The Secret's Rhonda Byrne
If you ask founder Rhonda Byrne, the secret of The Secret‘s success can likely be chalked up to the power of positive thinking. But surely, much of the credit goes to Oprah, who bought into Byrne’s quasi-philosophical claims that you can get just about anything you want by wishing for it really hard. Oprah devoted two 2006 episodes of her daytime talker to discussing the film and book series’ New Age claims, catapulting The Secret to the top of U.S. best-seller lists. But some of her followers took the guidelines a little too far. After a woman with cancer wrote to Oprah, saying she was forgoing chemotherapy in favor of taking a Secret-based approach to treatment, Oprah had the woman on her show, successfully convincing her that some things are better left to medical science.
