KEY POINTS:
If you think about the things you want long, hard and happily then you will get them. So there you go. Now you, too, know the secret behind The Secret, the bestselling self-help DVD and book that's been endorsed by the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and Larry King.
Even Nicole Kidman has been quoted as saying The Secret's methods helped save her marriage to her husband; addictive personality and country music star Keith Urban.
And if you read The Secret's pro-motional material you will find that it promises to reveal the secret to, well, everything: "joy, health, money, relationships, love, happiness."
Wow. Cool. No wonder it's a bestseller. And worth a try then, don't you think? Even if you're not married to a flirtatious, drug-addicted country singer who doesn't shave enough.
My first task is to buy and watch a copy of The Secret DVD. Overseas, The Secret's combined DVD and book sales are up around the six million mark, with the book climbing into the New York Times bestseller list and the DVD one of amazon.coms top five for several months.
I manage to get hold of the last copy at Whitcoulls in Queen St. It costs $65. Meanwhile, in their "Spiritual" section there's an area devoted to stacks of the literary version of The Secret, which is $24.95 and currently ranked number one on our local bookseller charts.
Next step: watch the video. At first, it reminds me of the Da Vinci Code. And I hated that, too. But even I have to admit that by the end of this mildly cheesy infomercial my disbelief has been suspended by, oh, about a third.
The Secret movie and book are the creation of Australian Rhonda Byrne, who combined a whole bunch of pre-existing theories on this subject and repackaged them rather cleverly as a sort of conspiracy theory-meets-mystery-meets-self-help video. And whether I will eventually come to believe in The Secrets methods or not, one thing is clear: Byrne, an experienced producer of reality TV shows, including the Worlds Greatest Commercials and Sensing Murder, knows a thing or two about making convincing telly.
Apparently, The Secret works using the so-called Law of Attraction. Very simply, this law says that if you think about good things, you will attract them to you. It's all about vibrations. Because all matter, animal or mineral, vibrates at a nuclear level. And apparently your thoughts, or maybe your thought waves, also vibrate.
All that lovely, touchy-feely stuff combined with the silly pseudo-science, combined with the rather bewitching promise that magic does work if you want it to, is awfully beguiling.
Before I begin my own personal experiment with The Secret, I interview several people, who say it has worked for them, for another story. One woman seriously believes she won $10,000 on Lotto by using it. Another credits The Secret with her current business success - she's a distributor for The Secret in Australia so that is a bit obvious, but hey, who am I to play the hardened cynic?
Most poignantly of all, I speak to a very convincing and down-to-earth mother who was told either she or her baby might die during her third pregnancy because of a life-threatening condition (which caused holes in her placenta) she had discovered during her previous pregnancy. Medical experts had already told her things were looking grim when she decided to start visualising a positive outcome as instructed in The Secret.
Yep, you guessed it: her third child, a son, was born healthy and she was fine, too.
All of which brings me to my 30-day diary, starting today.
I'm doing 30 days because The Secret movie is filled with witnesses testifying that they've received everything from cold, hard cash to a cure for cancer to a parking spot right outside their office. And although no one says so specifically, several of those on the video tell how, after they had determinedly happy thoughts for 30 days, their wishes were granted.
DAY 1
Right, so I've decided to "manifest" - this is the word The Secret-eers use when they're talking about drawing something to themselves - a boyfriend. I'm not going to do anything else out of the ordinary. I won't be joining a dating agency, advertising my admittedly attractive wares online or going to more wild parties than usual. I will simply attempt to do what I am told in my $65 DVD. In it we are told that it's a simple three-step process. 1. Ask, 2. Believe, 3. Receive. So, here goes: please can I have a boyfriend?
DAY 2
Nothing yet. But apparently it's not that easy anyway. There are techniques, as outlined in the video. What you have to do is imagine you are in that situation already. In the movie, one chap sits in an armchair, flapping his feet and pretending he's driving the sports car he wants. So I lie in bed pretending there's someone lying next to me. Some people might call this weird.
DAY 3
One of the experts in the video says that he altered a $10 bill to look like a $10,000 dollar bill, then stuck it to the ceiling above his bed. This meant that every morning when he woke, he would see it and it would remind him to meditate on how it would feel to have that money in his bank account.
And the very convincing mother I interviewed with the troubled pregnancy says she used to take 20 minutes each day to sit quietly and meditate on the result she wanted.
But the morning meditation isn't working for me, so instead I decide to listen to suggestively romantic music as I ride the bus to work. Christina Aguilera belts out Ain't No Other Man on my iPod. Although my fellow passengers look at me oddly as I smirk and sway and nod, I begin to think that yes! I would like to meet a guy who has soul, who has class and who can shake his bad ass.
DAY 4
Hearing the happily married ex-Mouseketeer sing about her hubby daily on my bus has already brought about a positive change. Secret-eers say when you ask for something, you don't know in which form you will receive it. The abundant universe will deliver - you just don't know how. So in my case, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be asking for a specific person just in case he's delivered in a way I don't like as in, he rear-ends my car or starts going out with my sister or something.
And, you know, one thing that's really good about having to ask for something like this and to visualise that request in detail, is that you have to think quite carefully about what you do want and why.
DAY 5
I think it's working! This morning I went to Foodtown to buy cat food and a man literally followed me around the store. We just kept ending up in the same shelving area and catching each other's eye. He was kind of ugly but that's OK. Coincidence? I think not.
DAY 6
One of my interviewees for that previous story on The Secret told me she now thought there was no such thing as coincidence, that everything was part of what you draw towards you, whether that was negative or positive. I'm not really sure about that. What I am quite sure about is that you see what you're looking for. It's a bit like reading your horoscope. If you think your astrologer is always right and he or she predicts you'll meet an important man in a white coat, then you might imbue your sausage-buying appointment with the butcher with a bit more significance than usual. And if some unattractive guy at the supermarket is looking for pet food in the same places as you, well, clearly that's your fault, too.
DAY 7
The end of my first week on The Secret and although there hasn't been any firm evidence that this works, I am certain of one thing. Even though the closest I got was ugly cat-food guy, I feel much more positive about my chances of hooking up with some masculine hottie. I feel like magic could happen. However, the deeply cynical and rational bits of me are not prepared to believe quite yet. I actually suspect that in some bizarre perversion of cognitive therapy (that's the type of psychotherapy where they stop you from smoking or over-eating by continuously connecting the bad behaviours with other negative stuff), I am training my mind to be hopeful and happy about my romantic prospects. I'm slowly hypnotising myself. But I like it.
DAY 10
Because I'm thinking about it so much, every day I've been having more epiphanies about what I do want in a chap. And it simply feels better to focus on the positive.
DAY 12
Positivity overdose. Wandering around concentrating on my imaginary boyfriend is starting to make me look like a bitch on heat. Seriously, I feel like a dog that's lost her owner. Every guy I see on the bus, on the street, at the dairy I look up hopefully, eyes glistening, tongue lolling, metaphorical tail wagging. Are you my daddy? Take me home? Woof? Actually it's starting to feel slightly embarrassing. I've never been, or at least acted, quite this desperate before. But then again, maybe that's why I am single.
DAY 14
Halfway through my 30 days of The Secret and all this bloody positivity is starting to annoy me. Because too much positivity is just silly and unrealistic. I've since found out that some devoted Secret-eers refuse to watch the television news anymore because it interferes with their positive thinking. But that doesn't seem a very balanced way of life to me.
I believe that, to a certain extent, reality can be subjective. You make your own reality. You perceive your life and your actions through your own psychological filter, a filter made of your memories, your upbringing and any spiritual inclinations, among other things. So if I am hypnotising myself into super-positivity, maybe there's a danger that I will end up with some bloke who's totally unsuitable, simply because I'm so hideously, unsteadily positive about it all.
Maybe one day I'll be forced to mix rat poison into his lamb casserole and when I'm caught, my lawyer will be able to say, I'm sorry, Your Honour, The Secret made her do it.
By that time maybe Rhonda Byrne will be so wealthy from DVD sales that we'll be able to sue her.
DAY 16
It's a good thing I was sick of being positive because today is almost completely negative in the romance stakes. I find out the guy I've recently had a couple of dates with and pashed once or twice is triple-dating. He didn't really count because the dates were done before the 30 days and I was waiting for him to call. But if I was being positive I'd say the abundant universe is telling me, to tell him, where to go.
DAY 19
I've just had the strangest weekend. At outings on both Friday and Saturday nights I've been flirted with and complimented. Hot men on whom I've had a crush for ages appear drunkenly in the night to stare and say breathlessly, one day I'll marry you, before lurching off to the bar. Nothing else happens but it makes me wonder. Did I manifest this? Or is it just that because I'm looking for opportunities, I'm seeing the lurching in a different light?
DAY 20
Tonight, I am ashamed to say, I eyed up my flatmate. And that's one perceived opportunity too many.
DAY 21
While driving, I sat on my mobile phone and accidentally called a cute guy whose number I have but to whom I never normally speak. I text to apologise. He texts back forgiving me. Coincidence? Probably. Desperate? Definitely.
DAY 23
I am sick with a heinous flu. And as I cough and sneeze and generally feel disgusting, it's hard to keep focused on my goal. Between work deadlines, outstanding bills, head colds and mainlining paracetamol, manifesting a boyfriend suddenly becomes a lot less important.
DAY 24
Still sick, still not able to focus on manifestation. And maybe if it's not that important, that means it's not what I really want.
At least that's what the Secret-eers would say. During my research I heard this strange theory about 100 per cent responsibility, no blame. The best, and perhaps most shocking-to-me, example of this came from a woman who had had a miscarriage. She felt that in some, totally subconscious way she hadn't been ready for that baby so it had been repelled. She had bad vibed it away, so to speak.
The same kinds of sentiments have been expressed by other Secret-eers when I asked them the tricky question that all journalists ask them. Because the theory says you attract negative things as much as you attractive positive. So how do they explain things like the Holocaust, 9/11, earthquakes in Nepal or other mass tragedies? Did all those people bring that on themselves? Did they manifest their own, sad destinies, too? Apparently the answer is yes, to a certain extent. But although they had only themselves to blame, they were not responsible. I don't think I will ever totally agree with this particular tenet of The Secret.
However, as I'm currently playing along, that means if I can manifest a lover, then I must also have repelled a fair few, too.
DAY 25
Thinking about attracting and repelling people into your life has been interesting. There's definitely a subtle but significant difference between wanting something and asking for it in a positive way. Wanting something is almost about focusing on the negative. Asking for it is the opposite. Because rather than wasting time lamenting the lack of said item in your life, you're actually working out exactly what it is you want and therefore possibly you know what you're looking for and you're figuring out how to get it. I think.
DAY 26
My time with The Secret is almost up but, if you're a potential believer, the best evidence that it might work occurred last night. I went to a place I never usually go to: a local strip club to interview some strippers. And, believe it or not, ended up sitting next to, then conversing with, a tall, dark, handsome and smart stranger about how funny it was to be here and how cool the strippers giant Perspex shoes were. Odd, because it's definitely not the kind of place you normally run into hot, interesting guys who make jokes about women's footwear. Was it due to 26 days of my own stunning manifestation techniques? Hard to say especially because I don't imagine I'll ever see the guy again.
DAY 30
Just over a month of positive thinking later and despite several mildly interesting developments, I'm still single.
But before I sum up, I have to confess that this trial wasn't entirely fair. Firstly, because I did have several lapses of focus and more than a few doubts about the efficacy of The Secret. I've been told that some believers watch the DVD weekly to keep themselves motivated but, although I don't mind the general theory about positive thinking, I find the actual content of The Secret too money-focused, too filled with psycho-babble and with too many flaws in the logic, to watch more than once.
Secondly, this trial has been pretty unscientific. I didn't measure my romantic opportunities during the month beforehand so it's hard to tell whether my romantic prospects were enhanced during the past 30 days or not.
I almost wish I'd tried to manifest something a little more obvious, like a car or $10,000. It would make results clearer.
So to be honest, the only conclusion I can draw after my 30 days on The Secret is: really thinking about what you want in your life can only be a good thing. Then if you're serious about achieving that goal, you'll see more opportunities and, one would hope, avail yourself of them.
Speaking of which, hey guys, if you like the look of the furtive woman that seems to be following you around Foodtown, please consider stopping to say hello. She's been looking for the cat food for a while.
