First, I must applaud Rhonda Byrne for her slick repackaging of an old classic (The Science of Getting Rich) and her magnificently effective advertising campaign for The Secret. She deserves her rewards, financial and otherwise.

Criticism of The Secret seems to come in two main varieties: Fundamentalists who denounce the work as a whole and those (some believers and some who are not) who say it’s just not as easy as she says it is.

The knee-jerk, negative reactions from the Fundamentalists are standard procedure with all entries classified as New Age Thought.

The most prevalent complaint from this camp seems to be that The Secret is just another system of the self-deification that takes a pantheistic view of the Universe; one that sees God not as a Person but more as the sum total of everything in existence — both in the Seen and the Unseen worlds.

First, let’s look at self-deification: Jesus Christ, on an occasion when he was about to be stoned to death for blasphemy, quoted from the Old Testament (Psalms 82: 6) “Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are gods.” (John 10:34).

He also told us that if we believe in him than we can perform even greater miracles than he has performed. Does this mean that only Christians can manifest miracles in their lives? And what would the definition of a Christian be? One who is a member of an organized church but lives far less than a Christ-like existence or one that believes in the divinity of Christ as well as our own. This must be left to the reader to decide.

And as for God being a Personal God? If He is Omnipotent (all powerful) and Omnipresent (everywhere) then where exactly does this Person sit to check out the view? Because your vision of God is not that of an Old Man with Flowing Gray Beard, seated in a Throne, that doesn’t make you a sinner doomed to hell for eternity. Will a seven-year-old child have the same vision of God as an adult? Only if she was given the same rendition to study. (Usually her Guardian Angel can help her with this.)

Jesus himself didn’t judge disbelievers: “And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.” (John 12:47).

The problem caused by religions is not in the difficulty of believing in something that there is no proof of (hence the need for Faith) but in requiring others to believe in it too.

“This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake until them.” (John 10:6). Sometimes it’s tough figuring out what things actually mean. Interpretation of the parables is up for debate.

I disagree with the Fundamentalists that The Secret is another step closer to hell. To quote Wallace Wattles (Ms. Byrne’s inspiration for The Secret): “The world is not going to the devil; it is going to God. It is a wonderful Becoming.

Now, on to my criticism of The Secret, which is a more practical one: It’s not as easy as Ms. Byrne leads us to believe.

“Ask once, believe you have received, and all you have to do to receive is feel good.” (P.53)

Byrne credits Wallace Wattles’ “The Science of Getting Rich” as her inspiration for The Secret and a reading of the classic will verify that. In fact, The Secret is more of a revision using “The Science” as a blueprint. I think of The Secret as “The Science of Getting Rich Lite.”

In The Secret, Byrne states that the chapter on gratitude is the largest. I’m not sure why she didn’t say the “most important in my judgment” or “most useful” or “most pertinent” or most anything else because it is not the longest at all. In fact FOURTEEN chapters are longer. That’s right, 14 chapters, in a 17chapter book, are longer. Only the first and last chapters are shorter. For the “doubting Thomases” out there here’s the word count breakdown:(Chapter 7 is titled “Gratitude.”)

1)958

2)1158

3)1225

4)1652

5)1698

6)1636

7)1097

8)1357

9)1413

10)1553

11)1631

12)1336

13)1228

14)1166

15)1260

16)1368

17)517

And if you think this is anal, a word processor spits this information out in no time. So this just begs the question: why didn’t someone check it? Ms. Byrne? Her editor, perhaps? Anybody?

What I think is more significant is that there are two subjects that Wattles took two chapters each to explain: (one) the use of will, and (two) ACTION.

Asking once for even something as small as a new bicycle, believing you have it and feeling good about it is unlikely to manifest that bike.

Here’s what Byrne has to say about “action” in The Secret:

“Action is a word that can imply “work” to some people, but inspired action will not feel like work at all. The difference between inspired action and action is this: Inspired action is when you’re acting to receive. If you are in action to try to make it happen you have slipped backward. Inspired action is effortless and it feels wonderful because you are on the frequency of receiving.

Imagine life as a fast-moving river. When you’re acting to make something happen it will feel as if you’re going against the current of the river. It will feel hard and like a struggle. When you’re acting to receive from the Universe you will feel as if you are flowing with the current of the river. It will feel effortless. That is the feeling of inspired action, and of being in the flow of the Universe and life.

Sometimes you will not even be aware that you used “action” until after you received, because the acting felt so good. You will then look back and see the wonder and matrix of how the Universe carried you to what you wanted, and also brought what you wanted to you.” (P. 55)

This “feeling good” derived from action sounds a lot like what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described as “flow” in his groundbreaking book, “FLOW: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” in which an action so captivates the person’s consciousness that they “feel strong, alert, and in effortless control, unselfconscious, and as if they were performing at the peak of their abilities. Both the sense of time and emotional problems seem to disappear. There is an exhilarating feeling of transcendence, of breaking out of the boundaries of identity.”

This certainly sounds more like Byrne’s — rafting down the river with a large bowl of your favorite ice cream — action than her “inspiration’s” take on it.

Let’s see how it contrasts with Wattle’s action. (All capitalization is Wattle’s not mine.)

“THOUGHT is the creative power, or the impelling force which causes the creative power to act; thinking in a Certain Way will bring riches to you, but you must not rely upon thought alone, paying no attention to personal action. That is the rock upon which many otherwise scientific metaphysical thinkers meet shipwreck–the failure to connect thought with personal action.

We have not yet reached the stage of development, even supposing such a stage to be possible, in which man can create directly from Formless Substance without nature’s processes or the work of human hands; man must not only think, but his personal action must supplement his thought.

Your thought makes all things, animate and inanimate, work to bring you what you want; but your personal activity must be such that you can rightly receive what you want when it reaches you. You are not to take it as charity, nor to steal it; you must give every man more in use value than he gives you in cash value.

You can really see the truth of this. When things reach you, they will be in the hands of other men, who will ask an equivalent for them.

And you can only get what is yours by giving the other man what is his.

Your pocketbook is not going to be transformed into a Fortunatus’s purse, which shall be always full of money without effort on your part.

Whatever your action is to be, it is evident that you must act NOW.

Put your whole mind into present action.

Do not give your creative impulse to Original Substance, and then sit down and wait for results; if you do, you will never get them. Act now. There is never any time but now, and there never will be any time but now. If you are ever to begin to make ready for the reception of what you want, you must begin now.

Do not wait for a change of environment, before you act; get a change of environment by action.

Hold with faith and purpose the vision of yourself in the better environment, but act upon your present environment with all your heart, and with all your strength, and with all your mind.

Do not spend any time in daydreaming or castle building; hold to the one vision of what you want, and act NOW.

Hold the vision of yourself in the job you want, while you ACT with faith and purpose on the job you have, and you will certainly get the job you want.

You cannot foresee the results of even the most trivial act; you do not know the workings of all the forces that have been set moving in your behalf. Much may be depending on your doing some simple act; it may be the very thing which is to open the door of opportunity to very great possibilities. You can never know all the combinations which Supreme Intelligence is making for you in the world of things and of things and of human affairs; your neglect or failure to do some small thing may cause a long delay in getting what you want.

Do, every day, ALL that can be done that day.

You are not to overwork, nor to rush blindly into your business in the effort to do the greatest possible number of things in the shortest possible time.

You are not to try to do tomorrow’s work today, nor to do a week’s work in a day.

It is really not the number of things you do, but the EFFICIENCY of each separate action that counts.

It is at this point that the people fail who separate mental power from personal action. They use the power of mind in one place and at one time, and they act in another place and at another time. So their acts are not successful in themselves; too many of them are inefficient. But if All Power goes into every act, no matter how commonplace, every act will be a success in itself; and as in the nature of things every success opens the way to other successes, your progress toward what you want, and the progress of what you want toward you, will become increasingly rapid.”

“Do, every day, all that you can do that day, and do each act in an efficient manner.” Does any of this sound like Byrne’s take on it? It’s clear that “action” is necessary and since we’re all not blessed with the ability to summon “inspired action” upon request we should realize how “much may be depending on your doing some simple act; it may be the very thing which is to open the door of opportunity to very great possibilities.”

In the Seen (physical) world, nature follows the path of least resistance. Whether this is an electrical current flowing through the most conductive route in a circuit, the downhill flow of water traveling around large obstacles or a storm Center flowing to an area of low pressure, it’s a path we can’t ignore.

The child visualizing his dream bicycle will more likely be given an opportunity to work a local newspaper route or mow the neighbor’s lawn, than to wake up with a bicycle in his living room the next morning. (Unless, of course, it’s December 24th and he’s dropped enough not-so-subtle hints to Santa via mom and dad).

The person heavily in debt is doing himself a disservice if he expects to “do The Secret” and then trip over a duffel bag full of Hamiltons on the front porch on the way to work the next morning.

Opportunities will open to you but your responsibility is to sharpen your awareness — and look for these opportunities — and not just “feel good” while “acting to receive.”

Don’t kick back and float down the river of life “acting to receive.” A better choice may be “acting to give.” To give to your fellow man because ” when things reach you, they will be in the hands of other men, who will ask an equivalent for them. And you can only get what is yours by giving the other man what is his.”

Act to GIVE and…

Act NOW!

Michael Flagg is interested in your comments. Reach him at Michael@TheSecretsTheSecretKeptSecret.com and get a free eBook that contains both of the classics that inspired The Secret: “The Science of Getting Rich” by Wallace Wattles and “The Master Key” by Charles Haanel with additions not found in other copies of Haanel. Get it for FREE at http://www.thesecretsthesecretkeptsecret.com/