The Secret passed me by. It shouldn't have, because it's a global phenomenon, although not necessarily of the type it purports to be. It's the latest version of a type of mass hysteria that keeps recurring throughout history: a potent cocktail of economic and social pressures spiked with a tincture of magic, sealed in the hot lights of the media. From Black Plague-era public flagellations to the 17th-century Dutch tulip craze to snake-oil salesmen fleecing early Americans, it's the same game: instant riches, unearned bliss.
Based on reality-TV producer Rhonda Byrne's 2006 film of the same name, The Secret was a mega-bestseling book at a time when I was a newspaper's literary editor. So I knew about The Secret but didn't read it, instead assignimg coverage to another writer, who mocked it. Then a friend of mine told me at lunch one day that she was thinking of buying the book. She said she thought it could lift her out of debt and make her married boyfriend dump his wife.
"It's so simple," she said. "You just have to wish really hard for what you want."
I mocked it. She didn't buy it. Later that year she committed suicide. I didn't think about The Secret again until last week, when I was interviewing an artist who leads finger-painting workshops based on the principles espoused in the book. Googling The Secret, I was startled to see what a widespread hold it still wields. Its officially sanctioned promoters appear on top talk shows, asserting that the book's powers derive from real science and ancient wisdom. Countless adherents credit their newfound love, health and wealth to the Law of Attraction, which is The Secret's ask-and-you-shall-receive ace-in-the-hole, which its author links none too convincingly to a long lineage entailing the Rosicrucians.
Instant gratification wasn't invented by credit-card companies in postwar America. It was already in evidence in 1870 when Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables" -- he was referring to the then-current fad for seances -- "to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology" -- he was referring to the then-current fad for linking personality traits with the contours of the head -- "or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship." Shortcuts were already becoming national trends and infusing the national character.
"Excellence is lost sight of," Emerson wrote, "in the hunger for sudden performance and praise."
And it was far from new in Emerson's time. An actual person named Aesop might never have actually existed -- Herodotus claimed that Aesop was a freed slave who died in the 6th century BCE at Delphi, though scholars debate this -- but the moral rivalry between "grasshoppers" and "ants" was already clearly underway 2,600 years ago. That's because instant gratification is the automatic urge of every living thing. Resisting that urge is perhaps life's greatest challenge. What creature would expend effort if food and shelter were attainable without it?
A creepy feeling grips me as I watch the "Secret to Riches" video, an official product of The Secret's creators. It has racked up over two million views. In the video, bold messages appear in full caps, alternating with colorful footage against soaring instrumental music. It's like primitive spellcasting and sci-fi rolled into one. It's wishful thinking gone electronic. And even though I do believe in magic and in the power of positive thinking, I squirm -- with despair and, yes, with envy -- to think of the vast fortune gleaned by The Secret's creators from the wallets of willing participants in an era when gullibility fuses with greed.
Here's how that video goes:
"I am a money magnet," we read across the screen. "Everything I touch turns to gold." (A man touches a sculpted Grecian bust, which turns to gold.) "I have more riches than King Solomon's mines." (Two guys look amazed as they ply through said mines.) "Money falls like an avalanche over me." (Bills float down from the sky.) "There is more money being printed for me right now." (We see money being printed.) "I am receiving money making ideas every day." (A man wears headphones, his eyes shut, apparently "receiving ideas.") "I am receiving unexpected checks in the mail." (A check is made out for a million dollars; then a hand pulls an envelope - presumably containing the check - from a mailbox.) "I have more than enough money for everything I want." (A woman gazes at jewelry through a shop window.) "I have my dream home." (A clifftop mansion towers above a gorgeous cove.) "I have the best of everything. I am grateful and celebrate every day." (Tickertape drifts past New York City skyscrapers.) "I know when I ask for what I want" (a man seizes what looks like Aladdin's lamp), "no matter what it is that I want" (the man rubs the lamp; smoke pours out), "no matter how impossible it may seem" (the smoke turns into a genie), "if I believe and know it is mine, the answer must be...."
And the genie intones: "Your wish is my command."
