Currently Reading: The Magic

Rhonda Byrne is a self-help superstar. The once-obscure television producer from Australia became a household name in 2006 when she produced a simple talking-heads-style film about New Thought ideas and the Law of Attraction and released it as The Secret. Someone - it is not clear who - came up with a simply brilliant promotional campaign based on networks and influencers and releasing different versions of the film to key tastemakers and influencers. I worked in a New Age bookstore at the time, and remember dozens of people coming in and telling me how they had been given a version of a new film that was going to change the world....
It was a whisper-campaign that worked, and the film was quickly turned into a book which became a mega-seller which culminated in Byrne's appearance on Oprah. The Secret became a cultural artefact, and was ridiculed and scorned by people on all sides, all the while speaking in some way to the general public as it went on to sell millions of copies across the world.
Byrne has herself never been much of a self-promoter or even a public figure - she rarely gives interviews, and is something of an enigma. This year she has quietly released a new book called The Magic. Its emphasis is on gratitude and on the active expression of gratitude. This, says Byrne, is the key to a successful life. By actually invoking the words "thank you" we are employing a a metaphorical magic spell, hence the book's name.
For all of her critics and detractors (and they are myriad), Rhonda Byrne, or her team, is good at producing simple, clearly-expressed texts that communicate very well the basic tenets of New Thought, a religious idea that dates back to the 1860s. I am, in fact, a fan of Byrne's work, and I think she is one of the truly great post-modern authors, producing books that owe more to the traditions of television, film, advertising and  the oral traditions of Protestant Chrstian worship than to stale literary traditions and formats.
Though her message is repeated constantly, there is not an ounce of fat in The Magic - it has been edited to perfection and is an inspiring and entertaining read.
The central message of the book is that gratitude must be cultivated self-consciously. Byrne connects this to biblical narrative and the Western Mystery magical traditions, employing her usual scattershot approach to references, citations and quotes from across the canon of self-help.
I'm interested in the fact that this book kind of launched itself, with very little fanfare. I had no idea it even existed till I was browsing through Kinokuniya bookshop in Bangkok a month ago and saw a modest pile of the books on a well-placed table. Considering just how many copies of The Secret were sold, you would think the publisher would make more of a song and dance about a new book from the same author. Perhaps Byrne's famous reticence and shyness have an impact here. As it is, each new instalment in The Secret franchise seems like a surprise.
I call it a franchise deliberately. The Magic is designed and branded in such a way as  to advise the reader that this is an extension of The Secret. The cover art is an extension of The Secret's usual antique magical motif, and the first thing you see on the cover is the imprint of The Secret itself, above the title of the book. I think we are being presented with a series here, the publisher determined to remind the reader of the famous  book in order to sell this new one.
The book's format appeals to me because, unlike The Secret which was the presentation of quotes and ideas designed more for occasional inspiration than applied reading, The Magic is presented as a practical workbook, filled with 28 exercises designed to enhance the application of magical gratitude in your life.

"You will be captivated while you read this life-changing knowledge, but without practicing what you learn, the knowledge will slip through your fingers..."

It's an interesting exercise because there is not a great deal of literature that deals with the concept of gratitude as an exercise in mental and spiritual development.
Interestingly, a prominent Australian writer contacted me recently to tell me he has been working his way through The Magic and getting a great deal from it, because it was dealing in concepts and techniques that he had never actively considered before.

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."

Martha Beck

Martha Beck is a truly fascinating figure in the world of self-help.
I first became aware of her years ago when she wrote an absolutely inspirational book called Expecting Adam, in which she detailed the birth of her beautiful son who happened to have Down's Syndrome. It was a sensitively written, intelligent book, and I became very interested in its author - obviously a woman who could deal with complexities and who had a very delicately honed moral sense.
Soon after Beck re-invented herself as a self-help author, producing a series of books based on her work as a business lecturer and executive coach. I also learned something of her extraordinary background. She was the daughter of a revered Mormon scholar and historian who had grown up in Salt Lake City and had herself been a devout Mormon. The Mormon impulse toward self-help is not, of course, unusual (cf Stephen Covey), and I simply put her down as another Mormon inspirational writer, that sect having taken the Protestant work ethic to its ultimate extreme.
But I always enjoyed her work. As well as being sensible and quite psychologically sound, it expresses a self-deprecating humour and a willing acknowledgement of the real world that is noticeably absent from most American self-help writing. Her brick of a book, Finding Your Own North Star, is these days considered a classic, and groups have been established around the world to study it and to put its exercises and reccomendations in place (there's even a virtual one on Facebook).
A couple of years ago Beck shocked everyone by releasing a book called Leaving the Saints, a searing expose of Mormon paranoia and insularity, and the hypocritical approach to childhood sexual abuse that seems to exist among Mormon communities in Utah. This book was something light years away from her usual stuff (with titles like The Joy Diet), and I wonder how many readers were scarred by unwittingly reading it, expecting some cheery, no-nonsense self-help. In many ways it is a book I felt deeply uncomfortable about while reading, and I do think there are some ethical problems in making such serious allegations in print, particularly when you are a famous, Oprah-appearing author who patently holds the balance of cultural power. That said, it's a darkly fascinating book, and Beck's talent as a writer makes it well worth reading.

Eckhart Tolle

One of the more interesting phenomena in the recent history of self-help publishing has been the rise and rise of Eckhart Tolle.
It is really quite difficult to fathom the appeal of Tolle, but he has written one of the bestselling books of all time, so obviously I am a little out of synch with the rest of the world. But even his most diehard fans will admit that he is not a charismatic speaker, and someone from among my acquaintance who adores the man confessed that whenever she can't sleep she just picks up her well-thumbed copy of A New Earth and after just a few paragraphs she drifts off.....
As an author he is actually quite difficult to categorise. In a pefect world I wouldn't even list him as a self-help author, because I really think the books are more religious in content, spelling out a pretty basic Advaita Vedanta message and observing none of the standard forms of the self-help genre. But booksellers seem determined to shelve him in the self-help section, and it is marketed and promoted as a self-improvement book, so I will bow to the pressure of public opinion.
I do, however, think its disingenuous of people like Oprah (and Tolle himself) to state that the books make no religious claims and are compatible with all spiritual worldviews. Even the most basic reading of A New Earth will show that it delineates quite a specific theological viewpoint which is completely at odds with mainstream Christianity. This doesn't bother me, but fundamentalist Christians are quite right to attack it as a piece of quite specific religious literature.
Al these criticisms aside, A New Earth and The Power of Now are both such monumentally successful works that their influence will be felt for decades to come. I remember when The Power of Now first came out I was asked to review it, and my judgement was that it was dull and derivative and no-one would ever read it......rather humbling to look back on one's old pronouncements.
A year or so agao, when I was working in a bookshop, a man came in and asked wher he might find Eckhart. I automatically lead him to the enormous piles of Mr. Tolle's work, but the man looked at me rather nonplussed and said "Actually, I meant Meister Eckhardt...."
Don't get me wrong, I think the content of Mr. Tolle's books is perfectly acceptable. Indeed, for the most part I find myself in total agreement with him. It's just that it's all been said before - much more conscisely and much more interestingly at that. A New Earth is such a deathly dull book. I really don't know why people rave about it so.