My Secret

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, is one of those books that came out of nowhere and became a self help sensation. Rhonda Byrne has made appearances everywhere from Oprah to signings at local bookstores to promote her little book of wisdom. I decided to check the book out and let me tell you, it has got to be one of the most shallow, self serving, pretentious, ego-maniacal books ever written.

The book is more or less about the "law of attraction", which is the belief that if you think positive thoughts good things will happen to you and if you think negatively, bad things happen to you. This book really tries to sell the law of attraction as an actual law of nature. Now I confess thinking positively will generally give you better results than thinking negatively, after all if you think you will fail chances are you really aren't giving it your all. This book however says that thinking positively is like a genie in a bottle where if you wish it and think positively enough you will get what you want. No work involved, just think positive and everything will fall into place! Hey it's a law of nature after all. So if I think positively enough I can fly just like Superman.

This book is littered with quotes from various other self help gurus which basically say how wonderful and amazing the Secret is. The quotes don't really don't say how wonderful a person you are. They also try and convince you how renown historical figures have used the secret for positive results, such as Einstein or Beethoven. Yes I'm sure Einstein must have been thinking positively that they wouldn't use his research to create an atomic bomb.

Rhonda Byrne even tries to rationalize disasters and tragedies. Here's a direct quote from her book.

"Often when people first hear this part of the Secret they recall events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency as the event. It doesn’t mean they necessarily thought of that exact event, but the frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event. If people believe they can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they have no control over outside circumstances, those thoughts of fear, separation, and powerlessness, if persistent, can attract them into being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

If only those those Jewish people in Nazi Germany would have thought a little more positively perhaps the holocaust never would have happened. Rhonda Byrne is a LOON.

Another thing about the secret is how insane some of her theories are, such as her thoughts on weight gain.

"Food is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight."

"Food cannot cause you to put on weight, unless you think it can."

I guess I can gorge myself on 300 cupcakes since it won't be the calories, it was just me thinking wrong way. Speaking of weight gain Rhonda Byrne also teaches us valuable lessons on how to better ostracize people who aren't of an ideal weight.

"Make it your intention to look for, admire, and inwardly praise people with your idea of perfect-weight bodies. Seek them out and as you admire them and feel the feelings of that-you are summoning it to you. If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it."

Yes instead of judging people on their own merits or personalities we should just go with their outward appearance.

I absolutely loathe this book and how anyone can see any kind of positive message in it is beyond my comprehension.