The teachers of The Secret, twenty years on

The 2006 film made two dozen teachers famous overnight. This is who they were, what they went on to sell, and what the film left out.

What the film was

The Secret was produced by Rhonda Byrne, an Australian television producer, and released in 2006. The book followed the same year. Both make one claim: your thoughts attract matching events, and you can use that on purpose by asking, believing and receiving. The film strings together short interview clips with about two dozen authors and speakers.

The main teachers

• Bob ProctorThe elder statesman of The Secret, and the bridge from Napoleon Hill to the modern law of attraction industry.
• John AssarafThe vision board story from The Secret, now repackaged as brain training.
• Esther Hicks (Abraham-Hicks)The source most law of attraction teachers quietly borrow from.
• Jack CanfieldThe Chicken Soup for the Soul co-creator, and the most practical teacher in The Secret.
• Joe VitaleA copywriter turned law of attraction author, best known for bringing ho'oponopono to a wide audience.
• Mike DooleyThe man behind 'thoughts become things' and the daily Notes from the Universe emails.
• Michael Bernard BeckwithThe spiritual voice of The Secret and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center.
• Lisa NicholsThe most powerful speaker in The Secret, now a teacher of speaking and personal transformation.
• Rhonda ByrneThe television producer who made The Secret and turned the law of attraction into a household phrase.

The rest of the cast

Rhonda Byrne wrote several sequels, among them The Power, The Magic and The Greatest Secret. James Arthur Ray was convicted of negligent homicide in 2011 after three people died at a sweat lodge ceremony he led in Arizona in 2009. Bob Doyle, Marci Shimoff, John Demartini, Marie Diamond, Loral Langemeier, Denis Waitley, Neale Donald Walsch, John Gray, Hale Dwoskin and the physicists Fred Alan Wolf and John Hagelin also appear. Most still write, speak or coach.

What the film left out

The Secret is an introduction. It tells you that thought matters and gives you a three-step formula. It says almost nothing about the two problems every viewer runs into within a month: the opposing thoughts that surface the moment you state a goal, and the gap between saying you believe and believing.

Several of its teachers address those problems in their own work, and our profiles point to where. The most thorough treatment we have found is outside the film altogether.