"I have to laugh at all the hype around The Secret, because for some folks, it's really just religion as usual since the 19th century. Passing on a message of how to get what you wanted from life was a business then, and it's a business now," Albanese says.

Just ask "Abraham," the disembodied, vibrational force whose teachings have been transmitted for the past few decades through the physical form of lecturer and author Esther Hicks. Although she dismisses the popular term "channeling," Hicks is a modern link to the past Spiritualist movement.

Hicks and her husband, Jerry, have written about the so-called law of attraction — the "secret" that was the focal point of The Secret DVD. But contractual issues find the couple, and their Abraham entity, excised from the version now circulating.

No worries, they say. They're happy to stay on the road and pass on Abraham's keys to better living through the power of the mind.

"The secrets of life have never been a secret. It's like calling the law of gravity a secret," says Abraham via Esther Hicks, whose normally lilting twang suddenly takes on a robotic tone.

"People have been calling Jerry and Esther, saying, 'I have bought The Secret, but now what do I do?'
"The truth is, The Secret is merely a powerful catalyst that presents the possibility of a better life," says the monotone voice. "Abraham is smiling in the simple knowledge that, in truth, The Secret has not revealed 'the secret.'