The Secret is still a Scamworld marketing hook, 14 years later

Quick take: Fourteen years after the launch of a cheesy, virally promoted DVD coyly titled The Secret, the craze that was sparked by its release shows no sign of dying down. Multitudes of derivative works, including a number of equally hokey imitation "movies," have been released since then, one of the most recent being Beyond The Secret: The Awakening, which had its "red carpet premiere" in January 2020.

The creator of The Secret, Rhonda Byrne, had no hand in these myriad derivative works; she has been too busy raking in the money from her own ever-expanding franchise. But for those who are looking for the "real thing," blessed by Rhonda herself, there's a new Secret movie just around the corner -- The Secret: Dare to Dream, due for limited theatrical release in April 2020 -- and this one has Rhonda's full blessing, right down to the famous "Secret seal" logo. And for better or for worse (most likely worse), it may very well breathe new life into a phenomenon that never really went away.

Way back in May of 2007, I wrote a short (for me, anyway) blog post, "The Secret" may fade, but stupid is forever. The reference, of course, was to The Secret, the intensely annoying and once-ubiquitous New-Wage/McSpirituality infomercial thinly disguised as a movie, which was truly in its glory days back then. Over the years I've written hundreds of pages and thousands of words about Rhonda Byrne's bloated cash cow, which all levels of hucksters and hustledorks and scammers continue to milk to this day.

Most of my writings re The Secret are on this blog, of course, but The Skeptical Inquirer site also published an essay of mine, "The Wrath of the Secretrons," which highlighted some of the absurdities of The Secret and the wrathful comments (and occasional threats) that I'd received on my blog for my opinions about the "movie."* I'm still getting responses to the "Secretron" piece years later, most of them supportive.

In retrospect the title of my May 2007 blog post may have reflected a bit of over-optimism regarding the shelf life of The Secret, which had popped onto the scene in March 2006 or thereabouts, a few months before this Whirled was created. The Secret may indeed fade, eventually, but we're not there yet. For an example of the continuing viability (or virulence, depending upon your perspective) of the franchise, look no further than one of this blog's top snargets, Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, Secret "star" and Scamworld luminary. Mr. Fire is always finding new ways to exploit his role in this by-now-classic tribute to greed, narcissism, and the most facile variety of magical thinking.

Of course, he's not alone. But let's start with him.

On January 24, 2020 Joe boasted on Facebook -- or rather, he shared someone else's boast -- about attending the January 23 Hollywood "movie premiere" of something called Beyond The Secret: The Awakening. Joe, being one of the "stars" of the new work, was on the pretend red carpet along with his paramour and "Twin Flame," New-Wage dilettante Lisa Winston, who was first introduced here back in July of last year. Apparently Joe and Lisa are still going strong, ready to conquer the planet as one of Scamworld's newest MystiCouples, though public records indicate that Joe's divorce from Nerissa Oden is not yet final.

The person whose post Joe shared is a guy named Eric Zuley, whose own Facebook cover photo, as I write this, describes him as a "multi-media mogul; digital solutions concierge; speaker, branding and promotions expert; and host, actor, producer, entrepretainer, philanthropist." In the Intro section on the same page, he brags that he is a "TOP 10 SOC. MEDIA INFLUENCER."

If he hadn't lost me at "multi-media mogul" or "entrepretainer" or "philanthropist" on the cover photo, Eric most assuredly would have lost me at "SOC. MEDIA INFLUENCER." I am assuming this is an abbreviation of "social media influencer," which more often than not is code for "self-important attention whore, as useless as a Kardashian but not nearly as rich and famous."

There are several more photo-packed posts on Zuley's Facebook page about the premiere of Beyond The Secret. But Zuley didn't confine his crowing to Facebook, nor would one expect him to, since he is, after all, a "multi-media mogul" and "digital solutions concierge." Here's a link to the coverage on Zuley's EZWay Broadcasting site of the momentous "premiere" of "the most anticipated sequel of all time!"

But if you ask me, and even if you don't, Beyond The Secret: The Awakening is more like the most anticlimactic "sequel" of all time. (And if you really want to get technical, it's not even a sequel, because Rhonda Byrne had nothing to do with it.) But it is anticlimactic nevertheless.

Same song, different verse
To begin with -- and I've written about this numerous times over the years -- the original DVD of The Secret had no sooner been released than the "stars" of the moviemercial, as well as scads of other wannabes, were releasing their own Secret derivatives that claimed to be the "next step after The Secret," or to offer important information that The Secret left out, or to contain "the missing secret," or to reveal the "secret behind The Secret" or any one of dozens and dozens of variations on those themes.

For example, subsequent to the world debut of The Secret, our Mr. Fire offered, among many other info-frauducts, The Key: The Missing Secret for Attracting Anything You Want; and The Missing Secret: How to Use the Law of Attraction to Easily Attract Whatever You Want..Every Time; and The Secret to Attracting Money; and Install and Transcend The Secret; and... oh, I could probably go on for days, as there are "too many to list here," but you get the idea.

And as I mentioned earlier, Joe is far from the only huckster to crapitalize on The Secret. For instance, there were the Three Amigos -- Scientist Bob Proctor (noted quantum physics expert), Jack "Chicken Soup" Canfield, and Reverend Michael Beckwith -- and their $2,000 briefcase scam to promote their MLM, The Science of Getting Rich (inspired in part by the early 20th-century Wallace D. Wattles classic that Rhonda Byrne claimed was a major inspiration for The Secret). (Here's another Whirled post about the briefcase scheme; I wrote several, but this one is notable for the comments following the post.)

The Three Amigos' branding so closely resembled that of The Secret that many people apparently thought their shtick was an "official" offering, but Rhonda and her legal team were reportedly quite unhappy, and issued statements disclaiming any involvement in the scam. A couple of years later the briefcases and their contents were going for a deeply discounted price.

Apropos of the actions Rhonda and team may have taken against interlopers -- and I've written about this previously as well -- I don't blame Rhonda and her lawyers for wanting to protect her copyrights, but (1) It appears that she was a bit ambiguous in the beginning about letting her "stars" know how much leeway they had to use her work, apparently becoming less willing to let them share the glory as The Secret became more successful; and (2) as the The Secret soared to even greater heights of success, she became increasingly copyright-conscious (and greedy), leading to her involvement in several lawsuits against people whose work was instrumental in the unparalleled success of the early marketing. And I'm not talking about the "stars" of her boondoggle: I'm talking about folks who had apparently done work for hire, in good faith, and were understandably unhappy when she stiffed them.

But no amount of ambiguity and jealous copyright protections could prevent the flood of Secret-related content, in print, on audio, and online.

"Well, gee, Cosmic Connie," you might be saying, "all of those works you listed may have been inspired by The Secret, but they weren't specifically advertised as being a sequel to the movie, and many of the products you cited weren't even movies anyway, so that kind of weakens your argument about Beyond The Secret: The Awakening being anti-climactic, doesn't it?"

No, not really, especially if you look at it from the larger perspective that content is content regardless of the format, and that the market has been inundated with Secret derivatives for years and years.

But if you want to get picky, there has also been a flood of Secret-type "movies" that employed much the same format as The Secret: a string of New-Wage/McSpirituality/selfish-help gurus sharing their wisdumb under the umbrella of some vaguely unifying feel-good theme. These "movies" were often marketed using the same type of intriguingly mystical trailers and viral promotional strategies as The Secret, including affiliate programs to encourage people to hustle the products themselves. Early on I dubbed this genre of moviemercials "Hustledork Cinema," and although to my knowledge, not one of them was nearly as successful as The Secret, that clearly didn't stop the imitators from deluging the market.

Granted, the creators of these derivative moviemercials may not have overtly claimed their works to be a sequel to The Secret either. But a few came pretty close to doing so, and almost all of them referenced The Secret in their promos. And by the way, Joe Vitale was in quite a few of these mostly forgettable offerings.

In fact there is even another moviemercial called Beyond The Secret, which featured the aforementioned Bob Proctor and was released way back in 2009. Perhaps that's the reason that the new one also has a subtitle (The Awakening) so there won't be any brand confusion with the 2009 work, which got its share of bad reviews.

But as groundbreaking as it may have been, The Secret wasn't the first New-Wage moviemercial, and no discussion of Hustledork Cinema or New-Wage/McSpirituality moviemercials would be complete without at least a passing nod to the appalling 2004 work, What the Bleep Do We Know? This one had a corny storyline featuring actress Marlee Matlin, and some pretty terrible animations, but it also had a lineup of talking heads -- including a couple of discredited scientists (and at least one scientist who was peeved because his comments were taken out of context in the final product). Woven throughout the "movie" was a thick thread of psuedoscientific quantum-physics claptrap. Worst of all it featured that leading light of the imaginary-friends industry, J.Z. Knight, inventor of a 35,000-year-old being named Ramtha. My pal Skeptico debunked What the Bleep early on; here's a post from April 2005 explaining why this "movie" is crap.

Crap it may have been, but it was wildly popular, and its success must have surely inspired Rhonda when she was desperately searching for a lucrative shtick and a workable format in which to present it. Ultimately The Secret was much more successful than What the Bleep.

It's noteworthy, and I've previously noted it, that much of the derivative material spewed out since the 2006 release of The Secret -- whether in "movie" format or other media -- has been in a sense a disavowal of The Secret, an indictment of its limitations or inadequacies. This disavowal is all in the service of hucksters convincing marks that their own info-frauducts will provide the missing pieces. Joe Vitale has done this dozens and dozens of times over the years to advance his own brand; here's a blog post he wrote 11 years after The Secret came out. And here's Bob Proctor throwing The Secret under the bus back in 2008, in the service of pushing his crap. And so on.

Still, The Secret has always remained the point of reference to which the hucksters have felt compelled to return again and again and again.

Which brings us to 2020 and Beyond The Secret: The Awakening.

So, what's this new "movie" about?
You have probably already guessed the answer to this question, but let's look into it (superficially, which seems fitting) anyway. A January 22, 2020 press release for Beyond The Secret: The Awakening begins:

The premiere of “Beyond the Secret – The Awakening” brings global thought leaders together to dig deeper into the Law of Attraction at Universal Studios on Thursday, January 23rd...

Now, halt right there, press release writer. To define people like Joe Vitale and his colleagues as "thought leaders" is seriously stretching the definitions of both "thought" and "leaders." And to suggest that this work is in any way "deep" would be a clear case of journalistic malpractice if this were an actual news story instead of a hype-y press release.

Beyond The Secret: The Awakening features the expected lineup of the usual suspects. Besides Joe Vitale, there are other "stars" of The Secret such as Bob Proctor; John Asshat Assaraf, who famously went bankrupt a few years after his star turn in The Secret (here's the letter he wrote to his coaching clients); and Marie Diamond, who was involved in some legal battles of her own a few years back, and who probably jumped at the chance to have her "career" revived by appearing in another moviemercial. Also featured is a not-so-young-anymore hustledork, Doug Vermereen, whom I first wrote about in August of 2007 in conjunction with his "star" turn in The Opus, one of those aforementioned Secret imitators.

And there are quite a few others; go to the moviemercial's home page and see the lineup, and then, if you can stomach it, watch the trailer. You'll see, among other things, Mr. Fire with an earnest look on his face, waxing insincerely authentic about a whole new level of "creating your own reality."

In other words, there's not much new here.

Real or unreal?
It has occurred to me that some may object to my characterization of the original DVD of The Secret as not being a "real movie." They may protest that just because it didn't have a theatrical release, and it wasn't marketed as entertainment, this doesn't mean it's not a legit film. After all, with today's technology there are numerous legitimate ways of introducing movies besides through conventional theatrical releases. But my gripe was never with the unconventional distribution; it was with the content.

Then there's the fact that some people have referred to The Secret as a documentary -- and documentaries are real movies and even get Academy ® Awards, don't they? Yes, but documentaries generally provide a factual record or report about serious subjects such as social or political issues, scientific matters, history, biography, and the like. At best, The Secret is a pseudo-documentary pushing pseudo-science, and it would be a pseudo-documentary even if it had been introduced to the world via nationwide theatrical release.

But I prefer my own longstanding description, "New-Wage moviemercial." And in case it isn't obvious, that's because the hucksters who starred in The Secret -- as well as in the string of "motivational" "movies" since then -- have aggressively used the works to market themselves, and in fact many if not most of these "movies" have been thinly disguised lead generators for much more expensive frauducts and flopportunities, including horrendously overpriced "coaching" programs. I would be willing to bet that Beyond the Secret: The Awakening is a case in point.

And now for something completely different (or at least a little bit different, maybe)
If you're really desperate for something approaching an actual sequel to The Secret, there is, as it turns out, yet another Secret movie in the hopper. It's called The Secret: Dare to Dream, and -- hold on to your magickal genie lamp -- this one seems to have the full blessings of the grande dame of The Secret scampire, as it boasts Rhonda Byrne as one of its producers. And it actually features real film celebrities such as ex-Scientologist Katie Holmes, rather than the faux-lebrities of Scamworld; in addition, it is slated for a real theatrical release (albeit a limited one) on April 17, 2020.

In other words, The Secret: Dare to Dream is a real movie, with, apparently, a plot, though more than likely a schlocky one, if the trailer I watched (and will link to in a little while) is any indication.
 
The Secret: Dare to Dream was first announced in 2017, with an expected release date of June 2018, but that was delayed by funding problems. Apparently Rhonda Byrne, who surely must have been a gazillionaire by then with her sprawling Secret franchise, didn't want to put up her own money. But at the time the project was announced, she did express her enthusiasm, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Byrne's book, published in 2006, has sold over 30 million copies worldwide, been translated into 50 different languages and remained on the New York Times' best-seller list for 190 weeks. The book and nonfiction films of the same name suggest that thoughts and visualizations of one’s desires can lead to those things appearing in one’s life.

“I am so excited that the film version of The Secret is finally here," said Byrne. "This movie will not only be a great thrill for The Secret fans across the planet, it’s also certain to ripple out and touch millions more people. The Secret book was life-changing for so many, and this movie continues that legacy within a stunning piece of entertainment."

With that statement, even Rhonda seemed to be acknowledging that the original DVD of The Secret was not a real movie. Let's not get into that argument again, but for those who insist that The Secret was indeed a movie, then it would be technically correct to say that Dare to Dream is a movie based on a book based on a movie.

And while it may indeed end up being shlocky, at least it boasts some impressive acting and directing talent. On the other hand, What the Bleep?!? had some real H-wood movie stars, and a sort-of plot, and a limited theatrical release... and it was just as hokey as The Secret.

Here's the IMDb page for The Secret: Dare to Dream. And here's the Wikipedia page, which erroneously describes the book of The Secret as a novel. Actually, I guess it is fiction, but it wasn't intended to be or marketed as such.

And more importantly, here's the trailer, which, given the presence of the trademarked, copyrighted and jealously guarded "Secret seal" logo, should remove any doubt that this is an "official" Secret release (unlike -- not to belabor a point or anything -- Beyond The Secret: The Awakening).




Alas, Joe Vitale and the other hucksters who were in Rhonda's original, and in dozens of selfish-help/McSpirituality moviemercials since then, don't seem to be listed in the cast of The Secret: Dare to Dream.

But maybe that's okay with them. There's still plenty of life in that old Secret cash cow, and the hucksters are going to continue to milk it in any way they can for as long as they can get away with it. More than likely they'll continue to make and hype derivative "movies," striving to emulate the astounding marketing success of Rhonda's original, and attending cheap imitation "red carpet" events to "premiere" these works -- all in an effort to convince the world and themselves that they're true celebrities.

So I guess at this point you might as well get used to it. But that doesn't mean you have to like it.

Why this still matters, and why I won't just let it go
Maybe you're sick of hearing about The Secret and/or reading about it here. Perhaps you think I should just finally learn to shrug it off and adopt more of a "live and let live" attitude. And even if you're not a fan of The Secret and that whole Law of Attraction mindset that it popularized, you might feel a need to point out to me that there is obviously a continuing market for this stuff, and the content creators and providers are merely filling that market need, and that just because I personally don't like it, that doesn't mean it's bad or even that it lacks legitimacy.

I've heard all of these arguments before, 13 or 14 years ago, but I stand by my criticism. Moreover I think that most of the criticisms leveled against The Secret all those years ago -- not just mine, but hundreds of others as well -- still stand.

In the unlikely event that you're not familiar with objections to The Secret, here are just a few, though by no means all, of the reasons so many of us are not fans:

1. The Secret conflates abstract feel-good principles with real science.
   The so-called "Law of Attraction" is presented as a scientific "truth" that has something to do with quantum physics. No doubt this spurious claim, and some of the self-important talking heads (like Bob Proctor) who attempted to explain it in detail, hooked thousands of folks, but it just ain't so.
2. Despite the lofty claims of spiritual significance, The Secret and most of its derivatives encourage narcissism, selfishness, laziness, and greed -- again, all in the service of validating the spurious "Law of Attraction."
   The Secret placed a great deal of emphasis on magical thinking techniques to acquire material goods.
   Furthermore it encouraged mindlessness, victim-blaming, and selfishness, among several other less than desirable traits.
3. The Secret elevated some very questionable people to the position of "thought leaders" and role models, with sometimes dangerous -- even deadly -- results.
   The most notorious among these was James Arthur Ray, whose reckless behavior at one of his "Spiritual Warrior" events in October of 2009 resulted in the deaths of three of his followers. He had been clawing his way to the top in the aggressive sales/motivational rackets for years before he became the "genie" guy in The Secret. It was The Secret, though, that pushed him onto the A-list, expanding his platform and allowing him to attract many followers who probably would never have heard of him otherwise. But there are several other "stars" of The Secret who are also reprehensible. I covered a few of them in this April 2011 post, which happened to be while Ray's criminal trial was still going on, and before he was convicted of three counts of negligent homicide and sentenced to less than two years in an Arizona state prison. Ray has been out of prison for years now, and has been scrabbling to make a "comeback" since his release.

The countless Secret derivatives, including the latest ones, are simply reinforcing the validity of the original, often in the guise of providing a "deeper" or more "realistic" examination of the principles touted in Rhonda's 2006 work. At the same time, these works are definitely making a few folks in Scamworld even richer, and raising false hopes in many more.

For the most part, though, it's all a big pile of "staggering bullshit," as blogger Mark Manson wrote back in 2015 about the original Secret works. Or if you prefer, horse shit, as Hamilton Nolan put it in a Gawker piece, also in 2015. And yet herds of folks are still eagerly scooping up the turds as if they were the most precious of treasures, vainly believing that there must be a pony in there somewhere.

In other words, nothing has really changed.

And if The Secret: Dare to Dream is even moderately successful, it will almost certainly breathe new life into Rhonda's franchise, and the countless coattail riders will exploit it to their own purposes, to the extent that they can get away with it. You don't have to like it, but you might as well get used to it.

Update, April 30, 2020: In case you're wondering whether or not The Secret: Dare to Dream opened as scheduled on April 17, the opening was delayed, like that of so many other new films, because of the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis. In fact the delay was announced a month before the planned premiere; here's a March 17, 2020 piece from Deadline.

A statement from Roadside Attractions Co-Presidents Howard Cohen and Eric d’Arbeloff read:

In light of our country’s fight to contain the coronavirus, Roadside Attractions is postponing the April 17th theatrical release of The Secret: Dare To Dream. Once clarity for a safe and comfortable moviegoing experience is established, we will announce the date for a full theatrical release. Until then, please take the necessary precautions to keep you, your family and friends healthy and safe.

So I guess Secret fans will have to wait a little while longer for this fresh pile of sh... er... inspiration.

Update, July 29, 2020: Finally we have a release date for The Secret: Dare to Dream. In keeping with the new normal imposed by COVID-19, a theatrical release is out; instead it will be released on Premium Video On Demand (PVOD) on July 31, 2020. For $19.99 that you'll never get back, you can rent it on on-demand platforms such as Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, and cable providers.

* Note: Although my essay, "The Wrathof the Secretrons," is dated September 2008 on the Skeptical Inquirer site, I wrote it nearly two years earlier, and SI originally published it in on their site in March of 2007, as this Whirled post indicates. Apparently the date got skewed when they did a site redesign. There were also links to the original 2007 SI page (now defunct) on the Democratic Underground site and on Boing Boing.)