Movies |
The Secret
directed by Drew Heriot
By
Published: Jan 01, 2007
Category:
Documentary
The Secret
Her father dies. Her relationships are in turmoil. Her life collapses.
In this time of crisis, Australian television producer Rhonda Byrne rummages through a suitcase — and finds a book with a note on it: “This may help.” That’s an understatement; no sooner has she opened it than the hidden wisdom of the ages appears.
And it’s in danger of disappearing. Here’s a wise man burying a manuscript in the sand near the pyramids. Here are armored soldiers rushing into a medieval scholar’s study to grab a scroll. Here are modern executives nodding in agreement: The secret must be kept secret.
All through history, it seems, the elect have known the secret. Shakespeare (wait, didn’t he write everything he knew?). Emerson (hey, wasn’t this a guy you couldn’t shut up?). Lincoln (Honest Abe kept secrets?). But although these were some of the most generous and humane thinkers, writers and inventors ever to live on this planet, they all kept the secret for themselves. No wonder less than 1% of the population controls 96% of the wealth. (Take that, Karl Marx!)
At this point in the feature-length DVD, you have to think: This is very cheesy.
Fortunately, the sense that you really ought to be doing anything else quickly passes, for what follows is — despite the frequent plunge into New Age jargon — meaty information that you can really use.
Surprised?
Admit it: You thought I’d review “The Secret” just to rag on it.
Bottom line: There’s wisdom here. Granted, delivered so slowly — and with subtitles, yet — that a child can see the big ideas coming over the horizon. Granted, repeated and rephrased and stressed until you may want to jump ahead. But nonetheless…real wisdom.
The secret — and it’s no secret; you can find it in the work of hundreds of thinkers and as an animating idea of many theologies — is simple. “Thoughts become things.” Which is to say: The world is a manifestation of thought. Think good thoughts, good things happen. Get gloomy, things get worse. It’s your choice. As Neale Donald Walsch puts it: “Your mission is the mission you give yourself. Your life will be what you create it as.”
In this film — really, a set of intercut lectures by a battery of believers — the notion that “you attract what you’re thinking” is often expressed in material terms. In debt? Think your way out. Want a better home? Look at my $4.5 million spread.
The real power of this special brand of positive thinking is, I suspect, in more modest achievements: greater joy in life, a tougher brand of optimism, a willingness to dream bigger.
Not that there’s anything wrong with a $4.5 million house.
I have questions. The Jews thought “wrong,” so the Nazis killed them? The Iraqis somehow brought this carnage on themselves? The people of New Orleans deserved Katrina? Brighter minds tell me that I’m looking at global disasters through the wrong lens. Large events happen. The question is: How do you respond to them? (See Man’s Search for Meaning for Viktor Frankl’s rare, life-affirmating response to the concentration camps.)
I’m not saying I’m going to make an ongoing program of the ideas in “The Secret.” But I am going to pay closer attention to my inner monologue. I’m going to wish only the best for myself (and for you, too). And when I have an idea that can be transformed through my energy — in alignment with the energy of the universe — you can be sure I’m going to hold that thought.
To buy the DVD of “The Secret” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the book of “The Secret” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the 4-CD audio version of “The Secret” from Amazon.com, click here.
