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| The Secret | 
 enlarge | Author: Rhonda Byrne
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Category: Book
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £8.34
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Avg. Customer Rating:  184 reviews
Sales Rank: 1910
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 4
Pages: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 074356619X
Dewey Decimal Number: 158.1
EAN: 9780743566193
Publication Date: January 2, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: New audiobook. WE USE PRIORITY AIRMAIL ONLY for audiobooks from the USA. UK & European delivery is 7-10 days. Over 5 million books sold to Amazon customers
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| Customer Reviews: Read 179 more reviews...
 We live in a world of SCARCITY, not unlimited abundance... August 28, 2008
There is much merit in anything self-helpy.
If you have taken the time to pick up a book like "The Secret" at least you are taking positive steps to improve your life.
This alone marks you out as part of a tiny minority of people who are more likely than the crowd to achieve their dreams.
The Secret is moderately useful in reminding you to use positive thinking but there are much better books out there for same.
That said, one thing this whole movement gets TOTALLY wrong, however, is the notion that "the universe" is limitlessly abundant and, as a result, we can all manifest everything we want.
This is very dangerous and very untrue.
At the world's current population and level of Ecomomic development we are already bumping up against some very serious ecological glass ceilings.
In order for every African, Chinese, South American and Indian (for eg) to have the standard of living of an AVERAGE western European or North American we would need approximately EIGHT MORE PLANETS of Oil, Gold, Iron Ore, Agricultural land, fresh water, fish etc... etc...
If everyone in the world were to be able to manifest their multi-millionaire dream existence as this book would have you believe you'll have nine billion people by 2020 flying to their super yachts in private jets.
This is quite clearly utterly impossible. There isn't enough metal to build them, let alone enough oil to fuel them.
Those of us lucky to live an affluent first world existence do so on the backs of most of the world's population living on a $ a day and having a life expectancy of roughly half of ours.
Only a very, very tiny minority of the earth's population can ever hope to have a $4.5m house (as described gushingly in the book by one of the contributors) and no "secret" is ever going to change that I'm afraid.
This book will, however, be helpful for those of us in the first world who, by luck of birth, DO have a chance of getting all the material trappings we want (note I didn't say NEED here).
The people responsible for this book need to do some serious reading outside of their evidently narrow world view.
I would suggest they start with Jeffrey Sach's most recent "Economics of a Crowded Planet" and Jared Diamond's "Collapse".
DO NOT BUY - VERY POOR August 26, 2008
The books secret is: 'The law of attraction'. Having read other books suggest you steer clear of this one, luckily I never bought this myself. The content in this book is probably eqaul to a chapter in a Tony Robbins book, or Jack Canfield's 'Success Principles'. Very dissapointing that the publishers went ahead with this. Cant help feeling that the self help authors are only using this as a money making tool ...seeing Canfield in there made me question his motives. Suggest you buy the books above and leave it at that. DO NOT BUY YOU WILL ONLY BE DISSAPOINTED.
Rubbish August 25, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Just think about it and you can write a book worth a million. Think about it further and you can command a publishing machine than can promote your ideas while making a fortune for themselves. Don't think about your target audience who are likely to be searching for easy solutions to their probable adverse circumstances and you have a 'winner'. I feel sorry for people who are taken in by marketing scams such as this hedonistic rubbish.
 Some truth in it but based on EGO! August 23, 2008
There is some truth in what is being said here but it also misses the point.
True peace comes about through having equanimity with pleasure and pain, that is 'not to fear and avoid pain' and 'desire and chase pleasure.'
The Secret is a kind of narcissistic spirituality, based on ME, ME, ME. WANT, WANT, WANT. You get the fancy car, get pleasure, then what? Does it make you happy? So although the Law of Attraction is somewhat true, so what? Because it is not the way to true peace and will always be impermanent. If you need the car fine, if you don't fine...
J
J
 Some good ideas, must try harder. C- August 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Reading this book is like being told about a great film by someone who saw it on a plane; shoddily related and in danger of ruining a good thing for you.
You know what it's about by now. As a science student this book appalled me - the writing standard is shocking. There's no real structure, quotes are miscellaneous. If you read the first ten pages you can stop, because you won't learn anything new after that. If I handed this in to my lecturers, I thought, I'd be in real danger of failing, positive thinking or no.
The worst part is that some really interesting ideas are presented here, they're just presented in such a frivolous manner! As if exclamation marks explain everything! It's infuriating, and a waste considering that a lot of people are discovering these ideas through this book. Frankly I cannot believe it was allowed into print as it stands. It simply isn't good enough.
There's also a pervading attitude towards hard work that's at best misleading and at worst dangerous. The only mention of actually working towards your goals is to say that it should feel easy, when the success stories presented are of people who worked for it. I can't say whether it was easy for them or not, but the notion of working is completely skipped over. You could argue that getting what you want without working for it is the crux of this particular book, (though not necessarily the ideas it's based on), and this is an entirely personal viewpoint, but you shouldn't look to get through life without working for what you have. You'll be so much better for it. Bear in mind how biased that makes my review as I seem to disagree with the core of this book, but I can't help but feel I could be far more objective if the book in question were written by a more capable author.
Clearly I've highlighted far too many flaws to recommend this book; it would lose none of its value if someone else read it and summed it up for you. By reading these reviews you've negated the need for it. If it's self-help you want I'm sure there are better sources out there. As an authority on the Law of Attraction it's worth a glance, (at someone else's copy), as long as you accept straight off that it's an interpretation, and a poorly written one at that.
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