The Secret Virus, or How to Write a New Age Bestseller

I should clarify this title: I mean the virus of The Secret, not some biological weapon, though that might be an apt analogy. The Secret Law of Attraction Blog is full of gleeful headings like "The Secret Reaches West Africa", as though people in those countries didn't have enough problems of their own. This is not viral marketing, it is plague marketing.

And now, The Secret has reached us in Turkey. My wife bought it a few weeks ago, and suddenly I started seeing it everywhere. If I were the kind of person who believes that every event is a message from the Universe, I'd be getting a message like "You aren't safe from New Age fallout, even in Turkey." Now she's bought it for her dad as a Father's Day present on the grounds that even if it's crap, it might encourage him to think more positively. That would be the kind of achievement that might make me take Rhonda Byrne's outrageous claims a bit more seriously: my father-in-law is so negative that his square root is an imaginary number.

My problem is that although everything I hear about this book makes my hackles (or my breakfast) rise, I can't honestly dissuade my friends and family from buying it because I haven't actually read it. I can read Turkish, but it's usually an effort, and certainly more effort than the book seems to warrant. I doubt if our university library stocks it in English, and I'm certainly not prepared to spend money on ordering it through the Internet. Consequently, all I have to go on is reviews, publicity and scattered quotations. Nevertheless, these are enough to show me that the reason for the book's phenomenal success is that Byrne has mastered the real Secret: how to write a New Age self-help bestseller. Even Pythagoras hadn't mastered that one, but for you, gentle readers, I will give the recipe.

1. Assemble some obvious truths

Not all of a book - even a New Age book - can be nonsense. At times, you need to let the reader say "Oh, I knew that all along." Preferably, these truths should be so obvious that no one else has bothered to write them down, such as "you have two sets of feelings: good feelings and bad feelings. And you know the difference between the two because one makes you feel good and the other makes you feel bad." Yes, Byrne actually wrote that.

2. Sprinkle in some less well-known facts, and leaven with pseudo-science

One thing that makes New Age and pop psychology books so popular is that there are plenty of interesting bits of information lying around that lots of people haven't paid much attention to or can't explain. Acupuncture really does cure a lot of illnesses. Siberian shamans really can chew burning coals. Yogis really do levitate. OK, they can bounce around a bit. And of course, thinking positively (or negatively) can sometimes achieve surprising results, which is what The Secret is all about.

The problem with all this wacky stuff is that very little of it has been scientifically tested, let alone proven. (Acupuncture is a notable exception, which is why it's now seen as rather ordinary.) This is where pseudo-science comes to the rescue: if there is no scientific law that says what you want, invent one. The law here is the Law of Attraction, which says that "like attracts like, so when you think a thought, you are also attracting like thoughts to you." Now "like attracts like" is respectable occultism, not pseudo-science, so we need to jazz it up a bit: "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." Anyone who pauses to remember their school science classes will note that (a) magnetically charged particles only attract other particles at very close range, (b) frequency is irrelevant to magnetic attraction and (c) if we're talking about magnetism, like does not attract like, it repels it. However, the answer is one familiar to all Terry Pratchett fans: it's quantum.

Add the wisdom of the ages

"Great minds think alike" is a cliche taken to extremes by New Agers. Great minds do not only think alike, they think exactly like the author. Ignore the piffling differences between the published works of, say, Plato and Einstein: they were really saying the same thing, which is ... well whatever you want it to be.

Serve with a garnish of flattery

"You deserve every good thing you want," says Byrne. This is the real Secret: tell people that despite their weight problems, their halitosis, their lack of friends, their credit card debt, their inability to do basic arithmetic ... deep down, they are wonderful and they deserve a better life. Why don't they have that life they deserve? Is it sin? Is it the International Jewish Bankers? Is it negative thinking? That is what you are there to tell them.