What's the Big Secret?!?

Earlier this year, when The Secret was all over the place, I went down to Chapters to pick up a copy. They were all out. The clerk said that every time it hit Oprah there was a rush at the store within an hour and it sold out every time. So I grabbed the DVD, watched, then later read the book and realized the two overlapped 90% or more.

As I began to dig into The Secret I expected that I would have to filter out some things, that there would be the usual mix of truth and falsehood and speculation that are found in most books. In fact, when I read a book, any book, my pattern to is to look for 1) things to affirm, 2) things to challenge, and 3) things to research further. Because The Secret was so big, so popular among people I know and respect, I was especially interested in finding things to affirm, things I could agree with as a means of dialogue and building our relationship.

But when I viewed the DVD and read the book I was shocked. And what shocked me was how little I could affirm. I was stunned by the generalizations, half truths, outright untruths. I was surprised at the audacity of pretending it simply summarized what all the great religions and all the great teachers have always taught. (Did you catch the triple generalization?)

I'll begin to unpack my reactions more fully in the next post.