Nonfiction Book Reviews

The Secret Revealed: Exposing the Truth About the Law of Attraction by James L. Garlow and Rick Marschall was a book that definitely didn’t impress me. I had originally heard about The Secret from a friend of mine who really believed it with every fiber of his soul.  I sat down and watched the movie with him to humor him, and although at the time I thought, “Wow, that looked really interesting - could that really be true?” afterwards I started to really think about it.

After discussing it with my sister, we eventually came to the conclusion that The Secret comes apart at the seams for the same reason that karma does: How do you account for when bad things happen to good people, when according to karma (and The Secret), everything that happened to you is your fault?  Can you honestly say that a little girl who was raped repeatedly, hacked to pieces, and then fed to the dogs was somehow responsible for that happening because she didn’t make her bed that morning?  Truly, how could any little girl, or any human being at all, be horrid enough to deserve a fate like that?

So I decided that karma, and The Secret, couldn’t be true.  I went on my merry way, until I saw this book.  I thought, “Wow, how cool!  A book that debunks The Secret!”  I knew that the whole “everything that’s happened to you in your whole life is because of your own thoughts and actions, so suck it up” was wrong, but what else was I missing? I was sure there were other glaring inconsistencies in the movie/book that I had overlooked.

As I started reading though, I realized quickly that the whole “expose” could be summed in one sentence: We are Christians; The Secret is New Age stuff; we don’t believe in New Age stuff; Christ is so much better and makes you so much happier.  Okay, so it’s a run-on sentence, but you get the picture. I had expected something in-depth, something helpful, but instead got several hundred pages of the above, just regurgitated in different forms.  They did touch on the whole karma idea, for roughly 2 paragraphs (I counted).  That was the only time it was brought up in the entire book.  The rest of the time, all of the arguments seemed to base on the fact that there was no way The Secret could be correct, because it was based on New Age philosophy, and that’s of the devil.

How could that be even remotely helpful?  I think it really didn’t help things that I didn’t know from the beginning that this was a “Christian” book.  After an hour of skimming through and becoming more disgusted by the moment, I flipped the book over and checked the labeling section, to see where the publisher suggested that the book be filed at in the bookstore.  It was then that I saw the Christianity label.  I had not realized that going in, and I think that if I had, perhaps my reference point and what I was expecting out of the book would have been different.

I was expecting an unbiased review of The Secret, much like the Debunking 9/11 Myths by Popular Mechanics was an unbiased review of what happened on that tragic day.  Debunking 9/11 Myths wasn’t written from a Christian point of view, with references and debates hinging upon that.  Instead, it referenced studies, reports, and interviews, and based what it said on facts.  None of that was to be found in The Secret Revealed.

I give this book 1.25 stars out of 5.  Don’t waste your time reading it - I summed up pretty much everything it said in the above four paragraphs anyway.