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rel="category tag">The Secret</A>:</SPAN><BR><SPAN id=ptitle>Secret history of
The Secret</SPAN></H1>
<DIV id=source style="MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 20px" align=left>USA
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href="http://www.religionnewsblog.com/">ReligionNewsBlog.com</A> • Item 17849 •
Posted: Thursday March 29, 2007</SPAN><BR>
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<DIV class=editorial2 id=senseleft style="PADDING-RIGHT: 1px"><STRONG>It’s
selling like an elixir that promises everything but eternal life. Rhonda Byrne’s
book tops USA TODAY’s best-seller list for the seventh consecutive week, and the
companion DVD is No. 1 on Amazon’s sales chart. It has captured wallets and
water coolers like nothing else since Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown suggested
Jesus was a daddy.</STRONG></DIV>
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<P><A href="http://www.religionnewsblog.com/category/oprah-winfrey/">Oprah</A>
dedicated two shows to <A
href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/478-the-secret">The Secret</A>; Australian
video producer Byrne has a roundup on how the mind can deliver a laundry list of
goodies, from health to a helicopter. Saturday Night Live was quick to lampoon
the book, while Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist Maureen Dowd invoked
it while wondering if wishful thinking could lead to a change in the White
House.</P>
<P>But such pop culture fascination leaves actress and minister <A
href="http://www.religionnewsblog.com/category/della-reese/">Della Reese
Lett</A> laughing.</P>
<P>“Child, The Secret hasn’t been a secret since the times of Moses, if not
before,” says the former Touched by an Angel star, founder and minister of the
Understanding Principles of Better Living church in Los Angeles. “But every
generation needs a new way to look at things that have been around a while. I
suppose right now The Secret is it.”</P>
<P>Lett’s church is one of hundreds of loosely affiliated metaphysical churches
that have been around for more than a century. Their guiding principles are
anchored to self-fulfillment via the power of the mind.</P>
<P>The number of American followers of these so-called <A
href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/n00.html#newthought">New Thought</A>
churches (don’t call them New Age) hovers around 200,000, which includes 100,000
who regularly attend the nation’s 700 Unity churches, says James Trapp, CEO of
the Association of Unity Churches in Lee’s Summit, Mo.</P>
<P>What’s particularly interesting about The Secret phenomenon is that beyond
finding its way into millions of homes, it is in some instances getting the
curious to step out of those houses and seek like-minded fellowship.</P>
<P>“We’ve got more people coming on Sundays than ever,” says the Rev. Temple
Hayes of the First Unity Church of St. Petersburg, Fla., whose small bookshop
has sold 860 copies of The Secret. The church holds regular workshops using the
book as a teaching tool.</P>
<P>Overall, services at First Unity have decidedly Christian overtones, with
regular readings from the Bible and references to God and Jesus, although the
latter isn’t viewed as the Son of God. Communion is reserved for holidays such
as Easter. Sunday staples include sermons (the preferred term is “message”) and
a moment of silence, which can be filled with any form of meditation.</P>
<P>“We teach people how to think, not what to think, and folks find that
appealing,” Hayes says. “But we do make sure to tell people that, while the mind
is a powerful way to get what you want, you may face some pain along the way.
Nothing comes easy.”</P>
<P>That sounded like a fair trade to Bob Stewart, a county commissioner in St.
Petersburg who recently was drawn to First Unity when a favorite Presbyterian
minister retired. Skeptical at first, he now relishes the weekly meetings, as
well as his new meditation routine.</P>
<P>“I’ve found a comfortable zone at that church,” Stewart says. “I find that
focusing my mind helps me with my life.”</P>
<P>Over the decades, everything from personal solace to material wealth has
helped draw people to spiritual and secular leaders who promise that your wish
is the cosmos’s command.</P>
<P>Even before the Civil War there was a fascination with mental healing, an
outgrowth of the work of 18th-century Austrian physician Franz Mesmer, who
pioneered the study of the unconscious mind and hypnosis and gave us the term
“mesmerizing.”</P>
<P>When photography became popular, “many people were sure these often-foggy
images were proof that the body possessed an energy that was capable of taking
physical form,” says Robert Fuller, professor of religious studies at Bradley
University in Peoria, Ill., who focuses on unconventional U.S. religions.</P>
<DIV class=smalltable style="FLOAT: left">
<DIV class=tableheadline>See also</DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV class=factbullet><A
href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/478-the-secret">Research resources on The
Secret</A></DIV></DIV>
<P>Fuller says a growing fascination with the unseen world gave way to a wave of
interest in Spiritualism, in which otherworldly energy was used for both healing
and summoning Aunt Betsy from the great beyond.</P>
<P>Famously, magician Harry Houdini embraced the movement in the hope of
contacting his late mother, but he turned on it when she didn’t appear. His
attempts to debunk mediums led to dire threats from high-profile Spiritualists
such as Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Just last week,
Houdini’s relatives moved to exhume the escape artist’s body in an effort to see
if he was murdered by Spiritualists.)</P>
<P>By the 1920s, with science and industry humming along, Spiritualism had given
way to a new movement called New Thought.</P>
<P>New Thought was tethered to an appealing concept: The human mind was capable
of delivering anything it desired, from pain relief to debt relief.</P>
<P>That message was appropriated by others who wanted to tap into the
frustrations of the masses.</P>
<P>“The get-rich philosophies that followed, like Norman Vincent Peale’s
classic, The Power of Positive Thinking, all were the result of the changes in
economics,” Fuller says. “In the 1800s, it was relatively straightforward. The
harder you worked in the field, the more successful you were.</P>
<P>“But with the advent of the stock market in the new century, people suddenly
felt like they had less control of their lives and of success. So along come
these people saying ‘You just need to change the way you’re thinking,’ and
believe me, that hit home.”</P>
<P>Today, you need only to see Donald Trump’s face beaming from a Learning Annex
brochure to know that the appeal of this promise remains irresistible.</P>
<P>But there are plenty of people who see positive thinking as a deeply
religious experience that can help connect humans both to each other and a
higher power. New Thought leader Trapp says his organization hopes to welcome
this group.</P>
<P>“Many people seem to be looking for this philosophy now but just don’t seem
to be aware of who we are,” says Trapp.</P>
<P>As for The Secret, he appreciates any spillover into the pews but advises
fans to be informed.</P>
<P>“It is a good introduction, but (the book) is superficial and tends to focus
on accumulating material things,” he says. “That is only the beginning of the
message. The real point of mental power is to create a world that works for
everyone, with food, education and health care for everyone. I’m glad (Unity)
ministers are using The Secret to try and bring people in. I just hope it segues
for many people into a church experience.”</P>
<P>Interestingly, the president of the New Thought Alliance, Blaine Mays,
questions whether the book’s popularity can translate into new believers for
Unity or other metaphysical churches.</P>
<P>“Maybe one in 100 will ask, ‘I wonder if there’s a church that preaches these
same ideas,’ ” Mays says. “Face it, you had Transcendental Meditation, you had
Shirley MacLaine, now you’ve got The Secret. You just know it also won’t be
around forever.”</P>
<P>Mays thinks the “spiritual aspect” of New Thought turns off those mainly on
the hunt for a salary increase or a better love life.</P>
<P>“We’re not against that, but it’s just that it’s not what we’re really
after,” he says.</P>
<P>But the pursuit of material happiness is just fine with some New Thought
leaders, including Lett, who says, “God never said it wasn’t OK to be well fed,
well clothed or drive a nice car. You have to take care of yourself, as well as
others.”</P>
<P>Mark Anthony Lord, minister at Chicago’s Center for Spiritual Living, echoes
that sentiment.</P>
<P>“America was built on having a wonderful life, on being all that you can be,”
he says. “If you generate a feeling of self that’s capable and worthy, you’ll
attract what you want. I don’t care if you use it to get a car.”</P>
<P><B>Spiritual but not religious</B></P>
<P>Attendance is up at his center since The Secret caught fire, which pleases
Michelle Schrag, who attends each Sunday with her stockbroker husband and three
children. Though raised Catholic, Schrag says the center’s “emphasis on
meditation, which I now do each day, has helped me find happiness in my daily
life.”</P>
<DIV class=smalltable>
<DIV class=tableheadline>Cafeteria Religion</DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV class=factbullet>aka “Salad-bar Religion.” Denotes the trend where people
pick and choose religious beliefs, doctrines and practices - mixing and matching
them much as they would select food in a cafeteria. A prime example of a
cafeteria religion is <A href="http://www.religionnewsblog.com/3517/">the
“church-free spirituality” promoted by Oprah Winfrey</A>.</DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV class=factbullet>A number of publishers refer to the phenomenon as “private
spirituality.” It is also described as “<A
href="http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=50&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=spirituality+without+religion&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&safe=off">spirituality
without religion</A>.”</DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV class=factbullet>That said, this eclectic approach is not just popular
among non-Christians, but also among people who consider themselves to be <A
href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c94.html">Christians</A>. More often than
not, the latter do not know how to <A
href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/d01.html">discern orthodoxy from
heresy</A>.</DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV class=factbullet>Many, but by no means all, who take this approach are also
<A href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/p14.html">religious
pluralists</A>.</DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV class=dottedline></DIV>
<P></P>
<DIV class=boxlink><A href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c43.html">Research
resources on Cafeteria religion</A> </DIV></DIV>
<P>Schrag is typical of a growing breed of American who declares, “<A
href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c43.html">I’m spiritual, but not
religious</A>,” says Catherine Albanese, who heads religious studies at the
University of California-Santa Barbara and is author of A Republic of Mind and
Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion.</P>
<P>“I have to laugh at all the hype around The Secret, because for some folks,
it’s really just religion as usual since the 19th century. Passing on a message
of how to get what you wanted from life was a business then, and it’s a business
now,” Albanese says.</P>
<P>Just ask “Abraham,” the disembodied, vibrational force whose teachings have
been transmitted for the past few decades through the physical form of lecturer
and author Esther Hicks. Although she dismisses the popular term “<A
href="http://www.apologeticsindex.org/c86.html">channeling</A>,” Hicks is a
modern link to the past Spiritualist movement.</P>
<P>Hicks and her husband, Jerry, have written about the so-called law of
attraction — the “secret” that was the focal point of The Secret DVD. But
contractual issues find the couple, and their Abraham entity, excised from the
version now circulating.</P>
<P>No worries, they say. They’re happy to stay on the road and pass on Abraham’s
keys to better living through the power of the mind.</P>
<P>“The secrets of life have never been a secret. It’s like calling the law of
gravity a secret,” says Abraham via Esther Hicks, whose normally lilting twang
suddenly takes on a robotic tone.</P>
<P>“People have been calling Jerry and Esther, saying, ‘I have bought The
Secret, but now what do I do?’</P>
<P>“The truth is, The Secret is merely a powerful catalyst that presents the
possibility of a better life,” says the monotone voice. “Abraham is smiling in
the simple knowledge that, in truth, The Secret has not revealed ‘the secret.’ “
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