The Secret by Rhonda Byrne Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Secret
Book Review: A Doctor's Confession.... "The Secret" inspired me!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am so loving, happy, and grateful that this groundbreaking movie was put together by these true champions of information! After viewing "The Secret," everything that I've researched from a scientific and spiritual perspective immediately clicked. I was instantly inspired! Actually, I've been inspired by the powerful messeges in the film ever since. After viewing the movie, it then became apparent that I needed to evaluate my current paradigms along with my conscious and subconscious way of thinking! I took massive and immediate action and assumed all responsibility for my previous, habituated way of thinking. Then, I began to remove all resistance out of my life and create empowering paradigms and relationships by using tips and powerful insight from "The Secret." For instance, when I first get up in the morning, I rattle through everything that I'm grateful for and create my day as it was intended. I speak, focus, and visualize positive things into form on a daily basis. I also listen to James Ray's "Science of Success System" in the car and everywhere I go, driving the empowering material deep into my subconscious.
I cannot even begin to tell you how fast my intentions and visualizations are manifesting presently! I was able to write my first best-selling book within two months after viewing the movie! The words and ideas for the book just kept flowing unlike anything I ever experienced before. My practice has exploded in patient volume and financial collections in the last several months as well! I'm constantly attracting powerful business partnerships at a very fast pace and now have several streams of revenue. I am continuously drawing abundance and prosperity into my life and I'm convinced that coincidence is simply attractor energy working in my favor!
I am definitely more aligned with our universal creative source, through which all life comes into being, after watching this movie. I am a very spiritual person in general but I am further enlightened after connecting with these teachers of the secret, James Ray in particular. I have never felt so much gratitude, joy, peace, and happiness as I do today! This movie is an ablolute must!.
Dr. Matthew J. Loop
- Author of "Cracking the Cancer Code"
Book Review: A GREAT LITTLE BOOK
Summary: 5 Stars
I DIDN'T WANT TO PUT THE BOOK DOWN. IT WAS A VERY FAST READ AND EASY TO UNDERSTAND AS WELL. I ENJOYED IT VERY MUCH AND WILL REREAD THIS BOOK AGAIN FOR REINFORSTMENT AND THE HAPPYNESS IT BROUGHT ME.Book Review: A Good Idea Gone Wrong!
Summary: 3 Stars
"The Secret" is a book where a good idea has gone wrong. It takes positive thinking to an ultimate and absurd extreme and in the process cancels out deeper introspection.
This book silences examination of unsettling emotions for fear of giving power to them in your life. In psychology we know that psychic material needs to be examined and integrated into our personality in order to achieve mental health. "The Secret" intends to offer benefits of positive thinking but it lacks a balanced approach, which requires the capacity to meet the ups and downs of life rather than living in denial of self-imposed positive thinking.
The more we deny something in our life such as unsettling emotions including doubts, fears and even anger the more we give them power. When we can learn to deal with these essential aspects of life then we can make progress in our life. In Nexus: A Neo Novel Chandra Singh, a spiritual teacher, instructs that negative and positive aspects of life are like two ends of a stick. When we pick up a stick of life we also pick up both ends.
The challenge of living is not about running away from life into a fortress of positive thinking rather it is about inner growth that comes from the ups and downs of life. We need to feel fully and also learn to let go in time. This is the real secret.
This quote from Nexus: A Neo Novel nicely sums up the process:
"I need to start listening to my body again, to my heart's deepest feelings, my higher guidance, and then I'll know my way, without any fear for what might happen." - Sarah McMaster
A more balanced approach would allow us to honestly examine our body for tension and stress, look at our emotions even unsettling ones with honesty and curiosity, and then trust that we have the capacity to grow. Freedom comes not from running away from life and what we define as "negative." A mature attitude looks for growth in the very material offered in daily living.
Escape offered by walls of positive thinking is only temporary. Real growth requires a deeper transformation at the level of psychological integration of the ups and downs of life.
"Just as clouds drift by casting shadows upon the ground, similarly negative emotions have their moment when they cast an oppressive shadow on your perception." - Chandra Singh from Nexus: A Neo Novel
Book Review: A Good Step in The Direction of A Positive Mental Attitutde
Summary: 5 Stars
Summary:
I'm just going to tell you The Secret and you can decide if you need to buy the book. The Secret is that like attracts like. If you embrace a positive mental attitude, a good life will follow."The law of attraction is a law of nature. It is impersonal and it does not see good things or bad things. It is receiving your thoughts and reflecting back to you those thoughts as your life experience. The law of attraction simply gives you whatever it is you are thinking about." The Secret relies on such pop-new-age-feel-good icons as Jack Canfield of The Chicken Soup Series and John Gray author of the Venus and Mars books, to basically reiterate the law of attraction and provide antedotal evidence for 198 pages. The book and DVD claim that successful and rich men like John Rockefeller, Ford and Einstein have possessed The Secret.
Opinion:
I think a positive mental attitude is important and if you need help in achieving this, you will learn something from The Secret. Even though the book and DVD make the same point over and over again, if you need help maintaining "The Secret" in your mind, then you should buy the book because I believe that eventually the message will sink in. But the book is a bit thin. Yes it's a 198 pages, but it's a 198 small-sized pages with a lot of bullet points. It's not dense text. And as an aside, the book is pretty. It's printed on shiny paper made to look like ancient parchment. It would make a nice gift. I seems like the publisher decided a good binding would make up for the lack of hard text.
On a more cynical note:
Rhonda Byrne is the creator of What's Cooking and The World's Greatest TV Commercials. She came across an old 1910 book "The Secret of Getting Rich" and decided to make it into a DVD. She sold 600,000 copies by word of mouth before the thing was even on Oprah. There really isn't anything more to The Secret than the power of positive thinking, but it's big because Byrne hints an intrigue and conspiracy along the lines of the Da Vinci code. In the beginning of the DVD she shows powerful men meeting around a table sharing the sercet with eachother, taking blood oaths and promising not to tell the plebians-the great unwashed masses. It really plays into insecurities.
There is nothing new in The Secret. It's the same message repackaged so that a great marketer can get rich-and she is. I'm sort of disappointed in Oprah. She usually supports authors that are a little more worthy. (sigh.)
My Experience with the Secret:
I was introduced to The Secret DVD over a year ago. I watched about half of it because as I said, it kept making the same point over and over again. The DVD was narrated by an Australian woman and I got the impression that it was being distributed by one of the new age religions that have a stong hold down under. Both the book and DVD seemed a bit cult-ish. And the woman who had given the DVD to my friend is involved in cults. The production seemed a bit cheesey, but I still found the message good. (A quick check of the internet proves my suspicions. Yes, Rhonda Byrne is an Australian. She used to work for nine network news. Production on The Secret began in 1994)
But in both the DVD and the book they are trying to really stretch things out to achieve a DVD and book. The same person who introduced me to the DVD bought the book and gave it to me for an afternoon. I was able to read most of it in two hours. Recently this book has been on Oprah and I suppose everyone is going to be on the Secret bandwagon for a while. It's the feel good, it's all about me, psycho fad that baby boomers latch on to. I think Anthony Robbins preaches this same sort of thing. They say that Australians are the most positive people on the planet. Maybe they all know The Secret.
Caveat:
It seems to me that like a lot of movements The Secret can be used to delude yourself and harass friends in need. I can imagine talking to some friend about a problem and getting "you're not using the secret" in response. If you buy into the Secret, use it positively.
Book Review: A Good Supplement to the Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
As with the other reviews here, I highly recommend watching the DVD "The Secret". I have found the book useful as a transcript of the movie. I've watched the movie several times and have paused/replayed some of the scenes in an attempt to write down a specific thought or quote so I could remember it. Since the book contains all of the commentary from the movie, plus a little extra and as well as some added commentary from the author, it is very useful as a transcript reference and a reminder of the ideas expressed in the movie. It's also attractively made with "slick" pages and a smaller size which fits nicely on my nightstand.