The Secret

The Secret (2006) is Drew Heriot's documentary you can watch online on iFILM. The Australian film gathers a tableful of life coaches, business trainers and self-help authors to pitch one idea — the so-called law of attraction.

The premise is simple to the point of controversy: your thoughts supposedly pull toward you whatever you keep dwelling on, so health, money and love can be ordered from the universe like a delivery. Bob Proctor, Joe Vitale, Jack Canfield and roughly twenty other speakers take turns spelling out how it works in their telling. The whole thing is built from these monologues, stitched together with short dramatized vignettes about famous figures of the past.

A quiet release turned into a global craze, trailed by Rhonda Byrne's bestselling book of the same name. Scientists shredded the idea as pseudoscience — yet as a snapshot of mid-2000s self-help culture, it's a curious thing to sit through. Stream The Secret online on iFILM.