I read that Oprah had pushed The Secret on her show and that there had been some criticism about that. Being a curious sort, I decided to read it for myself. It took me three tries to get past the first chapter but I finally read it this morning. It is very repetitive and an average reader should be able to finish it in one to two hours.

Let me start with some positive messages from The Secret:

Focus on what you want.

Meditate and quiet your mind daily.

Don't let things get you down. Focus on the good things and don?t dwell on the bad.

Feel gratitude for the good things.

Nothing remarkable there and something we can all apply.

As for the rest of the book, my first thought was that it is a secular version of the prosperity gospel you see the televangelists pushing from their megachurch pulpits - God wants you to be rich and successful. In the case of The Secret, it is the Universe. In a later chapter they sort of equate The Universe with God. They also bring in Matthew 21:22 and Mark 11:24 which, incidentally, are the only actual citations to which a reader can easily refer. Matthew writes "Whatsoever you ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." Mark's verse reads "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye shall receive them, and ye shall have them."

What is The Secret? They call it The Law of Attraction which is summed up as "like attracts like." Put out good vibes and The Universe returns good to you. Put out bad vibes and The Universe returns bad stuff. That's it.

The authors like to sound like there are scientific principles at work and tell us that thoughts "are magnetic, and thoughts have a frequency. As you think thoughts, they are sent out into the Universe, and they magnetically attract all like things that are on the same frequency. Everything returns to the source - you." They also throw in quantum physics a lot. Their application of science suffers from a total lack of references. They speak as if their principles are commonly accepted but it would have been nice if they pointed to some peer reviews journal articles.

The Universe wants you to have stuff. All you have to do is ask and believe that you will receive. In fact, act as if you have already received. If you don?t get what you asked for, you really didn't have faith that you would receive. You failed.

You can get pretty silly imagining things that The Secret should be able to do for you. Surely breast enhancement should be a matter of thinking larger breasts and they will arrive. Likewise those male targeted treatments designed to improve performance and enhancement shouldn't be necessary. It would certainly reduce the amount of spam in my inbox. Oh, and I should be able to write good by just thinking that I'm writing good (yes, my use of "good" is deliberate).

The Universe is pretty picky. If you say you don't want something, it really means you do. So if you put out the thought that you don't want to get cancer the Universe interprets that to mean that you do want cancer. Likewise, I assume, a soldier in Iraq who thinks that he doesn't want to die from a roadside bomb is actually causing a bomb to be planted on his route. OK, the bomb scenario is extreme but I don't see why it isn't a logical extension of what they are writing.

The Secret that there is enough stuff to go around and thus neatly sidesteps problem where two practitioners of The Secret want the same thing. Or what about two practitioners who want opposite things - say there is a husband and wife and the husband wants a divorce and the wife wants to be happily married. Or where two employees want the same promotion; presumably the Universe will make sure they both get a good job.

I wonder if the Universe cares why you want something. What if what you truly, positively, with all your heart want something that will cause something bad to happen to someone else, like a gun. Did Saddam Hussein become all powerful in Iraq because of The Secret only to lose it because he began to have doubts.

I also found it interesting that majority of the book focuses on getting stuff for ones self, personal enrichment. I was never clear if you can send out your magnetic thoughts to achieve peace in the Middle East. There is a chapter title The Secret to the World but I came away understanding that it doesn't work the same way with global application of The Secret. The authors say things like don't go to an anti-way rally, go to a pro-peace rally. But peace isn't going to come back the same way that new car will.

Let me conclude with several examples of how The Secret can be applied:

Food and lack of exercise don?t cause you to be fat, thinking "fat thoughts" causes you to be fat. If you concentrate on your ideal weight then you will achieve your ideal weight.

One of the authors had never studied science or physics in school but was still able to read complex books on quantum physics and understand them perfectly. Of course, we don?t know which books or the measure by which understanding was determined.

Another contributor was able to correct his vision by imagining that he had perfect vision and this was able to eliminate his need for reading glasses.

There were two stories of people who were able to cure their diseases by watching funny movies and laughing. Now, there is some evidence that mood can have an effect but to cure breast cancer without chemo or radiation therapy. I'm glad that my mother didn't attempt that cure. If these cures were written up it in a medical journal would be nice to read about.

If you have any critical thinking skills you won?t get anything out of this book. I suspect that critical thinking = lack of faith so the Universe isn't going to send you any good stuff anyway.