The 16 books I'm going to read to inspire my creativity in 2016

I just read Danielle Duell's post on Linkedin in which she listed the 16 books she plans to read in 2016, and I thought it was a terrific idea. So here are the 16 books I have selected to read next, books that I think will especially stimulate my creativity throughout the year.

1. Walden by Henry David Thoreau - I've never read this classic of American literature, and I feel it's time.

2. One Day My Soul Just Opened Up by Iyanla Vanzant - I read this back in 2010 when I was travelling around Cambodia, and it had a profound effect on me. I feel it's time to re-visit it.

3. Fear Not by Carol Tice - I think it was recommended in a blog post or on a podcast, but I just feel like this might do me some good. My confidence waxes and wanes.

4. The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod - I don't actually need much convincing that early rising is a great productive habit. I do need to discipline myself more, though.

5. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - I have actually read this one a couple of times before, but not in a few years, so it's time to see what I might be able to get out if it right now.

6. The Achievement Habit by Bernard Roth - You can tell I am having anxiety issues about productivity.

7. All of P.G. Wodehouse - OK, this is a bit of a big ask, but at some stage in 2016 I want to teach a course on the English comic novel, and this just has to be done.

8. All of Ian Rankin - Another mammoth project. I am working on a crime novel of my own, and everyone says that Rankin is the one to study.

9. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke - Never done it, and it is a glaring gap in anyone's library of creativity. Plus I'll be able to look my friend Stephanie Dowrick in the eye, as she wrote the book on the subject.

10. The Cruise of the Snark by Jack London - I loved Jack London novels as a boy, and I still think he is an absolute master. This is a book of his I haven't read, and hadn't even heard of it till I saw Susannah Fullerton give a lecture on the Mills & Boon company, who originally published this.

11. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

12. The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr - Because I am a memoirist, and because I teach memoir writing and love the form.

13. The Art of War by Sun Tzu - I've never been able to finish it. But I'm meant to know a lot about Chinese culture, so it's kind of embarrassing.

14. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield - I love it, and this will be my third time. I always get inspired by this book.

15. The Art of Work by Jeff Goins - Because he's a nice guy and one of the thought leaders I've decided to follow closely this year.

16. Bleak House by Charles Dickens - I adore Dickens, and I am a member of the NSW Dickens Society, but I have never read this one. More gap-filling.

New Self-Help Books in July

I really do have to be bringing my thesis to a close some day soon, but that doesn't mean I am going to stop reading self-help books. Au contraire. Here is my latest pile, almost none of which are destined for inclusion in my dissertation. But I couldn't resist. From the top:

Happiness is Here and Now by V. Vajiramedhi - I bought this one in Thailand. It is a collection of questions and answers with a Thai Buddhist monk, packaged as self-help lifestyle advice. Quite good.

Meta-Secret: The Next Level by Mel Gill - No idea what this one is, but it is such an obvious cash in on The Secret franchise that I had to get it. Another purchase from Bangkok. 

Change Your View, Change Your Life by Ven. Acarya Thoon Khippapanyo - More Thai Buddhism packaged as self-help.

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeannette Winterson - OK, I know this one is memoir, but I have been interested in how it is being presented as a kind of anti-self-help book..

The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley - This guy is really interesting, and I have been following him on-line for a while.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - Of course I have read this one over and over again - it is one of the principle reference points for my dissertation. But the two 70s paperback versions I own are literally falling apart, so I snapped up this nice hardcover version when I saw it on sale.

Break Through Pain by Shinzen Young - Purely for personal reasons.

High Mysticism by Emma Curtis Hopkins - The uninitiated might be asking why a book of this title is included in self-help, but Hopkins is very much the grandmother of the self-help movement, and until now I have only read one of her books (they are exceedingly difficult to get).  She was an associate of Mary Baker Eddy and called The Mother of New Thought.

This is How by Augusten Burroughs - Another very strange new release by a mainstream author who is trying to present (I think) some distilled self-help wisdom.

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo - Didn't Oprah have something to do with this?

Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki - I have been wanting to read this for about a year and finally I got a copy. Guy Kawasaki rocks.

Fell's Official Know-It-All Guide to Writing Bestsellers by Stanley J. Corwin - I'll let you know if it works.

The Prosperous Heart by The Prosperous Heart & Emma Lively - Cameron is, of course, the creative genius behind The Artist's Way. I always like to keep up with her work. 

The Magic of Believing

One of my claims about the self-help genre is that, broadly speaking, it attracts the same breadth of writing skill as any other genre.
That is to say, there are some badly written books and there are some well-written books and a great deal of books that fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. And while haters of self-help would like to believe that it is the last refuge of the talentless, in fact many self-help writers (including many of the most famous) are quite accomplished craftspeople capable of expressing their ideas clearly and concisely and possessed of a talent for anecdote and clear expression of metaphorical meaning. Many self-help writers succeed where some novelists fail - they are capable of writing about lofty subjects without appearing pretentious, preachy or moralistic.
One of the books that I rate highly for literary merit is Claude M. Bristol's classic The Magic of Believing. It is such a charming book  that I defy anyone to read it and not be a little convinced by his theories, or at least taken in by the wonderful stories and examples he gives in support o of his thesis.

And what is his thesis? That anything which we truly believe is capable of being achieved. It is not willpower, talent, luck or any other external condition that is essential to success. It is a firm belief in the achievement of our goals that ultimately leads us straight to them.
Originally published in 1948, The Magic of Believing was written by an old-school journalist who had served in World War Two but who had for many years harboured a secret interest in Theosophy and New Thought. He condensed his ideas down into this wonderfully readable little book which details how he came to his belief in the efficacy of mind power, and also the other people he has encountered in his life who have used the power of belief to create a life they love.
He peppers the book with hints as to how we can remain resolute in our belief in our success. He advocates, for example, the doodling of dollar signs in idle moments, in staring at yourself in the mirror and asserting your authority and power, and in writing down your goals and dreams on cards and putting them all about the house so that you can read over and reflect on them at any tiome. These self-same techniques are still taught today in self-help books, though people rarely acknowledge Bristol as the originator.
And in truth he probably wasn't the originator of most of the self-help techniques he espouses in The Magic of Believing. Right from the beginning he acknowledges that everything he presents has been learned somewhere else. The card technque, for example, dates back to the advice of Benjamin Franklin and the use of affirmations in front of the mirror has its roots in the techniques of French psychologist Emile Coue.
Bristols's great talent was in making many of these quite hoary old ideas seem fresh and accessible. He also imbues his writing with a pally and often funny masculine swagger, making some of his more implausible claims seem like commonsense.
He is a great one for employing the tropes of science, as was popular among all witers of his day. He is very impressed, too, with what was then the fledgling science of psychology, and claims that all of his assertions have a sound grounding in psychological study.He also posits hinself as something of a skeptic and a sophisticate. His world-weary tone was probably cultivated during his years as a police reporter, and he brings the same hard-boiled language to the ideas of New Thought and self-help, making The Magic of Believing quite a unique sounding book.
Donald Meyer, in his 1965 book The Positive Thinkers, described Bristol's book as  having:

"...mixed Eddington, Freud, psychosomatics, electroencephalography, telepathy, Emerson and a host of other sources into his explanation of all events whatsoever as "mind stuff," hypnotism and suggestion." 

The book was also a favourite of Phyllis Diller, as you can see in this clip:

Library Books

Having come back from a long period abroad, it really is time for me to get my dissertation finished and ready for editing. My goal is for it to be more or less complete by the end of July (you heard it here, folks) and ready then to send to a proper editor who I (or at least, my research group) will be paying for. I want this thing to be absolutely ship-shape.
So I am back trawling the local libraries for liitle bits and pieces, overlooked books and hidden classics in the self-help field, and just generally things I might have missed in the past, during periods when I was intensely focused on one particular idea or topic.

So, from the Whitlam Library in Cabramatta (my local), I have brought home the following (from the top):

• Stick to Your Dreams by Bill Allardyce and Steve Gray -  what I love about libraries is that you will frequently stumble upon self-published Australian stuff that would otherwise be impossible to find, or even know about. A note to self-publishers: for posterity's sake, please continue to donate your stuff to local libraries! Bill Allardyce seems to be a Victorian inventor and entrepreneur, and this is quite a lovely little book, which the front cover claims is a best-seller. 
• Signposts for Life by Vicki Bennett - Bennett is a Queensland corporate trainer and motivational speaker who released a few popular self-help books in the 90s.
• Supercoach by Michael Neill - Coaching seems to be pretty much dead as a self-help trope,  though it had a good enough innings. This is a 2009 Hay House book, and it really must be one of the last of the personal coahing books. 
• A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink - "Futurist" kind of books are always interesting, especially when read seven years down the tracks. In this 2005 book Pink posits a change in age, from information to conceptual. Self-help guru Po Bronson said this book was "mind-altering." We'll see. 
• Thrive by Dan Buettner - Dr. Oz says it's a must-read, though I have never actually come across this author before. I hesitate to read it because it is endorsing a particular, trademarked, method, in this case the "Blue Zones Way." I have no idea what the "Blue Zones Way" is and in my experience these kinds of books leave you none the wiser. They are normally just extended sales pamphlets. I approach it with trepidation.  

Discover the Gift

Discover the Gift by Shajen Joy Aziz & Demian Lichtenstein

This is the kind of product that will be instantly recognisable to many – it is a book to accompany an inspirational film, a genre established simultaneously by The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know.

And as in both of those 2 instances, the book stands alone as its own inspirational and motivating read. I was drawn in almost from the beginning as the brother and sister authors told their own personal stories of alienation and then renewed love and closeness.

And, like The Secret, Discover the Gift brings together some really big spiritual teachers who talk about our reasons for being on this earth. Not just a movie, not just a film, the authors describe this as a MOVEMENT! Some of the featured teachers include: Barbara De Angelis, the Dalai Lama, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Mary Manin Morrissey and my personal favourite Michael Bernard Beckwith.

So we’re in something that’s very much an established and popular tradition tradition. But that’s not to say that it’s not good – it is. Very stimulating, incredibly inspiring. Let’s face it, we always need reminding of these ideas:

• · That choice is possible, and that our choices direct our lives

· That life is the most precious, wonderful gift

· That we need to express our gratitude for all of the wonderful things in our lives

That we need to practice more solitude and focused thinking

The Book describes 8 Distinct Universal Spiritual Steps:

1. Receptivity

2. Intention

3. Activation

4. Feedback

5. Vibration

6. Adversity and Transformation

7. Compassion

8. Love

I particularly loved Jack Canfield’s contributions – he's the Chicken Soup for the Soul man, and if you haven’t read his newer book The Success Principles I really recommend it, as it will change your life. In Discover the Gift he is talking about establishing newer, more positive and productive habits in our lives, jettisoning the old conditioning.

One of the authors, the sister, Shajen Joy Aziz, stresses the importance of constant action in pursuit of our gift. Too often we let our talents lie fallow, when we should be employing them every day. She urges to do one thing, no matter how tiny, to keep the momentum of our dreams, and to keep us on that path of realisation.

New Purchases - Thesis Related

I'm probably quite fortunate in that I'm dealing with a topic that is based on mass-market books, so second-hand bookstores are usually a treasure-trove for me of interesting and related material. And from this pile you can see that I've been a very busy little bee indeed. So, from the top, here are the thesis-related books I've bought this month:

• True North by Paul Fenton-Smith
• The Breakthrough Experience by Dr. John F. Demartini: Demartini is a prolific American self-help author who publishes with Hay House. A chiropractic doctor, he was married to Australia's own fabulous Athena Starwoman until her untimely death.
  
• The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking by Christopher Hansard: This is for my chapter on the Eastern influence in self-help. My thesis being that Eastern religion in the West is frequently packaged as self-help rather than religion. This being the perfect example.
  
• The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran: Having been inspired by the gorgeous exhibition at the NSW State Library I bought this cheap little Penguin Classic edition. After Emerson and the Bible, The Prophet is just about the most quoted text in self-help literature.
  
• How to Use Your Twelve Gifts From God: This is meant to be a New Thought classic.
  
• 4 Books by Robert Schuller: Schuller is relevant to the chapter I am currently working on, which is an examination of how mainstream Christianity co-opted the New Thought ideas and gave them a more orthodox Christian veneer. Schuller was a master at this.
  
• Rev. Ike's Secrets for Health, Happiness and Prosperity: Rev. Ike was a tremendously important figure in African-American history, and he popularised New Thought ideas among black churchgoing communities.
• New Thought, Common Sense by Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Wilcox was one of the pioneers of New Thought.
  
• Letters from Emerson to a Friend: As noted, Emerson is really the moving hand behind New Thought and therefore behind all contemporary self-help.
  
• Rip This Page by Karen Benke: Actually, I think I bought this one for me, as I felt I needed some creative inspiration.
• Enlightenment to Go by David Michie: Perfect for my Eastern Religion chapter.
• God's Salesman: A serious examination of the life and work of Norman Vincent Peale, who is the main focus of my current chapter.
  
• Love & Law by Ernest Holmes: Holmes was one of Peale's uncredited influnences, and his work is essential to any understanding of slef-help literature.
  
• Ernest Holmes, His Life & Times
• Out on a Limb by Shirley Maclaine: One of the great books from my teenage years, I rescued this book from the reject sale at the Neilson Hays Library in Bangkok. It is a lovely edition, and I felt I owed it to Shirley. Plan on re-reading it 'cos I loved it so much as a teenager.
  
• Seth Godin omnibus: Godin is one of THE most iunfluential thinkers of the moment. I have followed his blog for a long time now, so thought it was time I read some of his books.
  

"This Thing Called You" by Ernest Holmes

Ernest Holmes, founder of the Church of Religious Science and all-round California legend, was a prolific writer. Indeed, Holmes seems to have been an overachiever on almost every front - he was a tireless preacher and self-promoter and established a religious empire which continues to have an affect on contemporary popular culture. Of course, his magnum opus The Science of Mind is a book I've been reading slowly all year and blogging along the way. This Thing Called You is a much smaller work, a slim book made up mainly of affirmations, meditations and prayer treatments intended to improve the reader's life and strengthen her sense of living spiritually.
And where The Science of Mind, a vast book in every sense, tends toward the wordy and prolix, this smaller book is actually quite elegant and sparse, setting out in simple language Holmes' own views on how exactly the Universe (not my capital "U") functions. Indeed, it is a terrific read at times, inspiring and thoughtful, providing a very clear and practical path of spiritual practice.
In every piece of Holmes' writing that I have read thus far it is clear that his philosophy owes a debt primarily to Emerson and Mary Baker Eddy (though probably through the medium of her student and later rival Emma Curtis Hopkins). Indeed, he is free in his references to Emerson, as are most New Thought writers. He is less forthcoming in his recognition of the guiding hand of Eddy - if she is mentioned at all it is in elliptical and disapproving references.
The book's primary theme is, as always, that each of us represents the Universe in its entirety, that, to quote Emerson (as Holmes does) "...every man is a doorway to the inifinite." This infinitude which we represent (and which we are, at the most basic level) needs only to be awakened to. We need not go on any spiritual search, says Holmes, because:

"...the thing you are after is already here, within you. The only things that stand between you and it are the accumulated thoughts, beliefs and emotions of the ages" (p.13).

More than a slight impediment, one would imagine, but Holmes is eternally optimistic that the human is moving ever forward (or should that be inward) toward full knowing of her own divinity. Holmes says that the problem of our future lies not in being selfish or unfairly possessed of good fortune. The real problem is that we do not wish for more and better for ourselves and others. Our wishes, desires and thoughts create our own reality, and so communal ideas (memes, I suppose we'd call them now) are merely these same false constructs writ large. Poverty and suffering exist only because we continue to acknowledge their reality. All that is good and perfect already exists - is, in fact, all that is real - we have simply failed to arrange the world and our lives in the correct way. Holmes advocates not revolution, but the rearrangement of mental furniture (p.17).
We encounter exactly those things we imagine, says Holmes, "If you believe that wherever you go you will meet with love and friendship, with appreciation and gratitude, then this will become...your law" (p. 18). This is, of course, a classic New Thought assertion, and it also speaks of exactly the sort of folk wisdom common not only to early twentieth century Americans, but to most of us now. Common sense and theological assertion, however, do not make for much of a scientific case, and those more cynically minded might be happy to point towards plenty of examples of the gullible and the kind meeting sticky ends, despite their best feelings.
But Holmes would stand his ground, I imagine, and in this book brooks no oppositional voice, nor even raises the spectre of an alternative (and much less comforting) viewpoint. For the practitioner of Science of Mind, as for all of the early exponents of New Thought, it is the matter of belief which shapes our physical world, our mental universe, and the reality we continue to experience. It may be cold comfort, but for the experiencer of misfotune, harrassment or slander, Holmes' has simple and constant advice:

"...everything in your life depends on belief...it is done unto you as you believe. Change your belief and you can change your world" (p. 25).

Evil in the Science of Mind

Probably the greatest theological problem faced by New Thought is the question of the existence of evil. This same problem dogs orthodox Christianity, of course, but at least itcan fall back on the doctrine of original sin. That doctrine is rejected by New Thought, which teaches that we are all created perfectly, not just in the image of God but as manifestations of God - a part of creation which is eternal, wholly good and perfect. The existence of bad thinsgs in such a schema would seem to be a fundamental stumbling point. It was exactly this point that many of the early critics of Christian Science (most notably Mark Twain, to the consternation of his devoutly Christian Science daughter) harped on, and it continues to be the achilles heel of New Thought philosophy. If God is Good and good is our natural state of being, why do we witness so many bad things in our world?
"Evil is man created," says Ernest Holmes in The Science of Mind (p. 499). He goes on to explain "God - the eternal goodness - knows nothing about it. He is too pure to behold evil and cannot look upon it. Evil is the direct and suppositional opposite to good, and has no reality behind it, or actual law to come to its support." This is the standard explanation, and is pretty much the same thing you'd hear from a Christian Scientist or, for that matter, a Swedenborgian. God is only goodness, so anything that we might interpret as evil is created by us, and is, in fact, an illusion. This seems an adequate response, but I always want to ask, "Yes but why? Why do we have to suffer these delusions? If God is Good and wants only happiness for us why has he allowed us to create these phantoms of unhappiness?" The response to this is that we have been afforded free will - that free will is, in fact, the one essential aspect of our being as humans, the thing with which God has gifted us. This is an idea which derives clearly from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg. We are free to choose at any moment between good and evil. Interestingly, this same notion of free will is essential to most Buddhist thinking - that conditions, circumstances and karma are all very real, but equally real is that moment of volition when we can choose between a wise or a foolish action.
It is interesting to note, as well, that in this passage Holmes seems to be anthropomorphising God, something strictly frowned upon in New Thought theology. This turn of phrase is undoubtedly reflexive, but it betrays an older way of thinking about God, creation and the problem of evil. God in this description is definitely a pure deity, one who knows only good, and cannot see imperfection. But to my mind it begs the question - because it is unseen, does it mean it doesn't exist? In the rest of his writing (and in New Thought in general) Holmes absolutely rejects a dualistic vision of the universe as divided between good and evil. The problem is always in human perception, in our own misunderstanding of circumstances. In an essay on The Impersonal Face of God, Holmes writes:

"We are not dealing with a negative as well as a positive Power—not two powers but one; a power that sees neither good nor evil as we see it. It knows only that it is all, and since it is all, it creates whatever is given it. From our limited standpoint we often think of good and evil; not realizing that, as yet, we do not know the one from the other. What we call good today, we may call evil tomorrow, and what we think to be evil today, we may tomorrow proclaim as the greatest good we have known. Not so with the Great Universal Power of Mind; It sees only Itself and Its infinite ability to create."

To further refine his explanation in The Science of Mind, Holmes goes on to make a distinction between God, which is all good, and Universal Law, which is objective and unchangeable. "The law is no respecter of persons and will bring good or evil to any, according to his use or misuse of it" (SOM, p. 500). So God is the source of all good, but his agency is the action of Universal Law. It is the duty of the human to work with these immutable laws and fall into harmony with them - thus bringing ourselves the promised perfection.
So serious is this question of evil (and, probably, so recurrent were the questions surrounding it) that Holmes devotes a whole section of The Science of Mind to it. Here he underlines the notion of evil as an unwise use of life's laws and conditions. It is nothing in and of itself - it is a fiction. It is the word we use to describe a whole host of results, the causes of which are mysterious to us. Evil is a destructive meme, and the student of Religious Science can leave the concept behind forever. "To turn from evil and do good is the desire of every soul who is consecrated to the Truth; this we can do only as we cease talking about, believing in, or doing evil."

Ask Yourself This - Wendy Craig-Purcell

Ond of the podcasts I listen to religiously is Unity FM's Hooked on Classics. It is a weekly book club that examines books by and about the Unity Church and New Thought. From the point of view of my thesis writing it is a valuable process, because it really examines New Thought ideas in depth, and from a number of different perspectives. On a personal level, I enjoy the whole process of reading a book very closely over a couple of months and hearing it analysed week-by-week. I've always wanted to be in a book group, but my insane schedule doesn't allow for it. This is the perfect compromise.

One of the books recently studied was Wendy Craig-Purcell's Ask Yourself This. Craig-Purcell is a Unity Minister, and spoke about her own book on several of the shows. Needless to say I found this a prticularly fascinating exercise, a kind of anti-Barthesian commentary that actually says a lot about self-help writing and it's excessive intertextuality and self-referencing.

The premise of the book is that it represents a series of personal questions that the reader should ask herself. These questions are challenging and are meant, naturally, to facilitate personal and spiritual growth. As well as exploring the questions at length in print, the reader is also asked to meditate on each question and to journal on the reflections, thereby deepening the impact of the reading process.

The questions are not particuarly innovative or unusual, but they are broad enough to be quite challenging to answer, and spending time in wondering about them causes any number of additional questions to be formed in the mind of the engaged reader. Questions include such things as:

"What am I looking for?
Who am I trying to change?
If I knew I would be successful, what would I be saying "yes" to?"

The final chapter of the book is a peculiar diversion into the area of home schooling, something about which the author is passionate. Home schooling is a hot topic in America, and Craig-Purcell is keen to explore it as a religious person who is neither conservative nor fundamentalist. I must say that this section seems to sit awkwardly with the rest of the book, however, and for this reader at least added nothing to the process being explored. And certainly in Australia, where home schooling is a non-issue, this whole bit can profitably be ignored, and the book be wound up at the end of chapter 7.

Ask Yourself This is interesting because it is not a practical self-help book. Published by Unity House, the Unity School of Christianity's own publishing arm, the book is decidedly spiritual in bent, and the questions are intended to inspire prayer and reflection rather than specific action. This leaves the whole process of reading the book and folllowing its suggestions a much more open-ended process, and one I think would be quite attractive to many readers, particularly if they are of a more mystical bent.

I enjoyed the book, and interestingly I read most of it while I was on retreat at a Benedictine monastery, and it was the perfect companion on such an occasion. Slim and easy-to-read, Ask Yourself This is an excellent primer in New Thought and a nifty text for helping the reader to explore some of the more challenging (and more grandly focused) spiritual niches of the mind.

Yes You Can! - Behind the hype and hustle of the motivation biz

From where I sit here in Australia, one of the most esoteric and quintessentialy American occupations must be that of professional speaker. It almost seems unbelievable that someone can earn their living from talking to rooms full of people. It seems to hark back to an earlier age, to the times when Dickens, Wilde and Twain travelled the US lecturing to vast audiences.
In Yes You Can! ex-Playboy editor Jonathan Black examines this amazing industry, and is drawn into its high-energy milieu to the point of seeking to become a motivational speaker himself.
Refreshingly, he never sets out to "expose" the industry, or to tear it apart. As he points out, he simply never met anyone who was manipulative, hypocritical or unusually avaricious. The motivational speaking industry is like any other, and Black does a brilliant job in explaining just how mundane - and often corny - its particular machinations are.
The speakers, both obscure and struggling and stellarly successful and wealthy, are shown here to be a wonderful crowd of eccentrics, each constantly working an angle and trying to stand out in a monstrously competitive field. His descriptions of their schtick are somethimes hilarious, and Black retains a cynic's eye throughout. But along with him you can't help but admire the incredible drive of these people to be successful.
Conceding that it is the type of career that normally attracts a bad rap, he speaks about the efforts being made to quantify the impacts of motivational speakers on company morale and - ultimately - profit. Unsurprisingly, this still looks like being almost impossible.
I was conscious throughout of the ways in which the self-help industry employ a wide range of media and technology to spread its message and, of course, to make money. The presence of so many celebrity speakers reminds us that this whole philosophy was born on the pulpit something which Black himself ultimately realises, in a moment of great personal significance. The speakers promote their audio material and their books, and vice versa, ad infinitum. This multiplicity of media marks motivation and self-help as distinctly modern phenomena, born in the age of modernity and in reaction to the changes it forced upon society.
Yes You Can! is a great book - well written, well researched and sensitively rendered. Jonathan Black has approached the subject in a uniquely thoughtful way and offers, for a change, some genuine insight into the business of self-help, instead of the usual blanket condemnation.

Each Mind a Kingdom

One of the things that is most apparent when studying the history of self-help literature is the dominance of women. Since the earliest days of New Thought women have been the movement's principal leaders and followers. Certainly in the early literature of Australian self-help, immersed as it is in the philosophy of New Thought, women are the real pioneers.
American historian Beryl Satter has written an excellent book called Each Mind a Kingdom, which details the phenomenon of women in the New Thought movement.
In my research on Sister Veni Cooper-Mathieson, a wonderfully eccentric Australian author, publisher and spiritual leader, I noticed that she led something called the White Cross Crusade. I was surprised to discover that this was a society to promote celibacy aming young women. They met weekly in the Domain, and there was a companion group for young men. By the brevity of the mentions, I can only assume that both movements were not particularly well subscribed. Sister Veni wrote extensively on the subject of female emancipation, a key component of which she saw as being chastity among the young.
It wasn't until I read Satter's fascinating book that I realised that these crusades for morality and celibacy were an intrinsic part of the New Thought movement in America. Indeed, the position was seen as a progressive one, helping to combat the problems of unwanted pregnancy, venereal disease and the abandonment of unmarried mothers.
The New Thought movement saw itself as ushering in a new, purer age, in which women were empowered, and would no longer be enslaved to what was characteristically cast as the baser sexual demands of men.
Physical desire - and sexuality in general - was posited in this early movement as a problem, something to be overcome. It is fascinating how these early feminist visions were tied in with ideas of chastity and sexual purity.

The Science of Mind on Thought

"Thoughts of lack, poverty and limitation contain within themselves the conditions necessary to produce lack, poverty and limitation."

The Science of Mind p. 402

Success in The Science of Mind

The system of The Science of Mind exists to convince people that success is a natural part of the Universal Law. We were created to be successful, to evolve into better people and to experience more and more good. We access this promised success merely by tapping into the Universal Mind, the pattern of which, the Divine direction, is upward. If we recognise our oneness with Divine Mind then we fall into line with the only Creative force of the Universe, and so we are destined to experience constant success.
This compliant path is never easy, however. For some reason our fallible natures will insist on entertaining thoughts of failure, and as long as there is even the smallest belief in failure true success will continue to elude us. Those who are successful simply expect succeess. They have complete faith on the goodness of the Universe, and so success is theirs.
We lesser mortals are hesitant to ask for what we want because we continue to feel unworthy, We fail to visualise the forms of success, and we are not specific in our desires for a wonderful life.
Holmes' constant refrain - perhas the central point of his philosophy - is that we are entirely shaped by our thoughts. Every thought we entertain - either positive or negative - is manifested for us. This is the Law of the Universe. We need simply to master this process of thought. We need to think ourselves successful.
The Science of Mind reminds us that it is easy to be influenced by worldy thoughts and trends - but that way lies failure. If we want to be created anew, we must align our thoughts each and every moment with the thoughts of happiness and cheerfulness that are created naturally in Divine Mind. Then we fall in line with the successful path that God has intended for us all along.

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.

Laurie Levine

One of the few people left promoting the ideas of New Thought in Sydney is Laurie Levine, who conducts a monthly Positive Living Spiritual Service, and is the author of two books promoting her own eclectic spiritual vision.
Originally from America, Laurie has been in Australia for many years, and is a popular yoga teacher and spiritual healer. Her first book, Spiritual Medicine, was published in Australia by Simon & Schuster in 1999, and later in America by North Atlantic books. It is a remarkable book that encompasses a wide selection of self-help ideas stemming largely from New Thought, but also drawing from yoga, spiritual healing and other metaphysical traditions. Quite a charming read.
Her most recent book is self-published, and is a collection of blessings and prayers for use in all different life situations - it would be a perfect resource for any minister or celebrant. Hopefully Laurie will be releasing many more books in the years to come, as she is a gifted writer, with a palpable energy and a lightness of touch that make her ideas easily accessible and free of pretension.
These days Laurie is affiliated with Agape Spiritual Centre in California. This is the incredible "Trans-denominational" church whose minister, the handsome and charismatic Michael Bernard Beckwith, became such through his appearance on the mega-selling DVD The Secret. This church, and Laurie's own group, draws mainly on the Science of Mind ideas of Ernest Holmes, and represents a less rigidly religious vision of New Thought.
Agape is quite a phenomenon in America, where it has reached the status of mega-church, though without the dogma and right-wing leanings of most of the other churches that delight in that status. It has yet to gain the same degree of popularity in Australia, though Laurie is hopeful that the future will bring more people with interest and energy, inspired by Beckwith's books and appearances.

Florence Scovel Shinn

If ever there was anyone willing to "speak the word" of positive truth, it was Florence Scovel Shinn, an early 20th Century illustrator, New Thought preacher and bestselling writer. Her little book The Game of Life and How to Play It is still in print and is perennially popular.
Her books are slight and wonderfully old-fashioned in their language and examples. Florence was a dyed-in-the wool positive thinker, and in example after example she illustrates how people's lives have been turned around through taking a more optimistic view of things and employing the tools of prayer, affirmation and visualisation. Like many teachers of the time, she cast herself as a "metaphysician" (a wonderful job description!), and it is certain that her early training as an actress greatly helped her in her later career as popular preacher.
She died in 1940, and her books have influenced many modern writers in the self-help field, most notably Louise Hay.


"There is a supply for every demand."
Florence Scovel Shinn

Helping Me Help Myself

Most books about self-help books tend to be hyper-critical, relying on time-worn old platitudes about the culture of selfishness and the lameness of most self-help writing. I thought that Helping Me Help Myself would be more of the same, though I was duty-bound to read it.

Instead I discover that Beth Lisick, a very funny and accomplished writer, has instead approached the subject with something of an open mind.
Deciding to spend a year being guided by different self-help gurus, Ms. Lisick details the standard domestic traumas of any 12 month period (incipient poverty, a car accident, a regular job dressing up as a banana) and how her new interest in the philosophies of self-help may be changing her usual reactions. And perhaps re-shaping her state of mind.
She reads Jack Canfield (even ends up spending a Thanksgiving weekend with him!), Julia Cameron and Stephen Covey. She goes on a cruise with Richard Simmons and has an epiphany during a Sylvia Browne live show.
Interestingly, the only person for whom she bristles with suspicion is John Gray, who during his seminar seems most intent on shifting his suspect range of health supplements.
Lisick manages to identify the genuine need which people possess as they seek out some meaning in life, and attempt to gain some control of their futures. Though many of our efforts can appear pathetic to the more cynical, the fact is that in one way or another the human creature will always, as Ms. Lisick says, "take stabs at being better or happier people." Those who poke fun at this impulse seem to forget that it remains the driving force behind all efforts at art, culture, spirituality - all forms of transcendence.
This book represents a genuine, and often touching, struggle to understand why regular people turn to mass-produced literature and information in an attempt to improve their lives and their sense of self.