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.

Esther & Jerry Hicks

Probably the biggest stars on the self-improvement circuit right now are Esther and Jerry Hicks, an unassuming, middle-aged couple from Arizona who have slowly built up a following until, around 5 years ago, they suddenly became massive.
Mrs. Hicks is a channel, and she channels a disembodied collection of entities that, rather confusingly, go by the singular name Abraham. The copious books and CDs produced by the couple are, in fact, the teachings of Abraham, though the name Esther and Jerry Hicks appears prominently on book jackets etc.
The message of Abraham seems to be a perfectly innocuous collection of New Thought ideas, with a heavy emphasis on the Law of Attraction and the concept of co-creation. In truth, it is hard to know why the books are so enormously popular. They have a tendency to ramble, and are incredibly repetitive. I suspect it is the sheer folksy charm of the Hicks, and the relentless positivism of the message. There is also a distinct message of the inevitability of progress, which I suspect is also comforting in a world that is normally heavy on the doom and gloom and the downward spiral of humanity's journey.
Jerry Hicks credits the influence of both Napoleon Hill (Hicks was a teacher of Hill's methods for many years) and the channeled Seth writings of Jane Roberts. These latter are what inspired Esther to accept her own talents as a channel.
The Abraham material is focused on the idea that we are at a particularly important juncture in universal development, and that all people are capable of flowering and prospering if they will only do the necessary spiritual work and cultivate a sufficiently positive worldview. The books, audios and DVDs are normally reproductions of talks and seminars conducted by the Hicks, replete with question and answer sessions from the audience. With this format it would appear that the potential to produce new material is endless, and certainly their publisher, Hay House, is pushing out Abraham stuff at a rate of knots. It will be interesting to see if the market can continue to absorb such a high volume of releases.
The Hicks' have become incredibly influential on the New Age/Self-Help scene. They were the original inspiration for the movie The Secret, but by all accounts they withdrew over financial issues, and The Secret was eventually unleashed on the world without their contributions. Both Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay are great fans of the Abraham material, and constantly endorse it.
Hay House has been quite visionary in its handling of the Hicks and their work. Realising that more and more consumers are moving away from books, Hay House has focused just as much on audio and DVD in its Abraham releases, and it seems to have been working for them.
It is hard to be offended by the Abraham material, as it is entirely free from controversial claims and statements. My only reservation regards the style of the books, and the basically unedited nature of the content. There really is an enormous amount of duplication from book to book, and I daresay that the serious reader need only read one of them to get the full gist of Abraham's message.

Doreen Virtue

The fabulous Doreen Virtue has had a varied career, and she has just about covered the gamut of topics when it comes to spirituality and self-help. At present I am perusing one of her mid-career works I'd Change My Life if I had More Time. Basically a book on goal setting and time management, by the final chapters Doreen has broached the subject of angels and spirit guides, giving us a foretaste of the fabulously successful and totally New Age Doreen we'd come to know and love. Before this Doreen had written books on compulsive eating and vegetarianism, and after this she was to move firmly into the realms of angels and fairies and unicorns and mermaids for which she is justly famous.
Doreen really is one of the mega-sellers of the New Age world, and is obviously driven and possessed of the special talent of knowing exactly what people want. Her relationship with Louise Hay and her publishing company Hay House has, I imagine, been mutually beneficial.
To top it all off, I have had the pleasure of working with Ms. Virtue on a couple of occasions, and she has always been pleasant, cheery and unfailingly polite to everyone she encounters. And call me old-fashioned, but I think that's a good sign.
And even the most hard-hearted metaphysician wouldn't be able to resist her gold-embossed Ascended Masters Cards, which are my constant companions...

John Randolph Price

One of the more colourful figures in the self-help movement is John Randolph Price. I am currently reading his Nothing is Too Good to be True, an ambiguous title if ever there was one. It is his usual eccentric and often inspiring collection of affirmations, prayers and madcap techniques to guarantee prosperity and success. The author makes some spurious claims as to the antiquity of the information presented in this book, making the usual assertions that his is merely a re-interpretation of a more ancient wisdom. Remember, The Secret claimed the same thing. In most cases the information is no more ancient than the forefathers of the self-help movement and the tenets of New Thought, Religious Science and Theosophy.
Mr. Price's great classic is The Abundance Book, normally coupled with is audio feature The 40 Day Prosperity Plan. Now, the significance of a 40 day plan will not be lost on some, and Price's method - which seems to me to be indebted to the work of Godfre Ray King - is based on the repetition of affirmations and attempting to imbue those affirmations with some kind of positive energy.
These are two area that I am beginning to realise will need some discussion in my thesis - the advocacy of affirmations and the wording of suggested affirmative phrases, and this idea of 'positive energy'.
Mr. Price is a charming, old-world figure, though in truth I find the books a little too rambling and hastily prepared to enjoy completely. They are released through Hay House, which should point toward a more spiritual emphasis in their teaching. Price was an advertising man who retired into the business of Metaphysics, setting up the obligatory spiritual organisation called The Quartus Foundation. He must be quite an age by now.