A Review of 

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

by Donald S. Whitney

Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (New York: Atria Books,

2006) 198 pages.
A video by the same title was released earlier in 2006.
I had never watched an entire episode
of Oprah until her program on The Secret.
In the promo for the show, Oprah
announced that the program would present
"the secret" to making more money, losing
weight, finding the love of your life, and
achieving job success. Who could resist
hearing more about such a claim, especially
when it is made by the most influential woman in America
and touted as the key to all her success? Apparently I
wasn't alone. After the show, Oprah's website was
overwhelmed, emails poured in, and within hours The
Secret had become the best-selling book in the nation.
A week later, while unpacking in a hotel room, I powered
up the TV. Oprah and two guests from the week before
appeared on the screen, effusive about the transforming
power of The Secret. Her website called the episode, "A
follow-up to the show everybody is talking about!"
People are not only talking about The Secret, they are
buying it. I am writing this review in a Barnes & Noble
bookstore, and this particular branch has completely sold
out of the book—again. Only two days ago—so I am told
—a storewide announcement assured a horde of anxious
shoppers that another large shipment of the book had
arrived and would be brought to the sales floor
momentarily. Readers quickly grabbed every copy. Almost
impossibly, The Secret is even outselling (at this writing)
the final Harry Potter book. And if that weren't enough, the
audio edition of the book follows these two as the nation's
number-three seller.
The Australian author of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne,
introduces the book by admitting, "A year ago, my life had
collapsed around me" (p. ix). Through searching for
answers in a variety of books new and old, she began to
trace what she believed was a common thread in them all.
She dubbed it the "Great Secret—The Secret to Life" (p.
ix).
Byrne became convinced that this was the key to
explaining the success of "the greatest people in history"
(p. ix). As she started practicing this secret, Byrne says
that her life immediately began to change in ways nothing
short of miraculous. She decided to make a video
called The Secret to share her discoveries with others. In
March of 2006 it was released on the Internet, but soon
went to DVD. By late autumn, the phenomenal success of
the video placed it on two episodes of Larry King Live.
Shortly after, two of the teachers featured on The
Secret were guests on Ellen Degeneres' daily TV show.
Before Christmas, The Secret DVD had spun off a book by
the same title which Oprah Winfrey catapulted to the top of
the charts in February of 2007.
The essence of The Secret is "the law of attraction."
According to Byrne and the twenty-nine co-contributors
whom she quotes extensively, everything in the Universe
(which is always capitalized and usually synonymous for
"God") vibrates on a particular frequency. When you think
in harmony with the frequency of something, you attract it
to you. If you think about wealth, you will receive wealth. If
you think instead about your debt, you will receive more
debt. You attract what you think about; your thoughts
determine your destiny.
Byrne restates the law of attraction in various ways:
"Nothing [good or bad] can come into your experience
unless you summon it through persistent thoughts" (p. 28).
"Your thoughts are the primary cause of everything" (p.
33). "Your current reality or your current life is a result of
the thoughts you have been thinking" (p. 71). According to
the product description on the DVD, "This is The Secret to
everything—the secret to unlimited joy, health, money,
relationships, love, youth: everything you have ever
wanted.
Byrne promises with ironclad certainty: "There isn't a
single thing that you cannot do with this knowledge. . . .
The Secret can give you whatever you want" (p. xi). By it
"you will come to know how you can have, be, or do
anything you want" (p. xii).
In the final analysis, The Secret is nothing more than
Name It-Claim It, Positive-Confession, Prosperity
Theology (without God and the Bible), built on a
foundation of New Age self-deification. In other words,
the book is just another version of what some TV
preachers have taught for decades, namely, if you will
sustain the right thoughts, words, and feelings, you will
receive whatever you want. But The Secret adds this
important twist: your thoughts can bring anything into your
life because you are god.
Books that promise health and wealth for their
practitioners are published every day. But few associate
such promises with Byrne's breathtaking audacity. She
proclaims to her readers,
You are God in a physical body. You are Spirit in the flesh.
You are Eternal Life expressing itself as You. You are a
cosmic being. You are all power. You are all wisdom. You
are all intelligence. You are perfection. You are
magnificence. You are the creator, and you are creating
the creation of You on this planet (p. 164).

If that weren't blasphemous enough, realize that the book

your neighbors and coworkers are reading more than any
other also tells them,
The earth turns on its orbit for You. The oceans ebb and
flow for You. The birds sing for You. The sun rises and it
sets for You. The stars come out for You. Every beautiful
thing you see, every wondrous thing you experience, is all
there for You. Take a look around. None of it can exist,
without You. No matter who you thought you were, now
you know the Truth of Who You Really Are. You are the
master of the Universe. You are the heir to the kingdom.
You are the perfection of Life. And now you know The
Secret (p. 183).

This would be beautiful if it were addressed to the God of

Heaven. But as Byrne thinks this is what we should say to
the person in the mirror, it is the heresy of heresies. Her
"Secret" is nothing less than Satan's original lie in the
Garden of Eden, "You will be like God" (Gen. 3:5).
It is no exaggeration to say that this book implicitly (and
sometimes explicitly) denies virtually every major doctrine
in the Bible. For starters, the authority of Scripture is
undermined in The Secret, because the Bible apparently
has value only insofar as it (according to Byrne) teaches
The Secret.
Moreover, the Bible is neither unique nor supremely
authoritative, for Byrne maintains that the holy book of
every religious tradition contains The Secret. Thus Byrne's
teaching is eclectic, that is, she believes that all religions
and their scriptures are equally valid in their authority and
basically teach the same thing.
Without mentioning Jesus, she quotes Him in Matthew
21:22 and Mark 11:24, claiming that the teaching to ask,
believe, and receive in prayer is the way to "create what
you want in three simple steps" (p. 47). And of course, it is
not God we're to ask, but "the Universe." Thus The
Secret is pantheistic, that is, it teaches that God is not a
Person; rather He is to be equated with the totality of
everything.
Despite this brief nod to the Bible, Byrne's book is
marketed upon the implication that readers probably would
never discover The Secret on their own. "It has been
passed down through the ages, highly-coveted, hidden,
lost, stolen, and bought for vast sums of money. . . . Now
The Secret is being revealed to the world" (from the back
cover). Thus the book is Gnostic, that is, it makes you
dependent upon a small, elite group (namely, Rhonda
Byrne and her panel of enlightened experts, "avatars," and
relatively obscure historical sources) to tell you what you
need to know. In fact, in true Gnostic style, Byrne and her
illuminati expressly refer to what we need to know as a
secret—"the Great Secret." And of course, you must pay—
in this case, the price of the book or the DVD—to learn
The Secret.
There's no mention of sin in The Secret. The cause of all
the problems in the world and in our individual lives is
merely bad thinking, specifically the failure to recognize
and appropriately use the law of attraction. Therefore the
solution to everything lies within us. And that, of course,
eliminates the need for a Savior, a Substitute, or a
Sacrifice. The cross and resurrection of Jesus become
irrelevant.
Curiously, there's not a single reference to death or the
afterlife in the book. Apparently this is a non-issue for
contributors to The Secret, for one of them assures us, "no
one will stand in judgment of [your life], now or ever" (p.
177). Another, when questioned about this on Oprah's
second show on the book, suggested that Heaven and
Hell were present experiences, not future destinations.
So as with nearly all false teaching, the flaws of The
Secret are most visible when you examine what it has to
say about the Bible and Jesus.
If I had to commend something about The Secret, I would
mention its emphasis on gratitude and the importance of
the thought life. Byrne devotes several pages to "The
Powerful Process of Gratitude" (pp. 74-80). Though she
does not base it on the Bible, Byrne nevertheless
encourages just what the Bible teaches in 1
Thessalonians 5:18, "in everything give thanks." She says
that regardless of the situations awaiting her, "By the time
I am ready for the day, I have said 'Thank you' hundreds
of times" (p. 76). Remarkably, she never says to whom
thanks should be given. Nor is her motivation kindred to
the one stated in the verse above: "this is God's will for
you in Christ Jesus."
Regarding the thought life, The Secret reminds us that
there is a powerful connection between our thoughts and
our actions. While the thoughts Byrne wants us to repeat
are typically contrary to Scripture, she rightly observes that
the thoughts we constantly affirm influence our feelings
and our behavior. This conforms to the declaration of
Scripture that Christians are "transformed by the renewing
of your mind" (Romans 12:2). For us to live for the glory of
God and in increasing conformity to Christ requires not
only that we grow in our knowledge of God's Word, but
also that we constantly reaffirm specific truths of Scripture,
despite feelings or circumstances that contradict them.
The problem with The Secret is that it focuses our hope
selfward and not Godward. It is all about self-
empowerment, self-fulfillment, and getting whatever we
want. But Jesus warned, "For what will it profit a man if he
gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" (Matthew
16:26). The Secretdisregards the fact that God has a Law
and we have broken it (James 2:10). What Byrne fails to
realize about her law of attraction is that our sinful hearts
deceive us (Jeremiah 17:9) and attract not only more sin
and guilt, but ultimately, the wrath of God.
However, God in His mercy sent His Son to receive this
wrath as a Substitute for all who will repent of their
selfishness and believe in Him. And "through the true
knowledge of Him"—not Rhonda Byrne's book—"His
divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life
and godliness" (2 Peter 1:3).
"The Secret to everything" (to use Byrne's term) is God
Himself. And God, the "Great Secret," has been revealed
in Jesus Christ, "in whom are hidden all the treasures of
wisdom and knowledge" (Colossians 2:3). God has freely
told us in the Bible everything we need to know about
discovering the unlimited "treasures of wisdom and
knowledge" found in Christ. And He remains an unknown
Secret only to those who will not look for Him there.
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Review: The Law of Attraction

Feb 16, 2008 Christine Scivicque

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne - Rhonda Byrne

The book, "The Secret" has sparked heated debates. While some believe its analysis of the Law of Attraction is inspiring, others find it
nothing but fluff. Who's right?
 You may have heard something about The Secret (Beyond Words Publishing, ISBN-13: 978-1-58270-170-7). It’s been discussed all over
TV, radio and the internet. The book has taken the world by storm, becoming a bestseller and creating a devoted group of followers
committed to their belief in the Law of Attraction.
What makes this book so special? Is there really a secret that will help you achieve anything you dream of? Rhonda Byrne’s book certainly
promises that there is. And many fans agree. Of course, you may have also heard the skeptics that say The Secret is dangerous and that it
misinforms the unsuspecting public.
So which is it? Is The Secret an inspiring book that shows you the spiritual path to success or a junk novel that takes advantage of the
public’s desperate desire to find happiness?

Read more at Suite101: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne: Review: The Law of Attraction http://www.suite101.com/content/the-secret-by-
rhonda-byrne-a44889#ixzz11V3NLSiF

Well, it’s both actually.

What is The Secret?

The Secret is The Law of Attraction. This is a concept that states that whatever is going on in your mind will be attracted into your life.
Therefore, think thoughts of abundance and wealth – and let no contradictory thoughts in – and you can have anything you want. Likewise,
thinking about negative things in your life will only produce more negativity. In essence, The Secret explains that the intentions in your mind
send instruction to the Universe and you get exactly what you think about. The process is broken down into three steps: ask, believe, and
receive.

The Law of Attraction goes beyond positive thinking. The book emphasizes the use of visualization techniques, gratitude, faith and
affirmations to help focus your mental energy. The overall concept requires that the individual believes strongly in the process. Believing is
defined as “acting, thinking and speaking as if you have already received what you are asking for.”

Read on 
 Secret Quotations
 Applying The Secret to Your Life
 The Law of Attraction, Revealed by Oprah

The book describes The Secret through the voices of many highly successful experts from many different fields including philosophers,
psychologists, life coaches, motivational speakers, and business professionals. Each explains their understanding of the Law of Attraction
and how it affects reality. The underlying theme is all the same: you are the creator of your own destiny. Your thoughts have the power to
manifest your desires.
What's the Problem?
The book is heavily focused on wealth and creating abundance. While everyone who reads the book may not be convinced that the Law of
Attraction is real, the concept itself provides a persuasive defense – if you think it doesn’t work, it won’t. After all, your thoughts dictate your
reality. It’s difficult to be completely drawn into the book, as it seems to downplay the importance of action. It focuses almost solely on mental
perspective, ignoring the importance of hard work and (in the case of building wealth) savings and conservative spending patterns. Instead, it
suggests that individuals act and think as if they already have what they want. One can only imagine the credit card debt that arises from
“believers” who convince themselves of their imaginary wealth.
The Strength of The Secret
Still, there is something compelling in The Secret. It certainly motivates and inspires the reader to take control of (and harness the power of)
their own thoughts. It provides a sense of power, the notion that anything is possible if you simply believe in it. After all, the Law of Attraction
is the same wisdom that most of the world’s greatest thinkers have preached about for centuries. In the words of Buddha, “All that we are is a
result of what we have thought.”

Though The Secret does not necessarily provide a magic answer, it is an inspiring compilation of concepts explained by some very
impressive and admirable individuals. It’s a fast read and worth your time, given that you see it for what it is: a fascinating and motivating
concept not necessarily founded in concrete science.

Read more at Suite101: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne: Review: The Law of Attraction http://www.suite101.com/content/the-secret-by-
rhonda-byrne-a44889#ixzz11V3TMfZh
  The Secret by Rhonda Byrne - Book Review

"The Secret" is a book that has been beautifully packaged and marketed. It has created a media buzz
that few other books manage to attain. 

The book promises you all the money you want, good health, great relationships, and an abundance of
happiness. You just have to buy one of the very well packaged products from the expanding franchise
of "Secret" related publications to find out what the "Secret" is. 

The Secret is to think positively, to become a magnet for the goal you desire, to use the law of
attraction to draw your dreams closer.

Rhonda Byrne has skillfully assembled a number of self help gurus and motivational speakers together
and got them to talk about the law of attraction and positive thinking. Contributing gurus include John
Assaraf, Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, Lee Brower, Jack Canfield, Dr. John F Demartini, Marie Diamond,
Mike Dooley, Bob Doyle, Hale Dwoskin, Morris Goodman, Dr. John Gray, Dr. John Hagelin, Bill Harris,
Dr. Ben Johnson, Loral Langemeier, Lisa Nichols, Bob Proctor, James Arthur Ray, David Schirmer,
Marci Shimoff, Dr. Joe Vitale, Dr. Denis Waitley, Neale Donald Walsch and Fred Alan Wolf.

The secret to The Secret becoming such a hit around the world is that it is selling dreams to people.
By creating mystery around a product and promising to give people what they have always dreamed of
has always been a fast-track to riches. That doesn't mean that this is a bad book, it just means it is a
very well marketed book. There is nothing new in The Secret, as every idea in it has already been
published in a thousand other self help books. So if you love tearing through a new self help book
each week, or even if you have never read a self help book but would like to see what they have been
going on about for the past 20 years, this is a book worth buying.

The Secret Book Quotes

 "People who have drawn wealth into their lives used The Secret, whether consciously or
unconsciously. They think thoughts of abundance and wealth, and they do allow any
contradictory thoughts to take root in their minds." Rhonda Byrne
 "You are the most powerful magnet in the universe! You contain a magnetic power within you
that is more powerful than anything in this world, and this unfathomable magnetic power is
emitted through your thoughts." Rhonda Byrne
 "Trust the Universe. Trust and believe and have faith. I truly had no idea how I was going to
bring the knowledge of The Secret onto the movie screen. I just held to the outcome of the
vision, I saw the outcome clearly in my mind, I felt it with all my might, and everything that we
needed to create The Secret came to us."Rhonda Byrne

The Secret Book Contents

 Foreword
 Acknowledgments
 The Secret Revealed
 The Secret Made Simple
 How to Use the Secret
 Powerful Processes
 The Secret to Money
 The Secret to Relationships
  The Secret to Health
 The Secret to the World
 The Secret to You
 The Secret to Life
 Biographies

Book review of “The Secret”, by Rhonda Byrne: A

skeptical review of a subjective reality

What is The Secret? What is Rhonda Byrne’s philosophy? What is the Law of Attraction?

It’s defined many times, in many different ways, by many different people in the book. Here are a few of the more concise
descriptions:

“Everything that’s coming into your life you are attracting into your life. And it’s attracted to you by virtue of the images you’re
holding in your mind. It’s what you’re thinking. Whatever is going on in your mind you are attracting to you.
Every thought if yours is a real thing – a force.”

“Thoughts become things!”

“Thoughts are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency. As you think thoughts, they are sent out into the Universe, and they
magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency. Everything sent out returns to the source – you.”

Got it? If you think about something, that something will be attracted to your life. Whatever is in your life is there because you
caused it to be there. All the good and bad things surrounding you – your friends or loneliness, your loving or
abusive relationships, your success or failure, your health or illness, your life and death – all are there because
you caused them to be there. This is the “Law of Attraction”.

And that’s it. The rest of the book is details. To be fair, these details are fairly important to The Secret itself. But the core of The
Secret’s philosophy is described above, and the rest of the book is issues like: how to use The Secret more efficiently, how all the
great minds of our time succeeded by knowing The Secret, how to use The Secret to lose weight, gain money and find love. There are
glowing personal proofs by those who’ve benefited from The Secret, and that The Secret works because all of existence is connected
at the quantum level.

Quantum relationships and “thought frequencies”

Rhonda Byrne says much in The Secret about quantum relationships and “thought frequencies”. Indeed The Secret requires these
things to work as Byrne describes. So let’s examine that aspect first. Here is “How The Secret works”, taken from key points
Byrne claims in The Secret:

Every thought that you have in your mind has a measurable frequency.

Your thoughts are “magnetic”: The “frequency” of one thought will “magnetically” attract things to you, those
things will match the “frequency” of your original thought.

When you think that thought, it’s instantly broadcast to the Universe.
A sensible person might respond, okay, you’ve given a nice overview of how The Secret works, but what about the detail? How is
your brain frequency sent to the Universe? Can this be measured? Why are thoughts “magnetic”? How does a thought – with little or
no measurable mass, generate any kind of magnetic force?

The Secret and Rhonda Byrne answer these kinds of questions in two different ways:

1) Quantum mechanics. Or perhaps that should be “quantum mechanics”, since Byrne makes a few claims about quantum states
that are wrong:

This is a bad comparison: many people DO know how television works. And those who don’t can find out. Television technology is
based on provable, testable, repeatable methods in physics and electronics, and can conclusively be demonstrated to work. The
Secret is not based on such methods, and can not be conclusively demonstrated to work.

Your thoughts can affect quantum states.

No, thoughts do not affect quantum states.

The Secret uses an example of television: Most people don’t understand that it works, only that it does work. Therefore, we don’t
need to know how The Secret works, only that it does.

Your brain “frequencies” communicate at a quantum level with the Universe.

No, there is no known way to communicate using a quantum state. Information can not be passed using quantum states.

2) We don’t know how The Secret works, and don’t need to know. Trust on faith that it works.

More problems with The Secret and Rhonda Byrne’s philosophy

Now we know all about The Secret and how it works. It’s a poorly-designed philosophy, because it also has internal conflicts and
inconsistencies, none of which are addressed properly or at all in the book. Here’s a list of several problems with The Secret:

What if one person’s desires conflict with another’s? Whose thoughts will “win”? Religion and politics are great examples
showing one person’s good is another person’s evil.

What about accidents? The Secret holds that there are no accidents: anything that happens to us – good or bad – is something
we brought upon ourselves because we were thinking about it. Look at the bigger picture, and this is just glorified predestination: If I
use The Secret to make the world the way I want it, then I’m changing the fate of hundreds, thousands or millions of people. But
what if those people are also using The Secret? There is an unavoidable conflict here.

The Secret is a subjective reality. Indeed, several parts of the book describe this very clearly, from explicitly saying as much, to
insisting that you should ignore problems in order to fix them.

The Secret recommends dangerous treatment of health issues. Why take medicine? According to Rhonda Byrne and The
Secret, you don’t need it. We get quotes like this:

“In fact, parts of our body are literally replaced every day. Other parts take a few months, other parts a couple of years. But within a
few years we each have a brand new physical body.”

Have these “experts” ever taken a biology course or opened a textbook? It seems not. A brand new physical body every couple years
would be great. But it doesn’t explain away heart disease, cholesterol build-up, neuron loss and senility, cartilage
growth, and plenty of other evidence that our bodies are not magically renewed every few years.

“The placebo effect is an example of the law of attraction in action. When a patient truly believes the tablet is a cure, he receives what
he believes and is cured.”

This is not the placebo effect. The placebo effect is not meant to illustrate a cure, but a lessening of often
subjective symptoms, like a headache. The whole concept here is that you can “think” your way out of a disease by positive
thinking and using The Secret. When I was younger, a childhood friend of mine died of complications of leukemia. He was
constantly thinking and saying “I’m going to beat this”. He was (and still has been) the most optimistic, positively-thinking person
I’ve ever known. If that kind of attitude doesn’t work to prevent disease, then according to The Secret, there’s another reason for his
death: Someone else must have been using The Secret against him, and caused his death. Ridiculous. Disease attacks a
body. We know how it works and have some methods to prevent it. Knowledge of modern medicine makes far more sense than
thinking thoughts cause disease. One might as well start reverting to working with “humours” or voodoo or similar
medical guesswork.

The Secret can’t be objectively tested, and due to the nature of the human brain can always be defended by “faith”
or retrofitting. We’ve got an unprovable system established with no honest scientific foundation: There is no difference between
The Secret and any other religion.

Changing your attitude, perspective, thoughts and self-confidence doesn’t physically change the world around
you. This is supposedly measurable and physical, but Rhonda Byrne in The Secret says nothing about detection or explanation. She
only gives vague, non-specific quotes about quantum mechanics, and asks that even if we don’t understand something, we should
just assume it works. A science book – a book describing reality – would not do this. And, unlike The Secret, it certainly wouldn’t
have so many exclamation points. Thinking the world and your fate can be changed by thoughts alone is childish. Reality is not a
subjective movie like “The Matrix“, or a game like “Mage: The Ascension“. We should leave this concept to the entertainment
business.

Many of the famous minds and personal stories quoted in The Secret were taken out of context or retrofitted to fit
the core concepts of The Secret. Those that are supposedly personal proofs are given with no references, links to
more detail, corroborating evidence, or by their nature can’t be proven. We’ve also got quotes from “ancient thinkers”
like Buddha, Albert Einstein, Carl Jung and Henry Ford shuffled in with various modern-day New Age proponents. The Secret gives
bios of all the New Age proponents quoted in the book, including website links for all those still alive.These are hardly unbiased
reviews. The book gives no further information on any of the “ancient thinkers”.

Does The Secret stand up to the most basic analysis? Take the basic claim of The Secret and apply Occam’s Razor: Your
thoughts affect the world around you – if you’re always thinking about a certain thing, that thing will happen to you. What’s more
likely:

1) If you’re constantly focused on one thing, you’re more likely to accomplish that thing.

2) Your focused thoughts are interacting with a Universal consciousness, and the Universe changes reality to suit your thoughts.

Can The Secret be used by non-humans? According to how Rhonda Byrne describes The Secret, yes. Remember, The Secret is
supposedly in action 100% of the time, whether or not we realize it, and since everything in the Universe is made up of the same
energy, thought “frequencies” from one animal (like me), shouldn’t take any priority from another (like my neighbor’s dog). This
creates more inconsistencies and paradoxes within The Secret’s philosophy.

What about dreams? Dreams are thoughts. When we sleep at night, how are these dreams affecting the world around us?
Roughly one-fourth of my time is spent dreaming, thinking of some really goofy stuff, and these “frequencies” are supposedly
broadcast to the Universe. How do my zany dreams affect my waking thoughts and The Secret? Why don’t I see evidence for them?

What about mental illness? The Secret is supposedly in use all the time by all people, even if they don’t realize it. How then does
this jibe with people diagnosed with obsessions, schizophrenia or dementia? Say a man is schizophrenic, and is convinced that the
government is out to get him. This feeling consumes his every waking moment. Why then, is the government not to get him? The
man is clearly using The Secret properly. This should have an effect, yet everyone who knows the man (as well as the government)
would say the man needs counseling.

Conclusion of the review of “The Secret”, by Rhonda Byrne

The standard thing to do in a skeptical review of a book called “The Secret” would be to make a snooty, faux-witty connection
between the title of the book and there being a lack of any actual secret. I’ll move away from that temptation and focus instead on the
book’s success: The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, is titled more for marketing purposes than any other reason.

Sadly, there is some helpful information in The Secret: The placebo effect is known to work in certain situations. Positive thinking
does improve recovery in certain types of illnesses. Thinking positively and loving everyone in the world is arguably a way to prevent
conflict and increase the chances of world peace. But there is far too much pseudoscience and dangerous advice to take
The Secret seriously.

The Secret and Rhonda Byrne are successful because they promise a quick and easy fix to all problems anyone
could possibly have. That this is done dishonestly is, at best, well-meaning ignorance. At worst, it’s a scam. Unfortunately, those
scammed by this campaign won’t realize till it’s too late, or may never realize it. They may waste their money and their lives in blind
acceptance of an unverifiable claim. Or they’ll retrofit past events as “proof of The Secret”, and ignore or rationalize away times when
The Secret failed completely.

The biggest problems with The Secret and Rhonda Byrne are the many falsely-presented aspects required for it to work. At its
core, The Secret is nothing more than a feel-good, scientifically illiterate description of another New Age religion.