The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 13, 2007 11:07AM
Hi Claudia, too bad you didn't come here, and see the link to watch it free first!
;-)
I personally don't see any links to Scientology, either in people, or in content. I think if it were Scientology, then at least a couple of their "experts" would have been Scientologists.
Maybe they are...but I would think there would be some type of link one could see, or some anti-psychiatry stuff...
Its possible that Prime Time Productions was able to pull it off, as the movie was not THAT expensive to make. They used a lot of "stock footage", like when people were climbing mountains, etc. You just buy that stuff off the shelf.
She had all the other people on staff, so they probably did a co-production with someone.
Someone in the USA with some money?
Here is the full link to the movie credits.
[www.imdb.com]
the Distributors are Drew Pictures, which is whyThe Secret is like a 90 TV commercial.
[www.drewpictures.com]
I am starting to really think it might be Jack Canfield, as there were several of his Chicken Soup writers in the movie, and Canfield got to sit NEXT to Oprah. I am leaning toward Canfield. He has millions from the Chicken Poop books.
But the film was a type of lower budget internet movie.
After it started doing good business, they reshot parts of it, and cut-out people like Abraham-Hicks, which means that the movie had a low budget to start.
Also, they did cut a book deal, which would have given them more capital to work with.
Rhonda Byrne might also have done it all by herself, so she gets to keep all of the money in her company. She's not a spring chicken, she's been around a while.
They could have made The Secret for perhaps 1 million, which sounds like a lot, but isn't.
She would also get tax-breaks, spec deals, etc.
So its possible her company financed it themselves, so they get to make all the profits. That's why they made it, to make huge amounts of money, and they are raking in millions.
The writers are Rhonda and her sister? and the director, and another guy.
[www.imdb.com]
Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Rhonda Byrne
Skye Byrne
Paul Harrington
Drew Heriot
So maybe all 4 of them are into some type of cultish thing together? "New Thought" is a type of cultish belief, but they could all be involved in the same splinter group in Australia perhaps?
Hopefully more info will turn up soon.
But rest assured, there will be The Secret #2, #3, #4, more books, calendars...etc.
They are going to cash-in bigtime.
Supposedly Oprah is doing more shows on The Secret...
good grief...
;-)
I personally don't see any links to Scientology, either in people, or in content. I think if it were Scientology, then at least a couple of their "experts" would have been Scientologists.
Maybe they are...but I would think there would be some type of link one could see, or some anti-psychiatry stuff...
Its possible that Prime Time Productions was able to pull it off, as the movie was not THAT expensive to make. They used a lot of "stock footage", like when people were climbing mountains, etc. You just buy that stuff off the shelf.
She had all the other people on staff, so they probably did a co-production with someone.
Someone in the USA with some money?
Here is the full link to the movie credits.
[www.imdb.com]
the Distributors are Drew Pictures, which is whyThe Secret is like a 90 TV commercial.
[www.drewpictures.com]
I am starting to really think it might be Jack Canfield, as there were several of his Chicken Soup writers in the movie, and Canfield got to sit NEXT to Oprah. I am leaning toward Canfield. He has millions from the Chicken Poop books.
But the film was a type of lower budget internet movie.
After it started doing good business, they reshot parts of it, and cut-out people like Abraham-Hicks, which means that the movie had a low budget to start.
Also, they did cut a book deal, which would have given them more capital to work with.
Rhonda Byrne might also have done it all by herself, so she gets to keep all of the money in her company. She's not a spring chicken, she's been around a while.
They could have made The Secret for perhaps 1 million, which sounds like a lot, but isn't.
She would also get tax-breaks, spec deals, etc.
So its possible her company financed it themselves, so they get to make all the profits. That's why they made it, to make huge amounts of money, and they are raking in millions.
The writers are Rhonda and her sister? and the director, and another guy.
[www.imdb.com]
Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Rhonda Byrne
Skye Byrne
Paul Harrington
Drew Heriot
So maybe all 4 of them are into some type of cultish thing together? "New Thought" is a type of cultish belief, but they could all be involved in the same splinter group in Australia perhaps?
Hopefully more info will turn up soon.
But rest assured, there will be The Secret #2, #3, #4, more books, calendars...etc.
They are going to cash-in bigtime.
Supposedly Oprah is doing more shows on The Secret...
good grief...
Quote
claudia
I am embarrassed to say that I actually payed the 5 bucks to watch the online version of the secret. i was curious after watching Oprah. As soon as I started watching, I thought, these people must have a lot of money to make a DaVinci's Code wannabe. ...
It is very suspicious that for a movement that has just recently started, to already have enough money to have such an elaborate Hollywood style movie made, unless they have the backing of the Scientology folk
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 13, 2007 11:21AM
Hey, Rhonda Byrne's sister, Debra Byrne, makes films.
[www.imdb.com]
and wrote...
Oz Encounters: UFO's in Australia
which Rhonda Byrne produced.
[www.imdb.com]
So maybe the family is in some weird UFO thing, or maybe they are just into that TV money thing.
But the reality is that 90% of movies don't make money. So they got extremely lucky with this film. (like the Blair Witch Project).
Just watch, The Secret 2 will fail horribly.
But they got lucky, and hit a financial home-run with this turkey. Its a big TV commercial, and that's what people want.
I still recall the image of the younger woman, getting a huge fancy NECKLACE from her Mr Wonderful boyfriend...ah...such wonderful Values for the kids...more expensive necklaces = love.
Well, they know what the people want, and they know how to sell it.
[www.imdb.com]
and wrote...
Oz Encounters: UFO's in Australia
which Rhonda Byrne produced.
[www.imdb.com]
So maybe the family is in some weird UFO thing, or maybe they are just into that TV money thing.
But the reality is that 90% of movies don't make money. So they got extremely lucky with this film. (like the Blair Witch Project).
Just watch, The Secret 2 will fail horribly.
But they got lucky, and hit a financial home-run with this turkey. Its a big TV commercial, and that's what people want.
I still recall the image of the younger woman, getting a huge fancy NECKLACE from her Mr Wonderful boyfriend...ah...such wonderful Values for the kids...more expensive necklaces = love.
Well, they know what the people want, and they know how to sell it.
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
ON2 LF
()
Date: February 13, 2007 03:37PM
Quote
I still recall the image of the younger woman, getting a huge fancy NECKLACE from her Mr Wonderful boyfriend...ah...such wonderful Values for the kids...more expensive necklaces = love.
Well, they know what the people want, and they know how to sell it.
I felt the same way when I watched it. Through out the whole thing everyone is giving testimony to how much money or material gain they 'willed' into their lives. Not one person admitted to being an asshole at one time in their life and becoming a good person because of the crap on the video.
Its just more garbage teaching intended to passify and exploit the discontented or those who know of no other resource to draw from when they need hope.
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
Gulab Jamon
()
Date: February 14, 2007 12:08AM
Quote
claudia
I am embarrassed to say that I actually payed the 5 bucks to watch the online version of the secret.
If it makes you feel any better, I paid $10 to see it in a movie theater at a private screening!
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 14, 2007 01:53AM
I will cheer both of you up. I wasted thousands of dollars on books on exactly this kind of tripe in the late 1980's-early 90's until I woke up. :lol:
I still have 2 large bins of books I am keeping as a reminder, even though I was able to trade away lots of other books at second hand bookstores. (I usually got one good used book in exchange for about 5 crappy New Thought type ones...a fair trade).
The reality is that the grain of truth in all of those books could easily be contained in one medium size well written book.
There must be one good book out there, that does keep the few grains of truth from this stuff, and gets rid of the junk. The grains of truth, in my opinion are things like rational Goal-setting, Visualizing, believing in yourself, career planning...
It might be good to start a thread perhaps in the Recovery section, where people could list some decent books about "personal development" that are not LGAT based, or cult hooks, etc.
I think CBT is good,
and Seligman's Positive Psychology and Authentic Happiness. (it sounds LGAT, but it from everything I have seen its science based).
[www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu]
On top of that, perhaps some Sports Psychology written by legit professionals...as well as good Philosophy and psychology.
So anyways, 5-10 bucks...count your lucky stars!
Try thousands of dollars flushed down the crapper. :lol:
I still have 2 large bins of books I am keeping as a reminder, even though I was able to trade away lots of other books at second hand bookstores. (I usually got one good used book in exchange for about 5 crappy New Thought type ones...a fair trade).
The reality is that the grain of truth in all of those books could easily be contained in one medium size well written book.
There must be one good book out there, that does keep the few grains of truth from this stuff, and gets rid of the junk. The grains of truth, in my opinion are things like rational Goal-setting, Visualizing, believing in yourself, career planning...
It might be good to start a thread perhaps in the Recovery section, where people could list some decent books about "personal development" that are not LGAT based, or cult hooks, etc.
I think CBT is good,
and Seligman's Positive Psychology and Authentic Happiness. (it sounds LGAT, but it from everything I have seen its science based).
[www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu]
On top of that, perhaps some Sports Psychology written by legit professionals...as well as good Philosophy and psychology.
So anyways, 5-10 bucks...count your lucky stars!
Try thousands of dollars flushed down the crapper. :lol:
Quote
Gulab JamonQuote
claudia
I am embarrassed to say that I actually payed the 5 bucks to watch the online version of the secret.
If it makes you feel any better, I paid $10 to see it in a movie theater at a private screening!
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 14, 2007 01:59AM
Thank goodness, some decent articles are coming out about Rhonda Byrne and The Secret scam.
[www.latimes.com]
[www.latimes.com]
Quote
Self-help gone nutty
A craze called 'The Secret' blends Tony Robbins with 'The Da Vinci Code,' telling people to have it all without trying.
By Karin Klein
KARIN KLEIN is a Times editorial writer.
February 13, 2007
WHEN MY SISTER arrived from New York over the holidays, she plopped a hand-tooled leather satchel on my piano bench and said, "See the beautiful bag I manifested for myself?" Gorgeous, indeed. But manifested?
Well, I suppose that's easier than dealing in cash.
"Manifesting," for those outside the self-help loop, is the big buzzword from "The Secret," a new DVD with a tie-in book featuring the ancient idea of having it all without trying very hard. If "The Secret" had a plot, it might go something like "Tony Robbins uncovers the Judas Gospel and learns to use the Force."
The DVD is screened regularly at gatherings of the energy-healer crowd. The video opens with a "Da Vinci Code"-style shot: A man in a ragged tunic makes off with a hot papyrus. A voice-over assures us that an ancient secret, hidden from most of mankind, is about to be revealed. (Insert little conspiracy montage: A medieval priestly type privately unrolls the secret scroll; men in suits scheme in a smoke-filled boardroom.) Then motivational speakers take turns elaborating on this idea: If you want something, think of it with loving and positive feelings and it will "manifest." The concept apparently stems from the work of Esther Hicks, a famous channeler.
I never would have heard of "The Secret" if it weren't for my sister, the sort of person who has a spirit guide and professes to "massage energy." (Friends say the wrong sister moved to California.) But apparently it has found major cultural traction. It was featured on "Oprah" last week. The book is No. 4 on The Times' nonfiction bestseller list and No. 2 on Amazon (with the audio CD set No. 3). At my local Barnes & Noble, it was sold out.
Americans are never too jaded for another get-rich-quick chimera. In "The Secret," real and sustained effort is unnecessary, even frowned on. The scheme lays out a "law of attraction" — a strange misreading of quantum physics — that asserts that the universe grants your wishes because you are the "most powerful transmission tower on in the world." Send out "wealth frequencies" with your thoughts and the universe's wealth frequencies will be pulled to you.
Here was my favorite bit: "Food is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight." It's a position that seems to have a lot in common with President Bush's ideas about global warming. Carbon emissions warm the Earth only if you worry that they will.
On the flip side, nothing — nothing — happens to people that isn't brought to them by their own persistent thoughts, and the book strongly implies that this includes those killed in the Holocaust and the World Trade Center. Under this philosophy, why bother contributing to Oxfam or worrying about Darfur? What a guilt-reliever.
Near as I can tell, the whole idea is just a new spin on the very old (and decidedly not secret) "The Power of Positive Thinking" wedded to "ask and you shall receive." So it's not surprising that its author, Australian TV producer Rhonda Byrne, is best known for a show called "The World's Greatest Commercials." Warming over others' old work appears to be her area of expertise. She took the well-worn ideas of some self-help gurus, customized them for the profoundly lazy, gave them a veneer of mysticism — and she tapped right into that wealth frequency. What a pro.
Strange to say, people are buying it. Not just the book and DVD. The message. Therapists tell me they're starting to see clients who are headed for real trouble, immersing themselves in a dream world in which good things just come. The therapists obviously ought to visualize smarter clients.
My sister says I'm over-intellectualizing. She, after all, had manifested a fine leather satchel. And I have to admit, if there were designer leather goods to be had out of this, I was interested.
The reality was — drat it all — far more prosaic. Watching the DVD gave her the idea that she could afford this bag if she really wanted it, and so she went ahead and charged it. I say, if you need an Amex card to make a handbag appear, you're an amateur.
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 14, 2007 02:03AM
[www.news.com.au]
Quote
Dollars in the house of gullibility
By Anita Quigley
February 14, 2007 12:00
YESTERDAY as I sat down to write this column I had loads of thoughts - but I concentrated on one in particular.
As I turned on my computer and waited for it to warm up, I imagined that I would find my column already written. All 850 words of it. Ready to present to the Opinion Editor and then you, the reader.
Yet all I found was a blank screen.
What was going on? It didn't make sense. I had recently (and admittedly belatedly) been let in on "the secret''. And I had paid good money for it.
Focus on the things you want, they said, and you shall get them.
"Ask the universe and you will receive,'' I was told.
God damn it. I wanted my column written. And while the universe was at it, I wanted the car they said would be mine and the wealth they promised, but to date there haven't been any cheques falling from the sky.
Who are these people, you ask?
How do they know "the secret'' to everything: to unlimited joy, health, wealth, relationships, love and the rest of us don't?
And why have they been chosen to now reveal the great secret of the universe, passed down the ages?
Well, first and foremost, it's a chick. From Melbourne. Called Rhonda. Who once worked on the Don Lane Show and is credited as being the brains behind World's Greatest Commercials.
I kid you not. And she's making a mint from "the secret''.
But what is it, I hear you scream?
It's The Secret and if you send me just $5 (others are paying her a lot more) I'll let you on it.
However, for those of you who can't wait, it's basically the self-help book and DVD to end all self-help books and DVDs.
In other words it should be called The Scam. And it's such a good one that it's making all those other life coaches that have gone before Rhonda such as Anthony Robbins and the author of The Celestine Prophecy green with envy.
Pop psychology. The modern art of making money. Where you pay a group of clean-cut Americans with big white smiles and impressive titles and letters after their names to tell you what you already know.
In Byrne's case she's put together a bunch of metaphysicians, philosophers, psychologists, quantum physicists, visionaries, therapists and writers to explain "the law of attraction''.
She has marketed them as a secret society, given it a mysterious title and, as of last week, got the blessing of the all powerful Oprah Winfrey, who gave 30 copies of the book to her other powerful friends, such as presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
It's currently No.6 on Australia's independent best-sellers list, the DVD is the No.5 top-seller on Amazon and it's all everyone was bloody talking about at a party last week.
It has the usual mantras of "ask, believe, receive'' and affirmations to repeat such as "decide what you want, believe you can have it, believe you deserve it, believe it's possible''.
Plus, my personal favourite, "if you're thinking debt, you will attract debt''.
Segments include the only Australian on-camera expert, David Schirmer an investment trainer, telling you how he used to always think about debt so he always got bills in the mail - ever since he has "visualised'' receiving cheques, that's all he now gets. All I kept thinking was, `Where can I get a postie like that?'
Jack Canfield boasts of his "$4.5 million mansion, a beautiful wife people would kill for'' and
"dream holidays to exotic locations'' courtesy of his new-found wealth.
The more I watched and listened the more I began to wonder if I'd kill for Jack's wife if she asked me?
Then there is Dr John F. Demartini D.C. BSc, a philosopher, who confesses to once being told he was "learning disabled''.
I just wanted to know how he got to have the same letters as the American capital after his name.
Straight-shooter Dr Denis Waitley, PhD, explains: "Leaders in the past who had the secret wanted to keep the power and not share the power so they kept people ignorant of the secret. People went to work, did their jobs, came home ... they were on a treadmill with no power and the secret was kept by a few.''
Author Hale Dwoskin has a message for politicians - poignant for those of us in NSW who will have to go to the polls twice this year: "If you're anti a particular politician be pro his opponent because often elections are tipped in the favour of the person people are against because he's getting all the energy''.
Something for John Howard and Kevin Rudd to think about.
But best of all, when my smart, witty and seemingly normal friends told me to outlay $US23 and buy The Secret I was cynical. Now I'm just upset at having such gullible mates.
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
Gulab Jamon
()
Date: February 14, 2007 02:08AM
Quote
The Anticult
I will cheer both of you up. I wasted thousands of dollars on books on exactly this kind of tripe in the late 1980's-early 90's until I woke up. :lol:
Well, if we are going to count our new age spiritual books, that's a whole new ballgame! :D :lol:
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 14, 2007 02:20AM
We should have a competition...who flushed the most money down the crapper buying new-agey type books and tapes, that did nothing but say the exact same dumb-wrong-dishonest-evil thing over and over, with slightly different book titles.
TIP: find a second hand bookstore that has a big new-agey type section...they will give you the most $ per pound for shitty new-agey books that you are humiliated to have in your home. Don't take them all in at once either, just a bag at a time, or you will get less.
(it does feel awful good to get some money back from that garbage).
Of course if its a hard-core cult book, a book burning is much more therapeutic.
TIP: find a second hand bookstore that has a big new-agey type section...they will give you the most $ per pound for shitty new-agey books that you are humiliated to have in your home. Don't take them all in at once either, just a bag at a time, or you will get less.
(it does feel awful good to get some money back from that garbage).
Of course if its a hard-core cult book, a book burning is much more therapeutic.
Quote
Gulab JamonQuote
The Anticult
I will cheer both of you up. I wasted thousands of dollars on books on exactly this kind of tripe in the late 1980's-early 90's until I woke up. :lol:
Well, if we are going to count our new age spiritual books, that's a whole new ballgame! :D :lol:
The Secret (a movie)
Posted by:
The Anticult
()
Date: February 14, 2007 02:33AM
It appears the Oprah has recorded another show for The Secret. Unreal, she is going to push The Secret down millions of people's throats.
Do you think she will allow even ONE moderate critical thinker on her show? Doubtful.
Mentally ill people are going to spin out of control with this crud.
Here is a quote from someone who believes in The Secret.
Do you think she will allow even ONE moderate critical thinker on her show? Doubtful.
Mentally ill people are going to spin out of control with this crud.
Here is a quote from someone who believes in The Secret.
Quote
All things are possible to God
Yesterday I found a hair that was gray and turned brown. I will save it just in case someone wants to see it : ) Yeh me, Yeh God, Yeh Oprah!
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