Secrets of the rich and credulous - the self help book taking the UK by storm
A self-help book that combines positive thinking and historical mysticism is selling like hot cakes - and angering its many critics
Sunday, 22 April 2007
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The Secret is out - and, to the consternation of its many critics, the British are buying into it. The book claiming to unlock the mysteries of the universe to every reader, is about to become the best-seller of the year.
Written by Australian television producer Rhonda Byrne, it combines theories of positive thinking with the historical mysticism of The Da Vinci Code. It has just crashed into UK best-seller charts, with predictions that it will hit No 1 within days.
The Secret, which claims to equip readers with an ancient means of obtaining whatever they want, is an import from the United States, where it has attracted attention from celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson, Meg Ryan and Nicole Kidman.
The book features a string of US self-help gurus Byrne calls "secret teachers" explaining their central theory: that by thinking positive thoughts, a person can realise their dreams, be it weight loss, a fortune or finding their ideal spouse. Negative thoughts attract negative events and therefore thin people should look away when they see someone fat.
Byrne says it has been practised by some of history's greatest thinkers, artists and statesmen, including Aristotle, Martin Luther King, Victor Hugo and Winston Churchill, and says they concealed the reason for their success.
The less credulous British public, however, was expected to prove more difficult to crack. But not so, despite the author turning down the chance to appear on Richard and Judy.
The book has knocked the latest Harry Potter story off the top spot in Amazon's chart. It appeared in the week's hardback non-fiction chart in fourth place, and last week was seventh in Waterstone's hardback chart against fierce competitionin both from Ian McEwan, Jacqueline Wilson and Wilbur Smith.
"We've 100,000 copies out in the shops. It looks like it's going to hit No 1 in the next couple of weeks," said a spokeswoman for Simon & Schuster. Jon Howells of Waterstone's said: " To be in the top 10 is hard to do for self-help books. It's doing very, very well."
But The Secret has many critics. Doctors have been irritated by its inclusion of a paralysed man, who claims the power of his mind restored him to full health, and a woman who said her breast cancer went into remission.
The book also asked whether 9/11 victims brought disaster upon themselves through negative thinking, and claimed the dead had been part of a wider climate of fear in the US.
