Three years ago, an enterprising woman named Rhonda Byrne and her marketing team began virally spreading videos on the Internet. These were testimonials from people who claimed to know the secret to wealth and success, something, she wrote, the powerful had kept from the general population for centuries.

The secret, she wrote in her book of the same name, is that the law of attraction governs the entire Universe (yes, Universe, along with The Secret and several other words and phrases, are annoyingly capitalised to give weight to the ideas they describe).

The Secret to Teen Power is written by The Secret convert Paul Harrington, the latest in a well-marketed series of books, diaries, movies and other products which promise to give individuals the power to make themselves wealthy.

Harrington’s acknowledgements set the irritating faux-hip tone of the entire book — a mistake many writers seem to make when they forget the ‘teens’ they write for are sentient beings blessed with mostly developed cognitive brain function.

Any author whose first 50 words include “Hello?” and “Are you still there?” — even if said in fake jest — has only set himself up for failure.

The front page of the first section, ‘The Secret Revealed’, is decorated with a water-colour image of a female standing, arms stretched skyward and head tilted up, a pose common to the believers of many faiths and a reflection of the spiritual undertones of The 
Secret franchise.

On page six, we find out that the secret is the law of attraction, a phrase that sounds like genuine science such as ‘law of gravity’ and ‘theory of relativity’ but in actuality is the principal that “You attract all the stuff that happens to you … no matter whether it’s totally awesome or truly awful.”

Done. But, Harrington plods on for another 170 pages, using a confusing marriage of genuine facts, little lies and religious traditions to make his case.

He cites (unsourced) some statistic about people having 60,000 thoughts a day. Harrington’s problem seems to be analysing those thoughts and filtering out the ones that don’t fit.

He says that you need to write down your dreams in order to achieve them. In the next chapter, he tells his readers to live in the present and stop thinking about things that could or will happen.

As the book progresses, the testimonials in italicised font gradually include elements of conversion. “I love my sister and knew she could benefit from The Secret. But, I was so hesitant to try and get into it with her because I knew she would be skeptical,” writes Shannon. By page 113, we’re meant to have bought and liked The Secret so much that we want to spread the good news. (Shannon, by the way, resolves her sister’s acne problem by giving her an audio book of The Secret — a necessity because that silly teenager doesn’t like to read anything heftier than US Weekly, Shannon tells us. “Daily podcasts and movie also available!,” you can almost hear Harrington screeching).

The book continues like this for long enough, and Harrington waits until page 151  to introduce the really religious stuff. His capitalisation of words are so scattershot by the time you get to his assertion that there is ‘One Universal Mind’, this tenet of the pseudo-faith almost completely bypasses you.

For all of its popularity, the secret — teenage or otherwise— is really nothing new. Treat others the way you want to be treated; do unto others; karma, all these contain what Byrne and Harrington sell as the Law of Attraction.

If you are good to other people, good things will happen to you. If you are reading The Secret to Teen Power to learn something unavailable anywhere else, you will be grossly disappointed.

But, if you’re looking for the kind of clichéd wisdom obtainable by reading the advice column in monthly women’s glossy magazines concentrated in one convenient and easy to read book, go for it.