Category: The Secret

Secret history of The Secret

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.

The Secret life of self-help books

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.

Shaking Riches Out of the Cosmos

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.