positive thinking

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World History of Positive Thinking Marketing
Researched and written by Nori J. Muster, 2002 found at norimuster.com

One of the predecessors of the Positive Thinking Movement, Ernest Holmes (1887-1960) said that "thoughts are things" and,

"There is a direct relationship between thought and environment. Consciously or unconsciously, we are not only governing our physical bodies; we are also weaving the destiny of our fate, at least temporarily, on the loom of consciousness." (Essential Ernest Holmes, p. 105.)

The Positive Thinking Movement in America

Positive thinking got its start in America during the Great Depression. The stock market crash of 1929 led to the worst financial crisis of the twentieth century. People lost their life savings, businesses closed, and unemployment rose to twenty-five percent. In the middle of the Depression, two classic books on positive thinking promised to change everything: How To Win Friends and Influence People. (1936), by Dale Carnegie

Another well-loved positive thinking author of the Depression Era was Dorothea Brande

. Her book, Wake Up and Live (1936), describes how autosuggestion helped her go from a shy, unknown writer to a best selling novelist and successful public speaker. The era also saw numerous public speakers, many of them preachers.

Think and Grow Rich and How to Win Friends and Influence People were the big best sellers in the business world, though. Practically every businessman in the country had a copy of one or both books. Company presidents bought them by the dozens to distribute to their employees.

Both books addressed the same issues and drew from the same philosophical sources, but Carnegie stuck with the practical. How to Win Friends offered a humanitarian way to treat people in business, which had been all but lost in the post-industrial age and depths of the Depression.

Hill expressed similar ideas in Think and Grow Rich, but with the added thesis that thoughts have the power to create reality. EEG (electroencephalograph) and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) technology may offer evidence that thoughts have form. However, outside the realm of prayer and religion, people don't attribute much power to thoughts. Hill reinterpreted positive thinking for mainstream society so that anyone of any religion (or no religion) could learn to use.

Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill both sought to uplift the American spirit and teach people to play the game of capitalism fairly and with enthusiasm. Carnegie illustrated his book with stories about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War; Hill told stories about George Washington and the Revolutionary War. It's a coincidence that both Carnegie and Hill had humble beginnings, but went on to influence millions of Americans for generations.

Two Great American Success Stories

Carnegie (1888-1955, a distant cousin of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie) grew up on a farm near Warrensburg, Missouri and graduated from a state teacher's college. He got involved in public speaking as a student, and although he had good prospects in sales and other lines of work, he found his true calling in teaching. He started out in the YMCAs of New York and went on to teach at Andrew Carnegie Institute. His first textbook, Public Speaking and Influencing Men in Business, eventually evolved into his masterpiece, How To Win Friends and Influence People. Carnegie had an illustrious career and met the most famous people of his day.

Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) was born in a one-room log cabin in Wise County, Virginia. His stepmother encouraged his writing career and at the age of thirteen he became a mountain reporter for small town newspapers. His destiny became clear when he landed an interview with Andrew Carnegie for an article about successful men. Carnegie recognized the young Hill's talent and challenged him to interview five hundred millionaires and write a book about their secrets of success. With Carnegie's help, Hill published his journal writings in an eight-volume book entitled, The Law of Success (1937). The same year saw publication of his masterpiece, Think and Grow Rich.

Carnegie's legacy continues under Dale Carnegie & Associates, Inc., which includes a publishing house and the Dale Carnegie Courses. See: Dale-Carnegie.com) and Think and Grow Rich (1937), by Napoleon Hill (The Napoleon Hill Foundation continues to publish Hill's books; his influence continues around the world. In 1995, Michael J. Ritt Jr. and Kirk Landers published Hill's biography, Lifetime of Riches, E.P. Dutton Publishers). Carnegie's book became the biggest seller of the Depression era and Hill's book was not far behind.

New Positive Thought Roots

Positive thinking has religious roots, but it doesn't come from any one religion. Rather, it evolved from all the world's religions through the New Thought Movement. Harvard professor, psychologist, and philosopher William James (1842-1910) wrote extensively about new thought in his 1902 book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, calling it the "Religion of Healthy Mindedness." He said, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind."

New thought started in Europe in the 1700s, then American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) introduced it to the United States. He said thoughts, moods, and temperament colored reality. In one of his essays, Experience, he called temperament "the iron wire on which the beads are strung." He said:

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue.

Talking about the truth was not enough, Emerson said. Empty words would never make people see through their own temperament. His literary preaching stirred people up. Emerson inspired a new breed of American writers and poets, as well as a surge in new religious thought.

New religions arising in the post-Emerson period in America included:

* The Church of Divine Science, or Science of Mind Church. Founded by Ernest Holmes, Divine Science is based on the principle that thoughts have power. He started Science of Mind magazine and hosted a radio and TV show, This Thing Called Life. Holmes' radio show started in 1949 and his TV show of the same name started in 1956. His organization eventually evolved into the Church of Religious Science in 1953 and the United Church of Religious Science in 1967 (see: http://www.unitedcentersforspiritualliving.org). Holmes began each broadcast with the words, "There is a power for good in the Universe, and you can use it."

* The Theosophical Society. Founded in New York in 1875 by Madame Blavatsky and Col. Henry S. Olcott. The main figures in the Theosophical Society were Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891); Col. Henry S. Olcott (1832-1907); Annie Wood Besant (1847-1933); and Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949) (Editor's Note: Beware of any "book club" formed around the teachings of Alice Bailey, as these may exhibit the coercive characteristics of a cult that are inherent within the Alice Bailey philosophies - particularly the books, Discipleship in the New Age, Vol 1 and Discipleship in the New Age II). In 1909, Theosophical Society President Annie Besant adopted Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986), because she was convinced that it was his destiny to become a World Teacher. She directed his education and formed an organization to support this mission. Rudolph Steiner broke off based on disagreements about J. Krishnamurti. For more information about the Theosoophical Society, see: http://theosophical.org

Theosophy drew from all ancient and modern world faiths with a special emphasis on metaphysical aspects of the Hindu religion. Theosophists believed that thought forms held special power, and that rituals, such as Alice A. Bailey's full moon meditations, could conjure up powerful thought forms. In the 1920s, Bailey coined the term "new age" to describe the New Thought Movement. (Some scholars say that it was Carl Jung who first coined the phrase "New Age," as well as "Age of Aquarius.")

* Anthroposophy. Founded in 1913 by Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925), when he broke off from the Theosophical Society. Steiner believed that thoughts were the root cause of all physical manifestation. He wrote dozens of books and founded the Waldorf Schools for children.

* The Rosicrucian Order, Freemasons, and other secret societies. The names have roots in the 1500s, but received new interest in the 1800s. Followers believe that esoteric rituals and thoughts create reality. Some in these societies exert control in political and financial spheres.

* The Philosophical Research Society. Now a degree-granting institution, this organization was founded in 1934 in Los Angeles, by Manly P. Hall (1901-1990). Hall wrote books, lectured, and traveled around the world collecting books and artifacts of esoteric religions. (The Philosophical Research Society now offers graduate degrees in New Age thought. See: http://prs.org.)

* Neoplatonism. Based on the writings of Plato (427-347 BC) and founded in the third century AD, Neoplatonism had a revival in the 1800s. In his "Allegory of the Cave"(A Guided Tour of Five Works by Plato...) in the Republic, Plato said that prisoners held inside a cave their whole lives would mistake the shadows on the wall for reality. This is the root of Emerson's theory of the many-colored lenses. Plato explained that if the prisoners were to come out into the light, they would realize that the world is much different than they perceive.

* Ageless Wisdom. This is a general category for new thought wisdom channeled from ascended masters who exist on other planes of reality. The knowledge could come from ancient Egypt, legendary Atlantis, or from beings who never existed on earth.

* Hinduism. Gurus Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) came to America in 1893 as a delegate to the Parliament of Religions at the World Colombian Exposition in Chicago and founded the Vedanta Society. Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) came almost three decades later during the height of the New Thought and Positive Thinking Movements. He founded the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in Los Angeles in 1920. SRF publishes a series of booklets on positive thinking and related new thought topics drawn from Yogananda's lectures. The Hindu religion teaches that all things manifest in the mind before outward expression and that all beings are connected through a supersoul.

* The Church of Christian Science Mary Baker Eddy healed herself in 1866 using insights from the Bible. She began teaching her method of faith to others and founded her first church in Boston in 1879. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) wrote Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and founded the six time Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper The Christian Science Monitor. Christian Scientists believe that thoughts may cause or cure disease.

* The Association of Unity Churches. Co-founded in 1889 by a husband and wife, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, this sect teaches unity with all life, including god, nature, and all humankind. They believe in the Law of Mind Action, where prayer and affirmation can change outward reality.

Following Ralph Waldo Emerson, Unity Church traces its philosophical roots to the writings of Emma Curtis Hopkins (1853-1925), Harriette Emilie Cady (1848-1941), Emmet Fox (1886-1951), Genevive Behrend, Myrtle and Charles Fillmore (1845-1931; 1854-1948), Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866), James Allen (1864-1912), Horatio Willis Dresser (1866-1954), and Thomas Troward (1847-1916).

New thought teachings had a lot in common with Christianity, especially concepts like the Golden Rule and the compassionate teachings of Jesus. The prophet David said, "As one thinketh in his heart, so is he," and Christian figures like St. Francis of Assisi believed in the divinity of nature and other new thought ideas. "New thought" simply refers to new interpretations of established religious ideas.

Dr. Robert Ellwood (1933 - ), professor at the University of Southern California, has more than twenty-five books on world religions, spirituality, mysticism, theosophy, meditation, and new American religion movements of the 1950s and the 1960s. In a 1997 lecture at the Philosophical Research Society entitled, "New Religious Movements," he identified the following differences between new thought religion and traditional religion:

* New thought accepts the oneness of all souls, god, and the universe.
* Traditional religions say there is a difference between the creator and the creation.

* New thought attributes consciousness to all aspects of the creation, including animals, the earth, and higher realms.
* Traditional religions say only human beings have consciousness.

* New thought believes in the law of correspondences, where (for example) the position of the planets and stars correspond to the actions of humans on earth.
* Traditional religions do not believe in correspondences.

* New thought promotes an intuitive way of knowing truth, such as mystical experiences and personal exploration.
* Traditional religions say truth must come through a hierarchy of priests; they discourage followers from having mystical experiences.

* New thought accepts the existence of little-known laws of nature, such as the Infinite Intelligence that Napoleon Hill explained.
* Traditional religions only acknowledge the powers described in a fundamentalist interpretation of their own scriptures.

New thought had a huge influence on Christianity around the turn of the nineteenth century. The doctrine of positive, or "pure" thought, offered an excuse to blame people for their own misfortune and disease. The philosophy said that pure thought produced temperance, self-control, and success, while impure or "unlawful" thought produced disease, drunkenness, and failure. This led to the harsh belief that the victims of the industrial age were responsible for their own poverty, due to their own negative thoughts.

Mark Twain: Pure Thought's Greatest Critic

American author Samuel Clements (1835-1910), known as Mark Twain, seemed to have a running feud with pure thought preachers. He constantly took jabs at them, writing things like, "To do good is noble. To teach others to do good is nobler and less trouble," and, "Morals - I'd rather teach them than practice them any day."

Twain traveled widely at the turn of the century, lecturing, publishing, and offering his editorial opinion on just about every subject. He wrote extensively on religion and the Bible. Anyone who was reading in the English language at the time knew about Mark Twain. The New Thought Movement also put out a prolific amount of literature at the time. Perhaps Twain saw himself in competition with the people who promoted pure thought.

Twain was one of the greatest and most loved American writers partly for his running commentary on the human condition. Although the deaths of his wife and children made him bitter toward the end of his life, Twain accepted his humanity with a sense of humor. He once said, "Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute." Through his wit, Twain offered turn of the century readers a moderated view of pure thought.

New Thought vs. End Times

Apart from new thought, another religious trend around the end of the nineteenth century was the widespread belief in an apocalypse that would bring the second coming of Christ. Cyrus Scofield, author of the Scofield Bible, was a preacher who tied end-times prophecy to the twentieth century. Historian Paul Boyer offers a complete analysis of William Miller (1782-1849) and Cyrus Scofield (1843-1921) in his book, When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (1992). Boyer's book traces the history of apocalyptic beliefs over the last 2,000 years. The Millerites believed the end was near.

The Seventh Day Adventists trace their roots back to that movement. Besides the Seventh Day Adventists, other modern Apocalyptic sects that started around that time were: Jehovah's Witnesses in 1870, the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World in 1906, and the Assembly of God churches in 1914.

New thought and end-times sects are different in almost every respect. One is liberal and eclectic, while the other is fundamentalist and based on specific passages in the Bible. While new thought traditions believe in a better future, end-times churches say widespread devastation is necessary for the second coming of Christ. Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days (1996), and the continuing series by Tim Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, describe the rapture at the end of time when Christians ascend to heaven and nonbelievers remain on earth to suffer the antichrist's tribulation. The popularity of these books into the twenty-first century and the fervent testimony of those who read them show that end times religions continue to thrive.

The New Thought Movement also continues to thrive in the new century through the writings of authors like Matthew Fox (1940- ). Fox was a Dominican priest for thirty years, but the Vatican excommunicated him in 1994 for heresy. He reinterpreted the Catholic faith in ways the Church could not accept, including his notion that life is conceived in original blessing, rather than sin. In 1995, the New Age Journal named Fox's 1983 book, The Original Blessing, one of twenty books that changed the world. (See Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality Presented in Four Paths, Twenty-Six Themees, and Two Questions, by Matthew Fox, 2000.)

After leaving the Catholics, Fox became a Episcopalian priest and founded the University of Creation Spirituality (UCS) in Oakland, California. He's an active public speaker with more than two dozen books. Fox and other religious leaders like the Dalai Lama are studying and reinterpreting their religious traditions to respond to changing times.

Modern new thought authors include Jack Kornfield (1945- ); Ram Dass (Richard Alpert, 1931- ); Vidyadhara Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche (1939-1987); Alan Watts (1915-1973); Marianne Williamson (1952 - ); His Holiness the Dalai Lama (1935 - ); and Thich Nhat Hahn (1926 - ).

Transition from New Thought to Positive Thinking

The momentum to bring positive thinking out of the religious world and into the secular started right around 1900. The man who is known as the bridge from new thought and positive thinking is Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924), founder of Success magazine. Success, first published in 1891, offered a lightly religious version of new thought for an audience of mainstream businessmen. The magazine had a unique stable of writers, including Napoleon Hill and others who had best selling books. Success is still in publication and the editors published a book about Orison Swett Marden in 1999.

Success magazine was revived and is now in print as Success Unlimited. In 1999, Ken Sheldon and the editors of Success published a book on the founder, Real Success: Based on the Writings of Success Magazine Founder Orison Swett Marden (Executive Excellence Publishing, 1999).

Illustration 1: The Bridge from New Thought to Positive Thinking

Every Day in Every Way

The Roaring Twenties introduced another secular leader of the Positive Thinking Movement: The French pharmacist Emile Coue (1857-1926). Coue is known as the forefather of all inspirational writers and self-help authors and the inventor of autosuggestion. Coue studied hypnotism and taught his patients to repeat aloud "Every day in every way I am getting better and better" at least twenty times while falling asleep. Coue had his patients repeat the affirmation "Every day in every way I am getting better and better" twenty times, using a string with twenty knots to tick off the repetitions. He called the mind a "sublime instrument" to decide a person's destiny. (My Method, p. 19.)

At first Coue lectured and healed patients in his pharmaceutical shop. Then in 1910 he retired because he found that autosuggestion worked better than the prescriptions he filled. He relocated next to a famous French school of hypnotism, where he reached as many as fifteen thousand patients a year. Coue traveled in Europe and America in the 1920s and established the Coue Institute for the Practice of Conscious Auto-Suggestion in London and the National Coue Institute in New York. His books My Method and Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion, sold widely. (Emile Coue's books were republished by Kessinger Publishing Company in 1997. See: http://kessinger-publishing.com.)

Some American newspapers called him doctor or professor; others called him a prophet. In his memoir, American Impressions, Coue reminded readers that he was just a pharmacist. He wrote, "I do not want people to have a sort of fanatical belief in me." He said his purpose was "solely to show you how to cure yourselves." Religious leaders accused him of trying to work miracles. He said he wasn't dealing in the realm of miracles, but merely tapping into a power that was dormant within the individual. He said, "I confess I fail to see any relationship between religion and autosuggestion. Is medicine a challenge to the Church?" (My Method, pp. 92, 93, and 96.)

He explained that he based his theories on scientific fact. Although Coue focused on healing, he also said that autosuggestion could work in business for sales people and managers, and for raising children.

Freud and Jung: Their Views on the Power of Thought

All Western psychology grew out of the work of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). The Austrian doctor studied medicine around the end of the nineteenth century with a specialization in neurology and psychiatry. He started out using hypnotism to treat hysterical patients, but noticed that they felt better just talking about their problems. From this discovery, he formulated his therapeutic method of free association and talk therapy, in which the patient reclined on a couch and attempted to recall emotional episodes.

Freud is credited in Western history with discovering the unconscious. He theorized that every human had unsatisfied sexual desires hidden just below the level of direct consciousness and that repressed sexual desires were the basis of neurotic behavior. He detected abundant sexual images in his patients' dreams and much of his practice revolved around helping people come to terms with unacknowledged prurient desires. People of the Victorian Age found Freud's theories shocking, but most Victorians secretly felt that what he was saying could be true of themselves. In 1900 Freud published The Interpretation of Dreams, which was widely acclaimed. Despite the controversies surrounding Freud, his legacy was the fusion of science and psychology. He is still regarded as one of the most influential men of his time, perhaps second only to Charles Darwin.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss analytical psychologist, became a student of Dr. Freud in 1908 and the two men traveled to America in 1909 to lecture and accept honorary degrees. They had a big influence on one another, but when Jung published his Psychology of the Unconscious in 1912, their relationship ended abruptly. In the book, Jung revealed the areas where he disagreed with Freud, especially the theory that all subconscious motivation revolved around repressed sexual desire. Jung hoped the relationship would survive, but after a curt exchange of letters, Freud turned his back on Jung and never communicated with him or spoke of him again.

Jung went through a period of soul-searching, which he described in his autobiographical Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963). During this time, he developed the concept of the shadow as the dark side of the self that carries fears and guilt, which people unconsciously project on the world in the form of conflict with others. He also developed the concept of the animus and anima, inner male and female parts of the psyche. Rather than trying to unravel long analytical histories, as Freud believed was necessary, Jung sought to integrate the shadows and split-off parts of the psyche to attain meaningful wholeness.

Jung expanded Freud's notion of the unconscious to include what he called the "collective unconscious," made up of universal elements of human experience, or archetypes. According to Jung, all of humankind shares an unconscious life through dreams and myth. He believed that symbolic stories and images are sources of power because they evoke feelings of awe, mystery, and purpose. He said that experiencing the higher (transpersonal) Self through symbols and stories could connect people with their inner depths, and that all the answers they need could be uncovered within the darkness. This is known as Jungian transpersonal, or depth psychology.

While Jung became an explorer on the vanguard of the New Age, Freud grew more conventional. Historian Charles van Doren said of Freud, "He was always a nineteenth century thinker, although he lived until 1939." (Charles van Doren, A History of Knowledge: Past, Present, and Future. Ballantine Books (1991), p. 282.) In 1915 during the Great War in Europe Freud published the article, "Thoughts for the Times of War and Death," shocking his readers with discussions about the cruelties the Germans perpetrated in the war. He said that men crave war because they have an innate psychological need to prove themselves in a life and death situation fighting an enemy. He portrayed Germans as barbarians who secretly wanted to throw off society's restraints and fight. Many people in Europe wanted to believe that Europe had progressed into a new era of civility, but Freud proclaimed homo homini lupus, "Man is wolf to man." (from "Thoughts for the Times of War and Death," by Sigmund Freud, 1915.)

His depressing diagnosis lead to a pessimistic outlook in Europe that civil society was an unattainable illusion. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, Western culture has continued to struggle with the same issues that divided Freud and Jung.
After Freud's death, Jung continued on the path of new thought, delving into the Medieval writings on alchemy. He collected alchemy books dating back to the sixteenth century and spent ten years studying and interpreting the books, The alchemists tried to turn base metal into gold, but said, Aurum nostrum non est aurum vulgi, "Our gold is not the common gold," and Jung compared this to his own depth psychology. He said that turning lead into gold was a metaphor for turning psychic weakness into strength. Jung published his findings about alchemy in The Psychology of the Transference(1946), The Idea of Redemption in Alchemy (1936)(Jung and the Alchemical Imagination by Jeffrey Raff...), Psychology of Alchemy(1953), and Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy (1953).

The books were illustrated with woodblock prints that depicted the alchemist's laboratory, phantasmagoric images of dragons, gods, and higher spiritual realms, and the steps for making gold in the laboratory. Jung said the symbols also illustrated the psychological processes for understanding the contents of the subconscious mind. Here are some examples:

* The philosophers' stone, often depicted as a mandala, was the symbol of emotional completion.

* The dragon represented the dark side of the self. Confronting the dragon was an inevitable part of the hero's story.

* The god Mercury symbolized the divine manifest in matter.

* The symbol of the king and queen coincided with Jung's theory of uniting the inner male and female (anima and animus).

* The mirror or mirrored images represent the union of opposites.

Some people say Jung was a victim of magical thinking due to his bout with depression. Others say he was psychotic or that he wanted to be a guru figure. Jung is somewhat of a lightning rod of controversy because his views were so radical. Despite any flaws, Jung made remarkable contributions to the field of psychology. His relentless inquiry into the mysteries of life made him a de facto leader of the New Thought Movement. He investigated it and gave it legitimacy in the world of clinical psychology.

It is thanks to Carl Jung that autosuggestion is accepted as common knowledge in the world of psychology.

Religious Positive Thinking

Positive thinking was a secular belief derived from all the world's religions. Naturally, some Christians shied away from it because they do not give any merit to philosophy outside of the teachings of Jesus. However, in the 1950s, several authors provided a Christian version of positive thinking. Foremost in this field was the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993), founder of Guideposts magazine. Peale called his best selling 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking. Although positive thinking is usually secular in nature, Peale created a Christian version of the new thought philosophy.

Another religious figure, the Most Reverend Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979), Auxiliary Bishop of New York, is considered a leader of the Positive Thinking Movement. His philosophy could be called Catholic New Thought. Bishop Sheen hosted a radio talk show for many years, then two television shows: your Life Is Worth Living (1952-1957), and an occasional series, The Bishop Sheen Program (1961-1968).

Perhaps the attempt to claim positive thinking for Christianity was a reaction against the atheistic forces of communism. During the Cold War in 1953, Bishop Sheen shocked his audience with a reading of the burial scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, substituting Soviet leaders' names for the characters Caesar, Casius, Marc Antony, and Brutus. Sheen declared "Stalin must one day meet his judgment!" and within a week the dictator suffered a stroke and died. This is the basis of the urban legend that Bishop Sheen predicted the death of Joseph Stalin.

Self-Development Audio Recordings

The first positive thinking audio recording came along in 1956, when Columbia Records released The Strangest Secret. Earl Nightingale (1921-1989) made the recording for his sales team when he had to be out of town for an important meeting. Everyone wanted a copy when he returned, so he engaged Columbia to distribute it. The strangest secret is: "We become what we think about." Through word-of-mouth the recording sold a million copies and won a Gold Record for first recording of its kind.

Nightingale, revered as the father of the self-development movement, was one of the most recognized voices in America for his daily radio program, Our changing World. He founded the Nightingale-Conant Corporation of Chicago, which continues to publish and promote his recordings. Earl Nightingale died in 1989, but his wife Diana reissued the original 1956 recording of the strangest secret (click to listen) in 1996. (To find The Strangest Secret and other audio recordings by Earl Nightingale, go to the Nightingale-Conant Corporation of Chicago at http://earlnightingale.com.)

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Positive Thinking in the Space Age

In 1960 Maxwell Maltz, M.D., F.I.C.S. (1899-1975), offered logical scientific arguments to explain the power of positive thinking in his book, Psycho-Cybernetics. (The Maxwell Maltz Foundation published a revised version in 1993 called Psycho-Cybernetics 2000, which received mixed reviews. The original version is still available (ISBN 0671700758). Maltz also wrote a book called, Zero Resistance Selling.) Maltz spoke in medical terms as a plastic surgeon, comparing the ego to an inner face. He said, "Forgiveness is a scalpel that removes emotional scars," (Psycho-cybernetics, p. 160.) and explained that removing inner scars would lead to a better self-image. This was important, he said, because, "To really 'live,' that is to find life reasonably satisfying, you must have an adequate and realistic self-image that you can live with. You must find yourself acceptable to 'you.' " (Psycho-cybernetics, p. 10.)

Maltz wrote at a time when computers were just coming into use in universities and scientific laboratories and argued that the human mind worked like a computer. However, he cautioned that comparing a human to a machine raised ethical questions. He criticized the new branch of psychology called behavior modification, because it seemed to deny human dignity.

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) founded behaviorism and made important contributions to behavior modification and learning theory. He built a "Skinner box" to experiment on animals. It featured lever and bells that animals learned to operate in exchange for rewards of food.

Opening Skinner's Box : Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century (Paperback)

Skinner built another box called a "baby tender" that he used as a crib for his second daughter Deborah, who was born in 1944. When news of the baby tender got out, many people jumped to the conclusion that he was raising his daughter in a Skinner box and subjecting her to psychological experiments of rewards and punishments. The urban myth was that Deborah grew up psychologically damaged, sued her father, and committed suicide, but that's not true. Deborah Skinner (now Deborah Skinner Buzan ) has worked as an artist in London since the mid-1970s and remained close to her father until his death in 1990.

Behavior modification soon became the therapy of choice for prisons and juvenile halls. Just as animals may learn to pull a lever for food, behaviorists used reinforcement and punishment to teach people new behaviors.

Maltz said that behavior modification might teach some people how to abide by society's rules, but treating people like machines or animals might also make them resentful. He wrote Psycho-Cybernetics to offer a positive alternative. Rather than say humans are machines, Maltz said that humans operate a miraculous built-in machine, the mind. He recommended programming the mind thus: "As soon as the error has been recognized and corrections made, it's equally important that the error be forgotten and the successful attempt remembered and dwelt upon." The reason for this was: "The minute that we change our minds, and stop giving power to the past, the past with its mistakes loses power over us." (These two quotes are from Psycho-cybernetics, p. 66 and 67, respectively.)

The most adamantly atheistic proponent of positive thinking was Dr. Albert Ellis (1913 - ). He came on the scene in the 1960s declaring that positive thinking was the natural potential of the human psyche. He developed a humanist form of psychology that mixed rational thinking with behavior modification, which he called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). His therapy teaches people to take responsibility for their self-defeating thoughts and replace them with effective new thoughts.

Modern Psychology

It's hard to say whether new thought and positive thinking influenced modern psychology, or the other way around. They grew up together and influenced each others' development. By the middle of the twentieth century, mainstream clinical psychology developed many branches besides Freudian analysis. Instead of focusing on the past, as Freudian analysis emphasized, modern psychology deals with the present to improve behavior, set goals, and change bad attitudes. Nearly every modern branch of psychology takes thinking patterns into account:

* Milton Erickson, M.D., a mid-century leader of modern psychology, combined metaphor, rational thinking, and hypnotherapy.

* The Humanist Psychology Movement, founded by Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Alfred Adler, Rollo May, and others, coincides with positive thinking philosophy. (Modern humanist forms of psychology owe thanks to Milton Erickson, M.D. (1902-1980); Carl Rogers (1902-1987); Abraham Maslow (1908-1970); Alfred Adler (1870-1937); Rollo May (1909-1994), and others.) Several prominent positive thinking authors, including Earl Nightingale and Maxwell Maltz, quote the Humanists in their own books.

* Jungian therapy, already covered in the previous two sections, is now part of mainstream clinical psychology.

* Gestalt therapy, introduced to America through the writings of Fritz Perls and others, involved reframing, or finding new ways to think about the stories you tell yourself.

* Cognitive-behavioral psychology, often used to cure phobias, relied on changing thought patterns.

* Transactional Analysis, popularized in the book, I'm OK - you're OK, by Thomas A. Harris (1969), focused on how people think about relationships.

* Recovery from Abuse (child abuse, drug abuse, etc.), depends on changing attitudes. The recovery movement, including Alcoholics Anonymous, grew out of the New Thought Movement. (Publishers like Hazelden Books offer affirmation and positive thinking recovery books based on the twelve steps.)

* Practically all self-help psychology books (and audio recordings) incorporate aspects of positive thinking.

Positive Thinking in Medicine and Sports

Positive thinking philosophy entered mainstream medicine in the 1970s when Norman Cousins published his landmark book, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient (1979). Cousins suffered from a degenerative disease, but cured himself by watching comedy movies to develop a positive state of mind. Cousins' sound arguments convinced doctors and medical patients that the patient's outlook could help cure disease.

Dr. Bernie S. Siegel followed several years later with his book, Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience with Exceptional Patients (1986). Siegel offered further proof of the mind-body connection. He continues to write and lecture on this subject. There are now hundreds of books that explain the mind-body connection. (For more on this subject, you may consult authors Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, among others.)

Sports is another area where the power of mind has achieved mainstream acceptance. One of the earliest bestsellers was The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance (Paperback), by W. Timothy Gallwey (1972). There are dozens, if not hundreds of books about positive thinking in sports. Many have Zen-like titles and say winning is as much mental as it is physical. Or as Yogi Berra put it: "Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical."

Storytellers

Another breed of authors who spread positive thinking philosophy were storytellers. The first and most famous in his time was Russell H. Conwell (1843-1925), founder of Temple University. He was a Civil War veteran, Baptist minister, and lecturer. He gave his most famous lecture, Acres of Diamonds, more than six thousand times, earning him the title of America's foremost platform orator. Millions listened to his award-winning story in churches, public forums, and on the radio. The book introduced millions more to the story when it was first published in 1915.

Conwell said,

I am astonished that so many people should care to hear this story over again. Indeed, this lecture has become a study in psychology; it often breaks all rules of oratory, departs from the precepts of rhetoric, and yet remains the most popular of any lecture I have delivered in the fifty-seven years of my public life. (Acres of Diamonds, Temple University. l)

Acres of Diamonds begins with the story of Al Hafed, a Persian farmer who once lived near the Indus River. Al Hafed sold his farm to look for diamonds, then wandered through Palestine and Europe until he reached the coast of Spain. Wretched and penniless, he drowned himself in a tidal wave at the Pillars of Hercules in Barcelona. Later it turns out that the farm he sold was the very site of Golconda, the greatest diamond mine in the history of the world. Conwell shows how modern people repeat the mistake of Al Hafed every day by ignoring the wealth they already have.

George S. Clason (1874-1957) was another famous storyteller who took up where Conwell left off. He circulated his stories in a series of financial self-help pamphlets beginning around the time of Conwell's passing. The collection, published later as The Richest Man in Babylon (1988) contained tales of money lenders, slaves, merchants, and gamblers. Stories about ancient cultures were popular in the 1920s because of new archeological discoveries in Egypt and Babylon.

Storyteller Og (Augustine) Mandino (1923-1996) escaped chronic homeless by reading Napoleon Hill's books and other positive thinking literature. He wrote his own book, The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968), which is a classic of positive thinking. He went on to publish other stories and self-help manuals and became a well-loved public speaker.

Mandino wrote several stories to illustrate how perspective works. His first bestseller was The Greatest Salesman in the World (1968) takes place in the ancient holy land. The protagonist, the young Hafid, becomes the greatest salesman in the world through a strange twist of fate.

Because of Mandino's contribution as a Success magazine editor and his speaking and book publishing career, he is considered a prominent author of the Positive Thinking Movement.

A recent best selling positive thinking story is James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy (1993). At first Redfield published and promoted the book himself. After he gave away three thousand copies and sold thousands more at regional bookstore events, Warner Books picked it up. The first printing of one hundred thousand copies sold out in six months. Celestine Prophecy was on The New York Times bestseller list for 145 weeks and became biggest selling book in the world from 1996 to 1999.

Redfield's novel, written in the first person, tells of an adventure in Peru. He joins in the search for an ancient manuscript that holds the answers to the mysteries of life. The local church leaders don't like the manuscript because it threatens their power, so they convince the government to hunt down and arrest anyone looking for it. Redfield and the people he meets want to bring the knowledge to light, so they're in constant danger from soldiers, as well as government and church officials.

Redfield's book is a metaphor for the rise of new thought ideas, which challenge fundamentalist religious institutions. While some of the ten insights involve high mysticism - seeing auras, for example - most of them convey the basics of positive thinking. The insights explain that you create reality (autosuggestion), especially in the way you interact with people (positive mental attitude).

The Heritage of Positive Thinking

With deep roots and a strong trunk, the Positive Thinking Movement permeates American society like a tree with many branches. Since its origins in the Depression era, millions of people have used positive thinking to solve problems. In each decade, at least one author comes forward to reinterpret the philosophy for a contemporary audience. Stephen R. Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1990) is a good example of a modern positive thinking book. Covey was a business counselor and teacher who conducted effectiveness seminars for large corporations.

The following collection of quotes shows how the same idea is rephrased and passed down through the ages.

* "That the thing that upsets people is not so much what happens, but what they think about what happens." - Epictetus (Greek-born slave and Stoic philosopher, 55-135 A.D.)

* "There is nothing either good or bad, except that thinking makes it so." - William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

* "The mind is a place of it's own. It can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven." - John Milton (author of Paradise Lost, 1608-1674)

* "Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them." - Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)

* "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." - Anais Nin (French-born American author, 1903-1977)

* "The way we see the problem is the problem." - Stephen R. Covey (contemporary business consultant and author)

Positive thinking is not a matter of religious belief, but a science of noticing and controlling your own state of mind. Although it's secular, it has a religious roots and mystical elements. Even business gurus like Stephen R. Covey must acknowledge the metaphysical powers of autosuggestion to create reality. When you see things right, things will start to go right.

Illustration 2: Branches of Positive Thinking

Summary

The power of thoughts was well known in human history, going back to ancient Greece.

The secular Positive Thinking Movement started in America with the near-simultaneous publication of How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie, and Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill in 1936-1937.

Secular positive thinking evolved out of the New Thought Movement, which traces its roots to American Transcendentalism.

The Association of Unity Churches, the Church of Christian Science, and the numerous new age religions grew out of the New Thought Movement.

Mark Twain criticized the new thought movement of his day for its moralizing obsession with pure thought.

The bridge from new thought to positive thinking was publisher Orison Swett Marden, founder of Success magazine.

Emile Coue invented autosuggestion and coined the phrase, "Every day in every way I am getting better and better."

Freud and Jung were pioneers in psychology around the turn of the nineteenth century. Jung explored new thought ideas and gave them legitimacy in the field of clinical psychology.

Rev. Norman Vincent Peale and Rev. Fulton Sheen wrote in the tradition of Christian New Thought, and made positive thinking available to Christians.

The opposite of new age religions are the apocalyptic Christian sects that base their philosophy on Biblical end-times prophecy.

The first positive thinking audio recording was The Strangest Secret, by Earl Nightingale (Columbia Records). It won a Gold Record in 1956.

In 1960 Dr. Maxwell Maltz offered scientific explanations for the power of mind in his book, Psycho-cybernetics. First, he said positive thinking could remove inner scars, and second, positive thinking could program the internal computer, the mind.

Many schools of modern psychology use positive thinking, including Ericksonian, Humanist, Gestalt, cognitive-behavioral, Transactional Analysis, Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy, Transpersonal Depth psychology, recovery work, and self-help psychology.

Positive thinking entered the fields of medicine and sports in the 1970s, with books by best-selling authors.

The tradition of positive thinking also spread through storytelling. The most famous stories in their day were Acres Of Diamonds (1915), by Russell H. Conwell; a collection by George S. Clason from the 1920s, later published as The Richest Man in Babylon(1988), and The Greatest Salesman in the World (1965), by Og Mandino. A modern telling of the mind over matter story is James Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy (1993).

Modern positive thinking pervades the fields of business, health, sports, and psychology. It's the secular offspring of all the world's wisdom traditions. It does not require a belief in god or any supernatural power. Therefore anyone from any background can practice positive thinking.