While The Secret become pop-cultural phenomena since Oprah’s endorsement in February, it’s almost shocking that people outside her core audience – namely young, hyper-literate New Yorkers who pride themselves on their cynicism, taste and intellectual snobbery – would not only read it, but also actively embrace it.

The Secret is the prosperity gospel of the secular world.

The Secret is out, promising everything from bigger bank accounts to a spiritually fulfilling life, but it’s a message that some mainstream Christian leaders are labeling as “blasphemous” and “false teaching.”

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.

Steve Salerno, author of SHAM — How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless: We’re so conditioned to take the pulse of our happiness from one moment to the next, and it’s self-help that’s encouraged this. And the reason it does this is to keep us convinced there’s something wrong with us, so they can sell the next book.

The book’s explicit claim is that you can manipulate objective physical reality – the numbers in a lottery drawing, the actions of other people who may not even know you exist – through your thoughts and feelings.

Behind the success of “The Secret” is a seamier story about the origins of the film. It involves big money and what some participants say are the broken promises of Ms. Byrne. The star of the first version of the movie, released in March last year, demanded to be cut out of the current version, which has been on the market since Oct. 1.

It’s absolutely possible for everyone to have these things and more — at least that’s what the teachers say in The Secret.