Contributor: Kyle Smeby

In case you haven't heard there's a new movie making the rounds in spirituality circles, talk shows, and an upcoming seminar near you and it's called, "The Secret." What is, "The Secret?" The Secret is the Law of Attraction. What is the Law of Attraction? That's more complicated, but it's not really a secret.

The Secret is the The Power of Positive Thinking, expanded upon by many of today's best philosophers and repackaged for a post Da Vinci Code world. While I have to admit I don't like a lot of that packaging, it would be a mistake to overlook the content just for the way it's being marketed. Furthermore, without that marketing it wouldn't be the success that it is and I probably wouldn't be talking about it at all. They call it "The Secret" because people want to know secrets; they claim powerful people are keeping it from the masses so that the masses will demand it. It is an unfortunate tactic, but it does prove necessary at times to make people look at what they might otherwise ignore.

The primary criticism of the movie is that it's too shallow and focused on materialistic things. This criticism is valid on its surface, but once again I think the creators had a reason for this. The Secret focuses on materialistic things like cars and money because if they had made a movie about manifesting love and world peace through positive thinking these same critics would likely have marginalized the movie as irrelevant pablum from bleeding-heart hippies. Furthermore, if The Secret can help individuals provide for themselves those individuals can then focus on more altruistic goals once they have met their own wants and needs.

The last problem many seem to have with The Secret is the focus on what they view as "wishful thinking." Westerner civilization has vilified the term "wishful thinking" to such a degree that any form of positive thought is almost immediately banished from public discourse. It has become more acceptable to complain and despair over the things around you than to discuss positive change and set lofty goals. This poisonous attitude has created an environment where the bar is consistently kept low as many people choose to think of all the reasons why they can't, or shouldn't, do something rather than striving to achieve something that might appear to be beyond them. While I agree that The Secret could have benefited from a little more emphasis on taking action, I believe its creators may have elected to put their emphasis on encouraging its audience to take the first step and dream big. After that, it's all just details.

Teachers Featured in "The Secret"