea of The Law of Attraction then you can simply continue on with whatever belief or even lack of belief system you currently have but you are mistaken if you believe you understand it based on watching the movie alone.

In my opinion Rhonda Byrne is not some great self-help guru or enlightened one.  She did not bring any new ideas or insights of her own to the movie.  She is simply a brilliant producer and marketer. The phenomenon that is called The Secret has earned her place in history and there is one thing for certain – after The Secret no one will ever again be able to market these ideas as some sort of secret.