You Can Heal Your Life

One of the most legendary books in the history of the self-help genre is Louise Hay's You Can Heal Your Life. Originally self-published, it went on to become a mammoth bestseller and the source of Ms. Hay's business and publishing empire. And, in more recent years, it has broken new ground by becoming the first self-help book to be turned into a full-length motion picture.
The book is pretty much run-of-the-mill New Thought. At the time of its writing Louise Hay was a popular Science of Mind minister, and her book and career would probably have faded into obscurity under normal circumstances. But something extraordinary happened. The AIDS crisis began, and Louise Hay, with her slightly raunchy and matter-of-fact manner, her mysterious background and her frank acceptance of gay and lesbian people, became the spiritual inspiration to thousands of men who were dying from that terrible disease. Suddenly, Hay and her little book were an intrinsic part of a social and cultural moment that caught up some of the greatest and most creative minds of a generation. Leading her famous "Hay Ride" healing sessions which were packed to the rafters with gay men, Louise Hay became the first major religious figure who addressed the AIDS problem directly, and treated people with AIDS with dignity and compassion. Hers was a lone voice for some years, and her personal bravery and integrity have been, I feel, forgotten in recent years. In the early 80s very few people were saying it was alright to be gay, and this elderly lady-minister, with her old-fashioned New Thought ideas and quaint little book, was a lonely voice in the wilderness.
You Can Heal Your Life became mainstream, of course, and was for many years - and remains - a bestseller. Hay was one of the first to see the possibility of new forms of media, and released many cassettes of her meditations and other work.
The book is beautifully, if simply, written, and Hay has a great gift for getting her ideas across. She has been criticised and lampooned mercilessly over the years, but she has gone from strength to strength, becoming a powerful publishing industry tycoon with her own company Hay House, which has made the careers of many others in the self-help and metaphysical fields.
Indeed, Hay has never really written another book - her entire philosophy was so succinctly and so prefectly expressed in You Can Heal Your Life. Other books have been printed, but they are really just transcriptions of her talks and workshops, as any avid listener to her audio material can soon discover.
It makes for fun reading, and is frequently outrageous. She uses a male prostitute as an example of how to apply prosperity thinking, for example, and she suggests that people should masturbate when they feel a migraine coming on. The book consciously addresses itself to actors, artist, writers and other creative types, proving that Ms. Hay, writing from LA, knew who her core clientele would be.
But the fact remains that it is one of the most seminal and culturally influential self-help books ever to be written, and new generations of readers are constantly discovering it. Her simple prose and clear thinking make the book much more accessible than other New Thought classics, and her message of love and self-acceptance seems to continue to strike a chord in the public imagination.