I am a big
believer in the power of the individual to control his/her life. I understand
that for many this is difficult to achieve, because of the paradigms they have
chosen to believe. I am not a big fan of the idea that there is a law of
positive attraction or the idea that that if we give ourselves to the universe
we will benefit. I am also not a big believer in the idea that if we stay
positive all of the time we will be rewarded. Life is messy but there is help
for those who want to become more self aware and more self confidence. The following
list is from a newsletter I receive from Mind Power and was first published by By Mitch Horowitz in Time Magazine
While too
esoteric to gain mass appeal, these books are a treasure of serviceable advice
The self-help
industry today generates literally thousands of books, seminars, and audio
programs, on which Americans spend more than $11 billion yearly.
Most
self-help programs are based in "positive thinking" – the principle
that your thoughts shape your destiny. This message grew out of mental-healing
and Transcendentalist tracts of the mid-nineteenth century, and attained mass
appeal in works such as Norman Vincent Peale's 1952 The Power of the Positive Thinking.
Critics
generally view positive thinking as namby-pamby nonsense. But the philosophy
has produced ideas that are deeply useful, even profound. You probably believe
some of them already. This list considers the most compelling and overlooked
expressions of this practical philosophy. While many of these books proved too
esoteric in tone to attain the mass appeal of Dale Carnegie and Joel Osteen,
they are a treasure of serviceable ideas and are all still available today.
1. The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale (1956)
The radio
presenter and entrepreneur Nightingale possessed an unfailingly dignified and
measured manner, which he used in this recorded lecture to distill the
positive-thinking philosophy into a neat 30-minute capsule. He emphasized
nonconformity and self-education. The Strangest Secret became the first
spoken-word record to go gold, and helped launch the fields of business
motivation and audio publishing.
2. The Power of Your Super Mind by Vernon Howard (1967)
While not a
positive-thinking book in any strict sense, Howard saw the aware mind as
providing a channel for awakening men and women to a higher power and purpose.
The practical philosopher called for eschewing worldly ambition in favor of
living by an inner knowing available to all people. Howard was one of the most
compelling and unclassifiable voices to emerge from the American metaphysical
scene.
3. Self Mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion by Emile
Coué (1922)
A French
hypnotherapist, Coué was the target of endless mockery for prescribing anxious
modern people with a simple daily affirmation: "Day by day, in every way,
I am getting better and better." What critics missed, and what is on
display in this finely reasoned and sprightly book, is that the self-taught
healer and therapist possessed a keen understanding of the subconscious mind
and the mechanisms by which his seemingly simplistic mantra (and other affirmations)
could be used to bypass our self-limiting personal conceptions. Coué's work ran
deeper than is commonly understood and warrants rediscovery.
4. It Works by R.H.J. (1926)
In
twenty-eight gloriously succinct pages, the author — whose initials stood for
Roy Herbert Jarrett, a Chicago salesman and ad man — distills the
positive-thinking enterprise into a (deceptively) simple exercise of itemizing
your desires in a list. If approached with maturity, Jarrett's exercise amounts
to a personal inventory-taking and a meaningful assessment of one's true aims.
Jarrett produced just one additional book, The Meaning of the Mark (1931),
which extrapolates on the methods and ideas behind his shorter pamphlet.
5. The Power of Awareness by Neville (1952)
Neville
Goddard (who used only his first name) was an extraordinarily original metaphysical
thinker who, from the late 1930s until his death in 1972, argued elegantly for
one radical concept: the human mind is God. Our mental and emotive images,
Neville maintained, literally create the surrounding world we experience. While
Neville is the kind of figure that serious people immediately want to dismiss
or argue with, the West Indies-born author wrote with remarkable vigor and
persuasiveness. Neville may be the positive-thinking movement's most radical
and subtly influential voice.
6. The Science of Mind by Ernest Holmes (1937, revised
edition)
The first
forty pages or so of this voluminous work laid out the mind-over-matter
philosophy of California mystic Ernest Holmes, which became a major influence
on New Age spirituality. Holmes was a broad thinker and his work reflects a
wide variety of influences, from Emerson to Christian Science founder Mary
Baker Eddy. Holmes never became widely known but influenced many who did, such
as Norman Vincent Peale. His books could be found in the libraries of George
Lucas, Elvis Presley, and scholar of myth Joseph Campbell.
7. The Mental Cure by Warren Felt Evans (1869)
This
pioneering work written by a Swedenborgian minister and early experimenter into
the healing properties of the mind (he worked with the influential mental
healer Phineas Quimby) helped lay the groundwork of affirmative-thought
philosophy. While it is little read today, the book possesses a surprisingly
modern tone. Evans gave early expression of the essentials of positive thought,
including the use of affirmations, visualizations, and healing prayer. He was
probably the first figure to use the term "New Age" in its current
spiritual-therapeutic sense.
8. The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science by Thomas
Troward (1909 revised edition)
Troward, a
British judge, attempted to work out a persuasive and sturdy philosophical
proof for the causative powers of the mind. In my view, he does not succeed (he
leaves too many internal contradictions and dangling questions); but his effort
represents one of the few truly ambitious attempts to create a structural
reasoning behind the use of positive thinking. Troward was a major influence on
Ernest Holmes.
9. The Kybalion by Three Initiates (1908)
Pseudonymously
written by Chicago lawyer and publisher William Walker Atkinson, this work
somewhat histrionically presents itself as a record of lost Hermetic wisdom.
Nonetheless, it does locate some legitimate and poignant correspondences
between modern positive thinking and ancient Hermetic philosophy. The chapters
on "polarity" and "rhythm" offer a compelling spiritual
psychology. Strange-but-true fact: This underground classic was beloved by actor
Sherman Hemsley, aka "George Jefferson."
10. How to Attract Good Luck by A.H.Z. Carr (1952)
A diplomat,
journalist, and economist, Carr was the furthest thing that one could imagine
from a starry-eyed spiritual dreamer or a promulgator of superstition. Carr
eschewed all forms of ponderous or magical language — yet he also believed in a
clear and concrete set of methods for attracting and building upon the fortuitous
chance occurrences that crisscross our daily lives. He was an ardent believer
that good ethics bring "good luck."
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