The Positive Thinkers: Popular Religious Psychology from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale and Ronald Reagan

Abstract

The subject of Professor Meyer's superb study concerns dissolution of Protestant ethic, its relationship to a general failure of nerve within American community, and consequent rise of a pseudo-theology in guise of a pseudo-psychology, as reflected through work of certain mind-cure practitioners, from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale. It is a subject largely ignored by intellectuals, and Professor Meyer, in taking it out of domain of Reader's Digestor similar habitations, has produced a real service, not only to sociology and political science, disciplines in which he is very well versed, but also to mass-culture and vague but insidious ethos behind it. In describing what sub-title states as the American Quest for Health, Wealth, and Personal Power, Professor Meyer works from an historical perspective, does not beat any drums nor ride any hobby horse; scholarly care and an in-depth generosity illuminate a number of intricate concepts, whether they be individualism, laissez-faire industry or peculiar role and influence of women within society. His work is schematized yet fluid, showing how a process of ego-disintegration has paradoxically resulted out of improperly understood religious orientation of past and anxiety-ridden religious revival of present. Today God means Adjustment. --Virgina Kirkus, Kirkus Reviews