Secret to Succes

The secret to success through cod science

By JANE CLIFTON
If you choose to watch a television programme which promises to tell you The Secret – as in, the secret of having a great life – then you probably deserve to be had.

And if you keep watching it, even after it turns out that The Secret can only really be learned if you buy the book and the DVD and go to classes held by multimillion- dollar-earning Keepers of The Secret, then the only secret you should be interested in keeping is that you're a complete mug.

My excuse for watching the whole of Oprah Special, The Secret (TV3 9.30pm, Friday)?

I get paid to watch telly for this column. Otherwise, I could have spent a more educational and inspirational hour watching, say, an infomercial on abdominal trainers.

This is not to knock Oprah. Of the panel of people arrayed before us to explain this new self-help craze, Oprah seemed like the only genuine person there. Say what you like about America's most influential woman, she really does seem out to help people, and has for years risked derision and ratings slides to put self-improvement and mind-feeding fodder on her daytime chat show.

She has made a tonne of dosh, but now spends and risks a lot of it trying to help people. Whereas these Secret people have made a lot of money simply by charging a lot of money for purporting to help people, which is a less savoury thing altogether.

So what is The Secret?

Without, admittedly, having seen the DVD or read the book, it seems to be a rehash of self-help books across the ages. Its core philosophy is positive thinking, with all that eye-rolling stuff that comes with it: self-affirmation, openness to new challenges, letting go of past grievances, loving yourself, giving yourself permission . . . Let's stop before we gag. You get the picture.

These self-actualisation techniques have been kicking around for years – not least on Oprah's programme. And let's not be churlish – many people find them extremely helpful.

Orthodox psychiatry is not a million miles away from the cognitive approaches these lifestyle coaches employ. But an Australian television producer seems to have harnessed the old ideas into a new magnet for big bucks by trawling through old self- help books, of the How to Make Money kind, and cherry-picking the sayings of the great philosophers, artists, inventors and other blameless figures in history, from Beethoven to Alexander Graham Bell, who happened to have practised or articulated positive thinking-type approaches to life, bundling it all together and giving it this catchy title.

You have to applaud the marketing finesse. In this post-Da Vinci Code era, there is an appetite for gleanings of knowledge from the Ancients, for tracing big power secrets through history. It doesn't even have to be true for people to believe it. They just want to believe that this is genuine ancient wisdom.

But Oprah's guests honestly didn't have two novel ideas to rub together.

As Oprah, to give her her due, did say several times, "I've been doing this all my life. I didn't think it was a secret."

Where the Secret promulgators have been devilishly clever is in portraying the Secret "system" in quasi-scientific terms. As one of Oprah's guests, channelling cod quantum physics, claimed: we are all just energy, and we are vibrating on different levels. Like attracts like, so if we want to attract certain people and activities into our lives, we have to start vibrating on the same level. A sort of Dress for Success, only atomically.

All the guests told the now bog-standard success story that all lifestyle coach gurus tell. I was fat/a drunk/a drug-dealer/broke and then something Happened, and a light went on. I changed my life just by thinking differently, and you can too. Ask me how. That'll be $2000 for a weekend workshop, and another $150 for the book and the tapes, thanks very much. And that's how come I'm rich and you're not.

There was lots of footage of the teachers teaching to vast audiences, in that icky, evangelical, Bible belt way, only instead of God, the object of glorification was "Me!"

In fairness, they all dished out a lot of sensible advice, along with the pseudo nuclear physics. Such as, sometimes people need to stop litigating old wrongs, and just – as our prime minister so often advises – move on. Sometimes if we over-focus on a current problem, it's hard to move forward, or even live productively in the present. Better to find a way of solving the problem, however slowly, in a way that doesn't dominate our lives. Can't argue with that.

And inevitably, when a fat lady asked how to apply The Secret, she was told, "Don't diet. Diets don't work. Concentrate on being fit and healthy."

And failing marriage? "Concentrate on the things you do love about your husband/ wife."

And so on and so ever so familiarly on.

The only breath of fresh air was when James Ray, one of the Teachers, pointed out that you actually have to do stuff to make The Secret work. You can't just sit there visualising your dream life and forgiving everyone. "Cos they'll come take your furniture away."

After you do all the positive affirmation, you have to get off your bum and put it into action. Energy vibrations and achieving the right astral tonality alone are not enough. See? There's always a catch. We can all visualise our dream lives, our svelte new figures, our conquest of the Boston marathon. But all the self-help books in the world can't physically compel us to save money, eat less and get up at 5am to train.

In the end, the most important secret seems to be, if you want to improve your life: you're on your own, get on with it.

And if you think self-help affirmation will help rather than waylay you on this self-improvement mission, then here's another not terribly well-kept secret: this sort of ra-ra talk can be had on Oprah and Dr Phil every day for free.

You really don't need to buy the book, wear the T-shirt, or attend the rebirthing weekend in the Coromandel to get the general drift.