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(Excerpted from an online essay I wrote): To be sure, the so-called Secret represents a financially viable means to wealth, obviously so, but let's be clear: only for Rhonda Byrnes, The Secret DVD's producer and book's author.

Thus, Byrnes would have you believe that the world's wealthy, distinguished and famous—every last luminous one of them—attained their high position by dint of simple adherence to a secret law: The Law of Attraction. She shits you not. Furthermore, they (the world's rich, celebrated, and leisured) have all conspired to keep knowledge of this law from the rest of us. Einstein, Plato, J.P. Morgan, Mozart, Sir Isaac Newton, Beethoven, and the Rockefellers, among others, are all given as examples of this mighty (and mightily secretive) Them.

There are problems with this theory. For starters, the Law of Attraction isn't really a secret. Self-help books with a metaphysical bent have preached this stuff for centuries. I mean, just walk into your nearest New Age bookshop and pick up the first book you see; it will undoubtedly mention something about the Law.

So is Byrnes lying to us? Not exactly. Harry Frankfurt, a Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton, puts it this way in his little book On Bullshit, "[The Bullshitter:] does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose" (p. 56). A liar, you see, at least recognizes the truth enough to know that he's departing from it; a bullshitter couldn't care less—just show her the money.

The Law of Attraction, then, is the bullshitter's belief that one can change the objective world alone by the power of thought—forget action; in fact, eschew action. If your belief is strong enough, says the Law, your dreams and desires will come to you much as a steel screw hops across a tabletop and slaps into a powerful magnet. This is the "As you sow, so shall ye reap" philosophy minus any actual sowing, a fairy dust notion that we all at one point in our lives have espoused: it's called magical thinking. We're supposed to outgrow it.

When I was four years old I had an invisible friend named Kenny. His existence, such as it was, may or may not have originated in direct response to my sister Amanda's birth, an event which made me an oldest child instead of the only child in the family. Unlike my busy mother, Kenny always paid attention to me and let me have my way. I loved Kenny. My mom eventually forced me to go outside and play with real children. Predictably, Kenny soon disappeared. The Secret would explain the account thus: my early imagining of a perfect playmate eventually attracted other, more corporeal playmates into my reality. Which is true—at least to the degree that we forget about my mom forcing me to go outside.

What follows, then, is an arbitrary list of some of the "authorities" that appear on the DVD, the trained animals of the circus or the witch's evil monkeys, depending on the metaphor, waxing explanatory on the The Secret. But don't imagine the monkeys as evil; rather, picture streetwise capuchins earnestly working a cheap accordion with their tiny, hairy hands, glancing up now and then with a smile, anxious to see if you've put a coin yet in their dented tin cups:

Dr. John Demartini, D.C. (Doctor of Chiropractic).

Marie Diamond, internationally-known Feng Shui mistress. Diamond, a Caucasian, speaks with an inexplicably strong Asian accent, a la Seinfeld's Donna Chang.

John Assaraf, "a former street kid…who has dedicated the last twenty-five years to researching the human brain, quantum physics, and business strategies, as they relate to achieving success in business and life." In the film, John relates an account about the power of visualization whose denouement has him crumpled on the floor and weeping, the former street kid, because he found a picture of a house in a box.

Michael Bernard Beckwith, "a non-aligned trans-religious progressive"—your guess here is as good as mine. Beckwith also claims the title of doctor, although God alone knows where the title comes from. Beckwith, ever the walking conundrum, dresses in a sharp suit, speaks in patrician tones, and sports a wild head of dreadlocks.

And Ester Hicks, spokesperson for Abraham, a multifarious spiritual entity. She is the author of The Law of Attraction. (Byrnes, Rhonda, The Secret, [all presenter material from the book The Secret BIOGRAPHIES section, pp. 185-198:].)

Esther Hicks is no longer a featured presenter in The Secret "Enhanced" DVD. Why? It's hard to say. Esther's website quotes Abraham, the spiritual collective she channels, on the topic: "It is our desire that you be easy about all of this. There is nothing that has gone wrong here�." (Email communication between author and Hicks's company)

Esther is a pleasant-looking, middle-aged woman. She has a serene presence, almost comforting. She also has the most attractive voice I've ever heard—very earthy, very sexy. I find it difficult to reconcile that voice with anything close to its putative paranormal personae.

Even though the author's of The Secret (and anyone else swept into their rhetorical corner) probably aren't consciously lying to us about their great happiness at having discovered the Law, I have suspicions that somewhere deep in their hearts something like a moral question prickles and goads. For instance, how should one respond to a crisis of, say, Darfur proportions? Should the suffering of stranger Africans on a continent far, far away be of concern if, ultimately, all that matters is how I feel? Esther asked Abraham (the multifarious spiritual entity) for clarification on this very matter:

...I used to be extremely disturbed when a person's rights were violated by violence on a person, or by someone forcefully taking someone else's property....But then, after meeting you [Abraham:], I got to the point that I see all those things they're doing with others as "games" that they're playing—more or less "agreements" that they have between one another, spoken or unspoken. I've gotten somewhat better at not feeling their pain. But can I get to the point that I don’t feel anything negative when I see someone violating the rights of another? Can I just look at whatever they're doing to one another out there, and think, You're all doing to one another what you have somehow chosen to do? (Ibid, pg. 142)

That might, to some ears, sound a little cruel, this idea of blaming the victim for attracting the perpetrator. The upside, of course, is that such a belief absolves we standers-by from stepping in and offering help. Let's take as an example the recent shooting at Virginia Tech. Apparently, if the Law of Attraction holds true, those 32 men and women somehow attracted their crazy executioner to themselves. Mass homicide, in this light, is simply a game played between the shooter and his frightened victims.

Rhonda Byrnes attempted to defend this belief in a telephone conversation with Newsweek's Jerry Adler (cite link). They were speaking on the topic of Rwanda, which dwarfs Blacksburg in terms of scope but certainly not in terms of horror:

If we are in fear, if we're feeling in our lives that we're victims and feeling powerless, then we are on a frequency of attracting those things to us...totally unconsciously, totally innocently, totally all of those words that are so important.

Totally. Totally those words that are so important, whether thought or spoken consciously or not, let the victims enjoy their just deserts. It's true that any survivor of genocide or attempted homicide is responsible for picking up the various shattered pieces and attempting to make something of what's left of life. But to pretend that tragedy is nothing more than a game is to diminish its victims suffering in the cruelest possible way. The word "compassion," incidentally, comes from the Latin com + pati, to bear, suffer. If compassion would have us bear another's suffering, what then is its opposite? What is the word for ignoring or minimizing another's suffering for the primary purpose of easing the bystander's discomfort, and, as Law of Attraction espouses, the dubious secondary purpose of somehow inspiring the sufferer to quit wallowing in his own tragic juices?

Am I overreacting here? I feel like my parents yelling at me for listening to Heavy Metal music. But the question, remember, was whether one could actually reach a state of consciousness where he isn't bothered in the slightest by another's pain or suffering. Heavy Metal music, on the other hand, was meant to be a (tongue-in-cheek) solace to teenagers suffering under their parents' heavy hands. There is a difference: the Heavy Metal promise is a lie, the other is bullshit, albeit scary bullshit.

Here's a secret: the Mother Theresas of the world will be remembered long after the Rhonda Byrneses have faded from collective memory for the same reason that generosity of spirit is appreciated so much more than selfishness. Magnanimity represents the apotheosis of human nature. Success, lasting success, takes place only when one figures out how to best serve a large number of people. Real people, real service first, the money will probably follow. Bullshit, on the other hand, bullshit sells well, for a time -- perhaps even for a long time -- but it's not exactly a worthwhile endeavor.