[1] Firstly, it is used by some to denote the practice of generating positive and pleasant visual mental imagery with intent to recover from physical sickness or disability and eliminate psychological pain.
[2][3] Secondly, it is used by others to signify the generation of autobiographical visual mental imagery, by which the participant envisions themselves in desired circumstances, commonly evoking prospective images that depict abundance of financial wealth, professional or vocational success and achievement, pervasive health, and persistent happiness.
[7] Gawain's book focuses primarily on making changes to visual mental imagery, and attributes to it the capacity for hindering or facilitating an individual's potential, citing vivid anecdotal stories drawn from her experience and that of others to support her thesis.
Furthermore, they allege that when an individual controls, modifies, and regulates their mind and mental content, then material life and the experience of living alters accordingly, healing physical sickness, disability and psychological pain, and transforming destitution, indenture, and misery into wealth, autonomy, and happiness.
[14] The assertions made in The Secret film and book have been widely criticized, sometimes scathingly, by a number of commentators, for implying that undesirable circumstances and conditions, such as poverty, physical pain and psychological pain, result exclusively from a failure to exercise control over the mind by successfully harnessing and directing a hypothetical universal energy, a concept upon which many New Age principles and practices rely.