ARTICLE

Movie Review
THE SECRET (DVD)

The Secret is. possibly, the worst kept secret in the world. Since the book was introduced to viewers of the Oprah show it has become a publishing phenomenon. While I haven't read the book I have watched the movie - under the strangest of circumstances - which in many ways reflect The Secret's main idea: The Law of Attraction.....

(Watch the first 20 Minutes of the movie: Order your copy of The Secret here )

This movie, The Secret, was created by Australian Rhonda Byrne, and she says that if you follow its philosophy, you can create the life you want—whether that means getting out of debt, finding a more fulfilling job or even falling in love.

According to Byrne she stumbled on what she calls The Secret at the end of 2004 when everything in Rhonda's life had fallen apart—physically, emotionally and financially—and she was in "total despair." Her father suddenly died. Rhonda became stricken with grief. She was worried about the effect her feelings were having on her young daughter.

That's when Rhonda's daughter gave her a copy of The Science of Getting Rich, a book by Wallace D. Wattles that was written in 1910.

"Something inside of me had me turn the pages one by one, and I can still remember my tears hitting the pages as I was reading it; it gave me a glimpse of The Secret. It was like a flame inside of my heart. And with every day since, it's just become a raging fire of wanting to share all of this with the world."

After that first discovery, Rhonda read hundreds of books, listened to hundreds of hours of audio tapes and scoured the Internet for more information. She says she traced the idea of The Secret through history—all the way from 3500 B.C. to the present day. "Since I discovered The Secret, every single moment of my entire life has changed, and I am living my life for the first time," Rhonda says.

Rhonda defines The Secret as the law of attraction, which is the principle that "like attracts like." Rhonda calls it "the most powerful law in the universe," and says it is working all the time. "What we do is we attract into our lives the things we want, and that is based on what we're thinking and feeling," Rhonda says. The principle explains that we create our own circumstances by the choices we make in life. And the choices we make are fuelled by our thoughts—which means our thoughts are the most powerful things we have here on earth.

The book and film draw together many strands from self help style books like The Science of Getting Rich, metaphysics and spirituality. If that puts you off, don't be. In many ways the ideas contained in The Secret are universal truths. Given its many sources you may already hold many of the beliefs described or have encountered them before. The Secret draws many of these strands together in a package that suits contemporary life. It is post modern in that it allows one to create new uses for ancient ideas and the product is interesting and sometimes inspiring.

If the word of mouth excitement for the product is anything to go by - you'll want to buy a copy for yourself and another for your nearest friend. In one day it was recommended three times in three separate situations - perhaps I needed to attract the information to me...I probably did.

David MacGregor

Order a copy of The Secret from FishPond - New Zealand's leading online source of books, music and movies.