Book Review: The Secret

By Sarah Steighner

Inner peace, ideal weight, financial wealth, true happiness, and fruitful relationships are just a handful of personal dreams that people endlessly and tirelessly seek. These might even be things that one has failed in obtaining and thus thinks are impossible to achieve. Yet, Rhonda Byrne has published a book titled The Secret that not only creates an optimistic attitude towards achieving these things, but highlights the power of thought and endless possibilities to the list of dreams and goals that one can manifest.

Founder and CEO of Motivating the Masses and Motivating the Teen Spirit, Lisa Nichols is quoted in The Secret stating that “What you think about you bring about. Your whole life is a manifestation of the thoughts that go on in your head.”  Her focus on the law of attraction and emphasis on manifestation in this quote embody the spirit of this book and in turn “The Secret.”

This stereotyped “self-help” book might better be labeled as a self-inspiring or self-motivating book. Byrne combines ideas of what the secret is as well as some thoughts on how wide a range of things this secret can be applied to.

Overall, the secret itself is about the ability and process of asking, believing, and then receiving whatever it is in life that one truly wants. Specific chapters in the book are dedicated to applying the secret to money, relationships, health, the world, self, and life in general.

Along with Byrne’s ideas and inspiration on the secret, many qualified voices have their input quoted. Among these people are international bestselling author John Assaraf, founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, Michael Bernard Beckwith, early teacher of spiritual metaphysics, Genevieve Behrend, founder and CEO of Empowered Wealth, Lee Brower, author of The Success Principles, Jack Canfield, internationally known Feng Shui master Marie Diamond, as well as Bob Doyle, creator and facilitator of the Wealth Beyond Reason program.  A handful more of bestselling authors, businessmen and women, educators, physicists, activists, investors, consultants, lecturers, and writers contribute their own personal ideas and experiences regarding the secret as well.

The book’s tone is abundantly full of positivity, which makes it quite a pleasant read. It is just about impossible to read without paralleling aspects of one’s own life to aspects that the book enthusiastically promotes that one can change in their favor.

Furthermore, concepts of the law of attraction are touched upon in an enlightening and thought provoking manner. The idea of like attracting like demonstrates the enormous power that our own thoughts have. For example, the reader is almost guaranteed to recall situations in which they have had negative or positive thoughts regarding a situation, and can thus see the link between what they imagined would happened and what truly happened next. In other words, how what they thought attracted that very thing. Personal examples of how seemingly impossible things have been manifested into real life are given by many of the contributing authors.

Some critics claim negative reviews regarding this book by saying how The Secret gives off nothing more than false hope. A future reader of this book might think the same thing upon picking it up at first. After all, how is a short 184 page book vaguely titled The Secret supposed to be life changing? How can there be one unknown “secret” that has the potential to change our lives for the better?

Well, upon reading “The Secret” one will hopefully understand this a bit better. After all, The Secret is not claiming a one fix all solution to solve the reader’s life problems. Instead, it is about turning one’s attention to the power of the mind and the importance of being positive, and thankful. It is potentially easy to wonder or doubt “the secret” that is being discussed and perhaps this is where the negative critics of this book thrive. After all, it is quite a leap of faith to believe that anything is possible or that everything can change for the better.

However, if the reader utilizes the full outlined power of being positive, then it will no doubt cause a shift in perspective. It is in this shift of perspective that the reader is encouraged to tap into their manifestation powers and thus actively seek out to achieve their every dream. For those optimistic enough to hope and courageous enough to believe in the power of manifesting positivity and dreams into reality, “The Secret” is a great source of inspiration and direction.