Daily Word for the Spirit

I have blogged before about the Daily Word, the bi-monthly magazine of affirmations produced by the Unity Church. It is one of the longest-lived New Thought periodicals, and is a charming remnant of really pure New Thought ideas.
The enormous amount of inspirational content produced by the magazine is being used, these days, in a series of spin-off books. Each book is developed around a theme (in this case the rather nebulous "For the Spirit" - I also own the much more solidly focused Daily Word for Weight Loss) and provides a "best-of" selection of stories and affirmations from the mag.





I have just finished Daily Word for the Spirit, which was also a Unity FM book club choice on the Hooked on Classics show, so I had the opportunity to read it closely and hear it explained by the editor and some of the people whose stories are featured, week by week. I really enjoy this process, and am a solid fan of Hooked on Classics - though I'm always running months behind.
This particular book was interesting because it contaned a chapter from Iyanla Vanzant, herself a bestselling self-help writer and once Oprah Winfrey's favoured spiritual teacher. Vanzant's chapter falls toward the end of the book, and in it she details some of the struggles she has faced in her life. She talks about the power of generosity and of supporting others, and here she says something really interesting:

"I talked to them about...the strength derived from loving yourself and other people - giving and serving not because of the rewards, but because you love it and it feels good."

What If It All Goes Right?

Mindy Audlin was one of the founders of Unity FM, and she has invented a New Thought process called 'What If Up' that has been in use among church and corporate groups for some time now. Her book What If It All Goes Right? is a fleshing out of the thinking behind the process, and is a fascinating explication of a new spiritual technology, one that is particularly representative of New Thought thinking and expressive of the New Thought world-view.
Having recently been the featured book on Unity FM's Hooked on Classics book club, I spent quite some time reading this book, exploring the process for myself and following the exercises the book provides. This kind of involved reading, which transcends the simpler method of passive reading that is usually associated with the consumption of books, is in a way the very benchmark of the self-help process, and is the way that most self-help books are intended by their authors to be studied. Of course, whether or not the average reader does in fact extend their experience beyond the perusal of the written word is impossible to gauge. But certainly the presence of an on-line study group and the prolonged examination of the book on the Hooked on Classics radio show helped to ensure a more thorough and prolonged engagement with the text than might usually be the case.
And what is Audlin's method? Basically it's an extension of a very old idea, one set forth most strikingly in the Pollyanna story (and I must admit here that I've only ever seen the wonderful movie): instead of finding reasons to quelch an idea or tear it apart, we should instead engage in Audlin's 'What if Up' process, and think of reasons why situations, projects, goals and dreams might, in fact, work out positively. It is a brain-storming process, and one which the author keenly advises us to practice in groups. So that one person might stand in the centre of a group of supportive friends while everybody contributes a positive spin to the idea, problem or desire recently anunciated.
Audlin admits that the basic idea for this process came from her involvement with mastermind groups. Such groups evolved from the thought of Napoleon Hill, of Think and Grow Rich fame. He advised that each of us establish a core of supportive friends who meet regularly to encourage each other, share ideas, and offer each other positive emotional support. Hill thought that people with such a supportive group of peers must necessarily have greater moral and emotional strength than those who seek to do everything alone, fearing the input and derision of others.
Audlin's book works through some standard New Thought tropes, and is actually quite a concise and clear explicaton of New Thought ideals and their practical application to modern life. One of the things the author asserts is that:

"We're working with spiritual laws in a world that is goverened by cause and effect...Just don't say I didn't warn you...The universe can pack a wallop!"

Those who have been following this blog or who are keen students of New Thought & Self-Help literature will recognise two key ideas here: the notion that what is being taught is in fact an indisputable law (an assertion that goes all the way back to Mary Baker Eddy); and the recurring convention of discussing theistic ideas but replacing the word "God" with more palatable concepts like "The universe."
Along with law there is the usual attendant invocation of the notion of science, in the case of this book a surprisingly insistent one. The use of scientific language reassures the modern reader, and takes teh book's discourse out of the realms of assertion and religio-mythic ideas. But in fact much of what is discussed has its roots in nineteenth century American Protestantism.

"The subatomic substance of the universe...responding to the focus and intensity of your dominant feelings."

Now, before you write in I do not mean to poke fun at the author or the book. I am merely identifying a recurring motif that is as old as self-help books themselves - the justification of opinions by the invocation of scientific rhetoric. I would suggest that what is being described is not, in fact, a scientific truth involving subatomic substances, but a metaphysical assertion.
Interestingly, Audlin herself invokes the figure of Pollyanna:

"Let me warn you that at first glance, the techniques you will discover in this book might seem a bit Pollyannaish. You may wonder how we could possibly solve the major problems of our time with a tool that is so simple and easy to implement. Surely, our complex issues require a more complex remedy?"

But no, as you may have guessed, the book assures us that in fact what is most needed is the very simplicity and good faith characteristic of that great cultural archetype Pollyanna. The meme of Pollyanna is one regularly invoked by both critics and advocates of self-help ideas, and I really must explore this further. Perhaps in a journal article? I will have to grab a copy of the book.
This kind of reductive approach to life is, of course, characteristic of self-help, and is the source of much of its criticism. But as always, critics would be missing the point that what the book inetnds to do is not address the misfortunes and inequities of a suffering world (though later chapters invoke the notion of global healing). What it seeks to do is merely equip the individual with tools to help her achieve more and maintain a more positive and productive state of mind. And it seems to me that this is a goal that is hard to criticise. In the self-help world global change is wrought, not by collective action, but by individual transformation and its subsequent flow-on effect.
It's an interesting book and, with its heavy emphasis on practice it is ultimately a useful one. It is also, undeniably, inspirational, and in the last analysis is describing that quality that I am coming more and more to realise is at the heart of self-help thinking - the idea of grace. I think it would actually be of tremendous use to someone struggling with depression or overwhelmed by bad conditions in their life. It is unashamedly and relentlessly "Pollyannaish," and to my mind that's no bad thing.

That's Just How My Spirit Travels

At first Rosemary Fillmore Rhea's book That's Just How My Spirit Travels seems a peculiar kind of memoir. Hers is not a big name in any area (except, perhaps, within the management of the Unity church), and her life has not been one of any dramatic peaks and troughs. But after a while the book begins to charm and eventually the reader is left utterly absorbed in the life and spiritual vision of someone with a truly unique insight into a modern American spiritual movement which, though small and relatively unknown, has had an immense influence on Western culture.
Rhea is the grandaughter of Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, co-founders of the Unity church, the largest organised religious movement based on the teachings of New Thought. She was, naturally, born into the movement, and so this memoir is a fascinating insight into the life and ideas of someone who from the cradle has been taught the precepts of New Thought: that the world is perfect, that our thoughts create our circumstances, and that God is within us.
That's Just How My Spirit Travels has some wonderful stories about the Fillmores and the early days of Unity (the church is based in its own mini-town on the outskirts of Kansas City called Unity Village). Rhea recalls entertaining in her living room (she was married to a Unity Minister, and became one herself, eventually) extraordinary people such as Alan Watts, Victor Frankl and Norman Vincent Peale. The celebrity spotting doesn' stop there. Rhea and her husband branched out into television in the seventies, and this saw them moving into a more elevated world of showbiz, and soon we meet people like Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood and (my personal favourite) Jennifer Jones. The short segments that they filmed with fading movie stars and other celebrities were broadcast across America as 'The Word from Unity' (based on Unity Church's venerable inspirational monthly almanac The Daily Word), and these short spots have since moved into the realms of nostalgic reverence, their style lampooned most famously by "The Church Lady" on Saturday Night Live.
She is suprprisingly honest in her assessment, not only of the spiritual empire built up around her family, but of the difficulties and challenges an advocate of New Thought faces in dealing with life's less-than-pleasing complexities. Herself a divorcee who lost her mother as a child, occasionally she expresses the frustration with this essential conflict between the reality of loss and the rigid worldview of New Thought that doesn't allow for disappointment. Rhea attempts to explain it by saying (in this case in relation to the death of Natalie Wood) "Why people have to experience such tragedy is inexplicable, but there must be reasons that only our soul knows and perhaps at some point in time we will understand why every experience is a necessary part of our journey" (186). It is a brave and eloquent explanation, but I fear it wouldn't cut the mustard with the Dawkins-inspired neo-atheists who currently hold the hegemonic upper hand in present-day discourse.
Like most advocates of New Thought, Rhea's own politics veer toward the liberal and she is an enthusiast for international friendship groups and such like, as practical ways of establishing relationships between different cultures. She is also a staunch supporter of non-violence, tracing back the roots of discord to our own mental unrest, and crediting her grandfather with bringing this fact to the attention of the world.
Using the example of her own humble life, imperfectly lived, Rhea seeks in her memoir to establish some kind example of how New Thought philosophy might play out through the period of a lifetime. She sees a continuum between the radical religious ideas of Tolstoy, the practical spiritual philosophy of her grandparents and the more radical and political path of Gandhi and the later generations of 1960s America. For Rhea violence manifest in the world is, in the ultimate analysis, "Violence against our inner self" (228). She is at pains to acknowledge the real presence of anger and social injustice in our world, but her philosophy encourages her to see an end to this imperfection, and to dwell on practically solving their problems rather than dwelling on the fact of injustice.
That's Just How My Spirit Travels is a charming and old-fashioned read. You can download the two episodes of 'Hooked on Classics' from Unity FM to hear Rosemary Fillmore Rhea herself interviewed. In many ways she is the last of her kind - a living and very involved link to the great blossoming of New Thought that reaches back into the mid-nineteenth century. For the student of modern religion it is a fascinating book, and on a personal level I came away quite in love with this honest and unpretentious woman who has, despite appearances, led a truly extraordinary life.

Eric Butterworth - Discover the Power Within You

Eric Butterworth was one of the most influential New Thought preachers of the mid-twentieth century, as well as being a prolific author. His influence on the Unity movement was enormous, and continues to the present day. Unity FM has just started a whole radio show devoted entirely to the teachings of Butterworth, and recently the 'Hooked on Classics' book club on that same station studied his 1968 classic Discover the Power Within You.
It is actually quite an impressive work, a carefully laid-out view of New Thought spirituality, especially the central notion that "You ask for success by getting into the consciousness of success" (p.114). Butterworth was obviously a great scholar, and his writing is based on an easy grasp of literature and religion. Despite its corny title, this is actually quite an erudite work, and its argument quite compelling.
Butterworth excels at putting some pretty difficult New Thought notions into plain language, evincing a grasp of aphorism and folksy philosophy that is a very old part of American literary culture. The book is intended as a practical guide, and so encourages people to apply their spiritual views to their daily lives. Reading the book one is constantly discovering areas in which the author seems to be speaking directly to us. I am also conscious that he is enunciating New Thought philosophies that date back to Mary Baker Eddy, though with far more accessible language. For example:

"When we realize that evil is simply the concealment of good, then any person who is unloving, vicious, or unjust is actually a person who is good but doesn't know it. In a very real way, we can change him - at least as far as we are concerned. We can see him with the "single eye" that relates only to the good and the true" (p. 124).

This is basic Christian Science thinking - that there is only goodness in God's creation, and that all of us, being a part of this creation, must at heart be good. The error is in the seeing; we choose to see bad. It is a challenging philosophy, and one difficult to apply, but I think Butterworth describes quite a noble effort in this passage.

One of the constant criticisms I hear about self-help books is that they pander to the selfish side of humanity, that they encourage materialism and tacky consumerist desires. This frustrates me because any careful reading of almost any self-help book exposes a constant injunction to develop the spiritual above all other attributes, and to see growth in metaphysical rather than materialist terms. It is a point that Butterworth himself drives home over and over again: "Success cannot be measured by what you have amassed" (p.131). This is, above all, a devotional work, a book that is about the development of a complete spiritual worldview, the growth of a soul. As such it illustrates perfectly one of the central points of my thesis, that self-help books are in fact quasi-religious texts that offer practical moral teachings and metaphysical worldviews.

The author has sought with this book to describe a practical, progressive and positively-focused Christianity. There is a surprising amount of theology in the book, much of it of a decidedly Girardian flavour. I know that would shock my academic friends, but I stand by my assessment. Butterworth's book is a lyrical, complex and deeply thoughtful text which challenges the authority of mainstream Christianity, as well as the easy laziness of reflexive individualism and the unexamined life.