by VorJack
… to these books about self-help. Self-help is a multi billion dollar industry in America, selling millions of books. Here are a few that take a look at the movement from the outside.
Legacy of the Occult
Pullquote: ”The leaders in [New Thought] have had an intuitive belief in the all-saving power of healthy-minded attitudes as such, in the conquering efficacy of courage, hope, and trust, and a correlative contempt for doubt, fear, worry, and all nervously precautionary states of mind.”
In his work Occult America, Mitch Horowitz traces the origins of “self-help” back to one Phineas Quimby. Quimby was a clockmaker suffering from tuberculosis in 1830′s New England. He noticed that carriage rides in the country side both lightened his spirits to relieved his symptoms. He became convinced that the two were connected: our thoughts and emotions affect our physical state. He developed this idea into what is now called the “new thought” movement.
Horowitz thesis is that certain “occult” ideas were influential in American history and have been absorbed by mainstream culture. Quimby fits in this loosely, since he was influenced by Mesmerism and Swedenborgianism, but his ideas don’t seem to connect to them directly and don’t seem particularly “occult”. One of Quimby’s accomplishments was to mentor Mary Baker Eddy, who went on to form the Christian Science movement. However, after Quimby died Eddy cut all ties to his memory.
Occult America is largely anecdotal, and sometimes seems to be a string of biographies rather than a history of intellectual influence. Still, in one long chapter Horowitz follows the proponents of New Thought from Quimby to Norman Vincent Peale, and shows how the New Thought idea that positive thoughts magically create positive outcomes has become the backbone of the American self-help market.
Positive Thinking Conquers the World
Pullquote: I didn’t mind dying, but the idea that I should do so while clutching a teddy and with a sweet little smile on my face – well, no amount of philosophy had prepared me for that.
Picking up where Horowitz leaves off is Barbara Ehrenreich, with her new book Bright-Sided. Ehrenreich agrees that the modern self-help movement is rooted in Quimby’s New Thought ideas. However, her primary goal is to show just how far the self-help movement has spread into modern American culture.
Ehrenreich first encountered the influence of the Self-help movement when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Ehrenreich describes how she was bombarded with pink ribbons and positive messages, all supposedly to promote positive outcomes. Ehrenreich, who actually has a Ph.D. In cellular biology, did some research of her own. She found that the positive thinking crowd was on very shaky grounds, medically speaking.
Ehrenreich goes on to show how deeply rooted self-help philosophy has become in American business and religion. Particularly disturbing is how deeply self-help has merged with corporate management philosophy, producing huge profits for those scientists and “scientists” who offer dubious advice that accords with New Thought.
A journalist, Ehrenreich does a good job with reporting and wry observations, and her biology degree gives her chapter on breast cancer an interesting clinical touch. Bright Sided is an excellent overview of the full scope of the self-help movement.
Incidentally, if you really want to get a deeper understanding of the ideas in the movement, I’d recommend Robert M. Price’s Top Secret. Price deconstructs the major books of modern pop psychology, religion and self-help.
I need self-esteem, quick!
Pullquote: Fantasizing about heaven on earth may bring a smile to your face, but it is unlikely to help transform your dreams into reality.
Completely different in its way is Richard Wiseman’s 59 Seconds. Wiseman is a skeptic and a frequent guest of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, so he’s quick to criticize most of the works in the self-help genre. In their place, he offers a number of quick lessons drawn from current research that have proven helpful in promoting happiness, boosting creativity and reducing stress.
It turns out that sharing your problems with a sympathetic ear is actually less helpful that writing them down. Brainstorming is less effective that coming up with ideas beforehand. To relieve stress, get a pet. 59 Seconds reads like a combination of a science popularization and a self-help book, which is what it is. But it’s self-help based on current psychological research, rather that the thoughts of a 19th century clockmaker.
There. Three books that I trust you won’t find on Oprah’s reading list. Enjoy.
As opposed to… dark-sided! <jazz hands>
Just reading “59 seconds” and really enjoying it. :)
Those Mary Baker Eddy ideas are still alive and well in America, some of them now in New Age guise. Deepak Chopra’s meaningless pronouncements, detox treatments, fear of science, the romantic pursuit of pseudosciences like Feng Shui, it all goes hand in hand.