5 Lives to Live

This year I am engaged in a modified version of Chris Brogan's three book diet (which, incidentally, he has already given up on), in that I have selected three self-help books that I am reading repeatedly and doing my best to apply practically. Read more about how Walter Mason will re-reading self-help books all  through 2013.

One of the books I have chosen to engage with intensively all year is Barbara Sher's classic Wishcraft, a book I have never previously read all the way through.

One of the practical exercises in this book is Five Lives. In it, Sher asks us to imagine we have five simultaneous lives, and to record what we would actually be in each one. Here's what I wrote:

1. A writer
2. An academic
3. A New Thought minister
4. A Buddhist monk
5. A film maker

Walter Mason as academic

The purpose of this exercise? Sher writes: "In each of your "lives" is something you love very, very dearly and need to get into your one life - and you can."

You must have five things you'd like to be if you had five separate lives? Would you like to share them in the comments?

Monday Blogcrawl

I wonder why I can't stick to any particular schedule. I am brilliant at dreaming them up, but when it comes to actually sticking to them,  then forget it. Please send me suggestions and solutions :-) Until then, here's a week of what's happening in self-help:

• Stephen Covey, author of 80s mega-seller 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, died at 79
• The prolific Joe Vitale writing on the "unseen helpers" who help build success
• Some great vintage footage of Ernest Holmes talking about the power of the Universe (video)
• A New Age group in Australia in trouble for selling special mixes of herbs
• Controversy over people burned during the infamous Anthony Robbins firewalk. Famous self-help critic Micki McGee writes about it here
• University of Oxford blog questions the authentic self 

Maggie Hamilton - An Introduction

One very important element of self-help writing that I will be exploring in my thesis is the influence of what is commonly known as the "New Age." Anyone who has had anything to do with books in the last 20 years will know that this segment of the publishing industry has had an explosion in popularity. Though this popularity has died down somewhat, it is still a very important section of the market, and most publishers have an imprint (or two) devoted especially to New Age titles.
Indeed, at some point in the 80s the literature of self-help and the New Age became blended in the minds of publishers, retailers and book buyers, and these days the distinctions between them are hard to define.
The central author I'll be concentrating on in my chapter on the New Age is Maggie Hamilton. Now, in the spirit of full disclosure I must mention that Maggie is not only a personal friend, but also my publisher. This leaves me in the unenviable position of analysing closely and critiquing the work of a friend! But the thrust of my thesis is not to in any way tear down or dismiss the genre of self-help. On the contrary, the fundamental idea of my thesis is that these books represent important cultural artefacts, and document a popular literary history of Australia. Nonetheless, I am reading them closely for patterns and intertextuality, for derivations and similarities - no author could be comfortable with that kind of analysis!
Like that other great icon of Australian self-help, Stephanie Dowrick, Maggie emerged from the publishing industry. They also both hark from New Zealand, which is another fascinating coincidence - and quite possibly material for an entire journal article. But I digress.
Having achieved some success as a children's author, Maggie published her first book spiritual self-help book, Coming Home, in 2002. Very much a book of its time, it combined a whole host of spiritual influences in describing a spiritual journey "Home" to the soul. Elegantly written and beautifully produced in its first edition (complete with Pre-Raphaelite detail on the cover), Coming Home represented the fruits of Maggie's own spiritual journey, with Shamanic, Spiritualist and New Age Christian ideas peppered throughout.
Maggie later branched out into a more practical (and to some, more accessible) format of writing books of more specifically focused (and less overtly spiritual) advice. The first was Love Your Work in 2004, followed by What Men Don't Talk About in 2007. This excursion into the problems of gender prompted Maggie to continue to tease out these questions, and she has produced two highly successful books specifically addressing the problems of parenting: What's Happening to Our Girls (2008) and What's Happening to Our Boys (2010). In the interim she has also continued to write in the areas of spirituality and self-help, producing a small book of inspirations in 2004, Magic of the Moment, and a wonderfully eclectic and wide-ranging collection of essays and encounters with the sacred, A Soft Place to Land (2007).
Importantly, Maggie's influence on the world of New Age publishing continues behind the scenes. She is the director of the New Age imprint at Allen & Unwin, Inspired Living, and in that capacity has published a number of important Australian books in the area.
She also excels as a speaker and teacher, and is much sought after in that capacity.
I look forward to reading her books more carefully as I attempt to identify their influences and place them more exactly on the continuum of self-help literature in Australia. The breadth of her influences and the widespread success of her work make her a perfect case study for my thesis.

Self-Help, Inc.

One of the most substantial studies of self-help books, and certainly the most recent, is Micki McGee's engaging Self-Help, Inc.
McGee is an academic, and takes a thoroughly academic approach to her analysis of self-help books. Her critique seems to be informed by Marxist theory, and he basic thesis is that self-help books mostly encourage workers to accept poor wages and working conditions, and to blame themselves for these material shortcomings.
While I don't necessarily agree with McGee's thesis (though she certainly argues it convincingly, and I think that many of her assertions are valid), I love her passion for the genre, and the degree to which it fascinates her.
The book is well-written, and superbly referenced and argued. As an academic resource it is faultless, and is certainly the main critical reference point for my own PhD.
McGee is most interesting when she talks about the different ways work is conceived in the literature of self-help. Along with Weber (who she seems to have a real understanding of), she says that the older Western notions of religious vocation and calling were transferred in the Protestant world to the areas of work and moneymaking. She sees mystical overtones in Nelson Bolles' What Colour is Your Parachute, and provides an interesting analysis of Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way (a book that interests me because of its overtly religious rhetoric).
McGee sees the growth in popularity of self-help as a negative thing, reflecting an increasingly solipsistic tendency in the Western mind. People who may once have committed themselves to social causes and societal change instead focus on transforming themselves, a work which is all-consuming and never-ending.