Friday, March 02, 2007

The Secret attraction

Barnes and Noble can't keep the book on its shelves, and it's rocketed past Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to take over the No. 1 spot on Amazon.com's Top Sellers list. Oprah Winfrey dedicated two shows to it last month (which accounts for much of its success). And Simon & Schuster announced yesterday it's ordering another 2 million copies, the biggest reprint in the publisher's history. What is it? It is The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, and for $23.95, you, too, can learn this Aussie woman's method to attract whatever you desire - health, wealth, happiness, (world destruction?) - by simply thinking in harmony with it.

In
his review of the book, Don Whitney writes, "The Secret is nothing more than Name It-Claim It, Positive-Confession, Prosperity Theology (without God and the Bible), built on a foundation of New Age self-deification."

According to Whitney, Byrne tells readers:

"You are God in a physical body. ... No matter who you thought you were, now you know the Truth of Who You Really Are. You are the master of the Universe. ... And now you know The Secret."
As Whitney points out, this secret is "nothing less than Satan's original lie in the Garden of Eden, 'You will be like God' (
Gen. 3:5)."

Believers may dismiss Byrne's book as tripe, but it's obvious that others are not just buying it - they're buying into it.
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