Power of Positive Thinking, The
POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING, THE
POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING, THE, a book that headed the nonfiction best-seller list for two years and sold two million copies in the 1950s, tried to reconcile liberal Protestantism to the affluent society and to psychoanalysis. Its author, Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993), the minister of the prestigious Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue in New York City, assured his readers that material success was a defensible Christian goal and that achieving it was largely a matter of cultivating the right mental attitude. In the tradition of mind cure, New Thought, and the "gospel of success," he regarded God more as a benign power working from within the individual than as the divine judge of earlier American Protestantism.
Peale, with his partner Smiley Blanton, ran a religious and psychoanalytical clinic at his church and published the inspirational magazine Guideposts. He also traveled and broadcast widely, specializing in success-oriented addresses to groups of businessmen. The Power of Positive Thinking (1952) capitalized on the success of his earlier Guide to Confident Living (1948). It included "how to" passages on overcoming anxiety and succeeding in business, and inspirational tales that conformed to the middle-class and anticommunist orthodoxies of the moment. Characteristic chapter headings are "Expect the Best and Get It," "Inflow of New Thoughts Can Remake You," and even "How to Get People to Like You." Just as it contradicted Freud's militant atheism, so it lacked the painful drama of Freud's psychological works. Instead, it declared blandly that "you can have peace of mind, improved health, and a never-ceasing flow of energy."
Peale capitalized on the book's success, despite sharp criticism from all points on the religious spectrum—from evangelical Protestants for his loose interpretation of scripture, and from the neo-orthodox for what looked to them like his too-easy embrace of materialism and the consumer way of life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
George, Carol. God's Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Meyer, Donald. The Positive Thinkers: Religion as Pop Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Oral Roberts. New York: Pantheon, 1980.
Patrick N. Allitt
See also Psychology ; Self-Help Movement .