Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jim Garlow is the author of the bestselling "Cracking Da Vinci's Code." He has authored ten books total. Jim pastors Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego and hosts the daily radio program, The Garlow Perspective, heard on more than 425 radio stations daily.

Rick Marschall is described by Bostonia Magazine as "America's foremost authority on pop culture." Rick is certainly the top comic and cartoon historian in the world today. He was the editor for several comic syndicates as well as Marvel and Disney comics. He has authored 59 books on cultural topics, including the history of comics, television and country music. Rick was director of product development for Youth Specialties before resuming his writing and editing career. Rick and his wife are in the process of moving back to New York City where he grew up.

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The Secret Revealed

Faithwords

Chapter One

Belief: Keep Your Mind Engaged

Stan Lee of Marvel Comics has a wonderful phrase he uses about the art and craft of writing superhero comics, and of being a fan of them. He says we have to "suspend disbelief." Actually, with many forms of fiction, the watchword is to "suspend belief"-it's those times we are asked to go a step further, mentally, emotionally, rationally. True to form, The Secret requires that we suspend disbelief. Its ideas are abstract, its evidence is vague, its promises are grand, and it arouses suspicion in the most casual reader's mind.

In its first months, The Secret's DVD and book versions sold millions of copies-of course, the word spread, even though its propositions sounded too good to be true. Once The Secret got out, many news programs, comedy shows, and pop commentators-the type of people in today's culture who normally fall over each other to endorse the latest feel-good or self-help fad-instead criticized or ridiculed the book. Yet it continued on its whirlwind course, with reports of bookstores unable to stock copies, of additional DVDs in production, even of a high-ticket marketing scheme based on The Secret, and more. So it finds an audience of fans.

Up-front, we must acknowledge we are not among them. You might ask then, if we think The Secret's ideas far-fetched and implausible, why do we bother countering them? Why should we consider them worth discussing? More so, some fellow skeptics will protest that any effort to deal with this philosophy will backfire, giving further publicity for The Secret.

Our first answer to questions about whether The Secret is even worth answering is this: there are many claims by author Rhonda Byrne and her team, from unsupported varieties of dream therapy to "history" built on paranoid fantasies, and it's important for some of these matters that the record be set straight.

THE FLAW OF ATTRACTION

The Law of Attraction is a recently coined phrase, but its ideas are hardly new. Easily it can be seen in the Bible's account of the Garden, where the serpent issued the temptation "You will be like God" (Gen 3:5). That is the clear (and stated) thesis of The Secret. This book will review history's other philosophies, heresies, and doctrines similar to the Law of Attraction. Gnosticism is a belief that has persisted for centuries. We will review others in succeeding chapters, but here are comments on gnosticism.

Gnostics believed that God is good and the world is evil. Since God is good, He could not have created the world. There was an emphasis on knowledge (gnosis is Greek for "knowledge"). This knowledge, which led to salvation, was secret, reserved for the elite. "The Gnostic movement posed as the bearer of a secret tradition stemming from Christ, or from the apostles." J. Guitton, Great Heresies and Church Councils (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).

"Gnostics claimed to have a secret knowledge which was the key to salvation." David Christie-Murray, A History of Heresy (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).

"The Gnostic position asserts that over and above the simple Gospel ... there is a secret, higher knowledge reserved for an elite." Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1984).

We might grant that if the threat amounted to no more than a group of people being invited to a presentation or seminar where they are offered this collection of "facts," it would perhaps amount to no more than an unfortunate waste of an evening. But in fact The Secret has become a craze that has swept the nation, affected peoples' behavior, and taken their money. Such a phenomenon demands further examination.

But second, we believe The Secret represents something unfortunate, even dangerous, in contemporary life. Because it is packaged in the language of happiness, wealth, and feeling good, it masquerades as a harmless prescription for ... well, everything unfortunate, even harmful, in contemporary life.

What's ironic is that there is a materialistic aspect to The Secret: a me-oriented, wealth-obsessed selfishness that flies in the face of most religions, philosophies, and value-systems through all history, all over the world.

Even the more contemporary schools of thought tending toward materialism pay at least minimal lip service to charity and service. Yet The Secret actually ridicules the concept of sacrifice. Even if The Secret's popularity is due to the fact that such ideas strike a chord in present-day America, we consider that alone a reason to raise an alarm, and not passively accept some sort of planetary convergence of new morals.

Our third reason for "answering" The Secret is no less important: hurting people are seeking answers from Rhonda Byrne to life's toughest questions.

Many readers of our book are already familiar with The Secret. Some will merely know of the controversy Rhonda Byrne's book has stirred; some have a curiosity engendered by a magazine cover or a Nightline report on television; some might have even reacted to a word-of-mouth recommendation of our book. Maybe some have bought the book itself, maybe the video, maybe some attended seminars or bought into The Secret's new multilevel marketing scheme. Others have been persuaded by its presentation; indeed many are enthusiastic recruits. To a large extent, we address these readers.

We firmly believe others will benefit from the reading of our book: in fact, we have designed The Secret Revealed to inform anyone, even those (if there are any such left in the world) who have not heard of The Secret.

But it's especially to those who have reached out for the answers The Secret offers-it's with these audiences we need to identify. And we do empathize. There are billions of people in the world, all different in countless ways, yet among the few common characteristics of everyone on earth are the need to be loved, a desire for security, and a feeling of self-worth. We see that. We all share these fundamental human characteristics. It is clear why The Secret can appeal to people on its surface.

But the desire for security shouldn't have to lead to a value system that excludes caring. A feeling of self-worth should not morph into an ethic of selfishness. Did The Secret intrigue you because of what it promised? That's not to say your needs are inappropriate, but we will unpack together some more lucid ways to confront whatever hurts or fears, confusion or desires you might have.

THE LAW OF ATTRACTION IS IN THE CLASSROOM

Have you ever wondered why:

teachers in your local government-run public school cannot speak of God or Jesus, our Lord, and Savior, and even having a Bible on school grounds could be cause for disciplinary action, but the same prohibition on "religion" does not exist for Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism?

children study the spirituality of the Native American Indians; their spiritual wheels and animal spirits, shamans, dream catchers, and the like, are [acceptable] topics and art projects for the classroom, but...