Robert M. Price's Top Secret: The Truth Behind Today's Pop Mysticisms is an exploration of popular spiritualities such as The Secret, A Course in Miracles, Kabbalah, and the writings of Joel Osteen and Deepak Chopra. Price uses his extensive training in religion to explain how these new belief systems emerged from more traditional religions.
While he criticizes many of the works discussed in the book, he also notes that many of them, although watered-down versions of older philosophies, nonetheless have meaningful and helpful messages. The skeptic may be the intended audience, but Price does attempt to be fair in his analyses.
Price's vast knowledge of both religion and pop culture are the main reason for the success of this book. As a religious scholar, he is able to provide detailed and insightful commentary on today's popular belief systems, including describing the more traditional religious traditions from which they came.
Price can reference Buddhism and Christianity alongside King of the Hill and Star Trek. His ability to look at things from an interdisciplinary perspective illustrates his extensive knowledge, as well as his ability to find value in popular media. In addition, Price injects sarcasm and satire into the work, which is what turns it from a scholarly text to a general audience book.
The only genuine problem I have with Top Secret is the appendices; they don't really fit with the rest of the book. These three sections all discuss cults: how to define one, how they recruit, and cult violence. But while they are all well-written, informative, and interesting, there is nothing in the main chapters that warrants an extended discussion in an appendix, much less three appendices.
Instead, these appendices seem to be a separate work, tacked on because Price did not have a better use for them. In addition, it is in the appendices where Price's satire shows a lack of sympathy and compassion for those who have been victimized.
When arguing that people cannot always trust the testimonies of ex-cult members because they claim they were brainwashed to alleviate the embarrassment they feel for their decision to join a cult. Price chooses to create a victim-blaming situation with his example:
"I suspect the same thing happened . . . when pron star Linda Lovelace abandoned her film career and claimed, not that she had repented of her sins, but that she had escaped from slavery and brainwashing at the hands of her evil manager, who forced her to degrade herself in pornographic movie-making . . . Her story was a nihilation strategy to save face. And one suspects the atrocity tales of ex-cultists partake of the same."(313)
With this "joke," Price implicitly discredits not only Lovelace's story, but also the stories of other women who are forced into prostitution or pornography. These situations do happen, and making light about them is not going to improve anything. While Lovelace's account of her career may be controversial, forced sex work is a reality that needs to be taken seriously; we don't need even more victim-blaming in the world.
Price is an intelligent writer who is able to make an academic-style text accessible to a general audience. However, there are times when he loses sight of his sense of humor, and stoops to unwarranted character attacks. I don't want to completely write off Top Secret for one bad line, because in general it is a well-researched discussion of both current spiritual trends and ancient beliefs. Just be prepared for the fact that Price is not always aware that his "humor" might be genuinely offensive and ignorant.