I HAD "THE SECRET" AND DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT

This from the library of my father Kenneth Wright, 1899-1952:  "In Tune With The Infinite" was written by Ralph Waldo Trine and published in 1897.  It is interesting to see in this publication, remarkable similarities to the much-hyped, multi-million dollar program The Secret which was introduced more than 100 years later.  The Secret is a best-selling 2006 self-help book written by Rhonda Byrne, based on the earlier film of the same name and released in DVD format.  I paid quite a bit of money for the DVD several years ago, little knowing at the time that I had "The Secret" for free in the form of a dust-covered, musty old 222-page book that was within an arm's reach in my study.

"Secret" be damned, there is nothing new under the sun! See what you think from this Preface by Trine, written in typical 1800s style, as just a sample of his thesis.  Wonder where Byrne got her inspiration?

Ralph Waldo Trine (1866-1958) was a philosopher, mystic, teacher and author of many books, and was one of the early mentors of the New Thought Movement.  

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"There is a golden thread that runs through every religion in the world.  There is a golden thread that runs through the lives and the teachings of all the prophets, seers, sages, and saviors in the world's history, through the lives of all men and women of truly great and lasting power.  All that they have ever done or attained to has been done in full accordance with law.  What one has done, all may do.

"This same golden thread must enter into the lives of all who today, in this busy work-a-day world of ours, would exchange impotence for power, weakness and suffering for abounding health and strength, pain and unrest for perfect peace, poverty of whatever nature for fullness and plenty.

"Each is building his own world.  We both build from within and we *attract from without.  Thought is the force with which we build, for thoughts are forces.  Like builds like and like attracts like.  In the degree that thought is spiritualized does it become more subtle and powerful in its workings.  The spiritualizing is in accordance with law and is within the power of all.

"Everything is first worked out in the unseen before it is manifested in the seen, in the ideal before it is realized in the real, in the spiritual before it shows forth in the material.  The realm of the seen is the realm of effect.  The nature of effect is always determined and conditioned by the nature of its cause.

"To point out the great facts in connection with, and the great laws underlying the workings of the interior, spiritual thought forces, to point them out so simply and so clearly that even a child can understand, is the author's aim.  To point them out so simply and so clearly that all can grasp them, that all can take them and infuse them into every-day life, so as to mould it in all its details in accordance with what they would have it, is his purpose.  That life can be thus moulded by them is not a matter of mere speculation or theory with him, but a matter of positive knowledge.

"There is a Divine sequence running throughout the universe.  Within and above and below the human will incessantly works the Divine will.  To come into harmony with it and thereby with all the higher laws and forces, to come then into league and to work in conjunction with them, in order that they can work in league and in conjunction with us, is to come into the chain of this wonderful sequence.  This is the secret of all success.  This is to come into possession of unknown riches, into the realization of undreamed-of powers."


(*The Law of Attraction, as highly touted in The Secret.)

Truth be known, I was far more impressed with Trine's In Tune With the Infinite than I was with Byrne's extensively marketed and highly commercial The Secret.  I may quote Trine more extensively in future posts, but I leave you with this:


"Within each one lies the cause of whatever comes to him.  Each has it in his own hands to determine what comes.  Everything in the visible, material world has its origin in the unseen, the spiritual, the thought world.  This is the world of cause, the former is the world of effect.  The nature of the effect is always in accordance with the nature of cause. What one lives in his invisible thought world, he is continually actualizing in his visible, material world.  If he would have any conditions different in the latter he must make necessary changes in the former..."