It’s a book written by Mary Anne Williamson. She’s been on Oprah a few times.
It’s not too dissimilar to The Secret (also a book and a cd). It focuses on positive thinking and the basic principles expressed by Karma and found in many religious traditions-best summed up in phrases like “What you sow, you will also reap”. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”. “What goes around comes around.”
From time to time (depending upon where you live) various spiritually inclined groups will choose to work through the book a week at a time with regular meetings for discussion and personal reading in the interim.
They’ll generally post ads for it in local papers hoping to attract some newcomers. But there’s nothing preventing one from reading through it on their own.
It’s not associated with any cult afaik since so many different groups have utilized it. It’s not brainwashing as each person is free to take from it what they will. Cults certainly aren’t that open minded about things. It’s their way or the highway.
In some ways, some of what it advocates is similar to another author from the 50s or 60s, Norman Vincent Peale. It basically just outlines ways to put a positive spin on your life for yourself and your interactions with others and your connection to a spiritual way of looking at life.
Many people have spoken of it having a good effect upon their lives. That might be the case (or not) for any individual person. And, if not, it’s just a book, after all. There’s nothing tremendously “new” about the ideas it expresses. It just happens to be popular (along with The Secret) at this point in time in much the same way as Peale’s writings were back then.
As it says in Ecclesiastes:
There is nothing new under the sun.
Personally, I don’t view it as anything to be especially pumped about nor to be feared. It’s a book.