One of the most popular concepts in New Age spirituality is that of the Law of Attraction, the belief that thought is primary over matter and that the material world is created by thought. The concept itself can be found through mystical and occult literature the world over from early Vedic scriptures through 19th century western occult literature. It's popularity in the West can mostly be ascribed to three sources though, firstly a book called "The Science of getting rich" by Wallace D Wattles, secondly the vast literature published by trance medium Esther Hicks, and finally the in/famous telemovie come hit DVD, The Secret. When I first watched The Secret I had distinctly mixed feelings about it. On one hand it seemed like an attempt at another inspirational modern spiritual film in the them of "What the bleep....". On the other hand.....it made me want to throw up. The presentation was beyond triple cheese, but what was worse was the constant emphasis on material wealth. It seemed like the focus of the whole movie was how to get rich by supernatural means. Making matters worse was the juxtaposition from one speaker to another, going straight from one telling us that there it is an awfull lie that there is a limited supply of resources and that there is not enough to go around to another boasting about how he owns several luxury homes, has servants and travels the world on a sort of permanent holiday. My gut feelings told me that there was some truth behind this movie, but that it being distorted and perverted like a jewel covered in mud. I had the same instinct when I first read the Bhagavad-Gita, of which I was introduced by a work colleage who was a Hare Krishna. The translation which he lent me was their own translation and commentary created by the founder of the Hare Krishna sect * A.C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. In this version, regardless of what the actual sanskrit verse stated, the commentary just over-rided it by stating: "Well, since we are currently in the Kali Yuga (Dark Age) the only valid spiritual practice for mankind is chanting the maha mantra (Hare Krishna..etc)", even though the maha mantra is not mentioned once in the entire scripture. Kind of like hearing a Protestant Christian tell you about how the Bible teaches that you are saved solely by faith alone regardless of what the red-letter verses of the Gospels say.
It turns out that the obvious conclusion was true. Rhonda Byrne it seems has been exposed as more of a con-women then a sincere spiritual teacher. She has been sued by quite a number of the buisness and industry people involved in making her movie the viral success it was: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-secret-of-rhondas-success/story-e6frg8h6-1111117271174 , as she quite literally screwed the very people that helped make her a multi-millionaire whilst she was simultaneously preaching a gospel of enlightenment. More then anything else though, she screwed over the very people responsible for basically all of the content of the movie itself, that being Esther and Jerry Hicks. The original version of the movie was essentially built around the teachings from Esthers trance work, yet Rhonda later went on to simply cut Esther out of the movie altogether as it suited her business plan more. Quite simply, she offered Esther the choice of either handing over intellectual property rights to Rhonda or being cut out of the movie, kind of like saying: "So what I'm going to do now is screw you, but you have a choice as to how you would like for me to do it." Fortunately for Rhonda, Esther eventually decided to just let her cut her out of the film after initially moving to fight it out with her in court. What Rhonda Byrne did, was essentially replace Esther Hicks with a bunch of people that had learned mostly from her, but which could for the most part not express the concepts with the same clarity and poise. Adding to the mess was the way in which the film was edited, leading to an end result that deserves as much of it's criticism as it does it's praise.
Here is a clip from the original version of the film which featured Esther trance mediumship: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbJ8dp4zK7A . Now this is what it should have been, this is beautiful, inspiring and uplifting. When you read, watch or listen to the Hicks material you get the real source material for The Secret, and you get it in its proper context. The Hicks material is not solely focussed upon money, but it discusses money in it's appropriate place. If you are interested in the Law of Attraction, read some of Esther Hicks books, they are gold, and especially good for helping you to understand the quite simple link between thought processes and emotions. It really is so simple that mainstream psychologists could do themselves a favour and learn a lot from it. http://www.abraham-hicks.com/lawofattractionsource/index.php , http://www.youtube.com/user/AbrahamHicks . If you are interested in understanding the bigger spiritual picture of which the Law of Attraction fits into, try reading The Kybalion (http://www.kybalion.org/kybalion.php) or the Yoga Vasistha (http://www.yogavasistha.com/), although the latter is quite dense and advanced. The former on the other hand is quite short, concise and readable, despite it's depth. The Secret was not without its worth, but its a sorry shame that such spiritual teachings were revealed to the world in such a dumbed down and dirtied form.
God Bless, Hari Om.
*Footnote: The Hare Krishna sect is technically called ISKON - International Society for Krishna Consciousness. Whilst they maintain that they are not Hindu, they are in truth essentially a modern derivitive of the Vaishnava sect.
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