Norman Vincent Peale

Norman Vincent Peale (May 31, 1898 – December 24, 1993) was a Christian preacher and author (most notably of The Power of Positive Thinking) and a progenitor of the theory of "positive thinking".

Peale was born in Bowersville, Ohio and died in Pawling, New York. He was educated at Ohio Wesleyan University, and Boston University.

Raised as a Methodist and originally ordained as a Methodist minister in 1922, Peale changed his religious affiliation to the Reformed Church in America in 1932, and began a 52-year tenure as pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. During that time the church's membership grew from 600 to over 5,000, and he became one of New York City’s most famous preachers.

In 1945, Dr. Peale, his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale, and Raymond Thornburg, a Pawling, New York businessman founded Guideposts magazine, a non-denominational forum for celebrities and ordinary people to relate inspirational stories. For its launch, they raised $1,200 from Frank Gannett, founder of the Gannett newspaper chain, J. Howard Pew, a Philadelphia industrialist and Branch Rickey, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Though he wrote much—including 46 "inspirational" books—The Power of Positive Thinking remains by far his most widely read work. First published in 1952, it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks. The book has sold around 20 million copies and translated into 41 different languages. Some of his other best known works include The Art of Living, A Guide to Confident Living, The Tough-Minded Optimist, and Inspiring Messages for Daily Living.

For 54 years (from 1935 to 1989), Peale also hosted the weekly radio program The Art of Living. It has been claimed that his sermons were mailed to around 750,000 people a month.^{[citation needed]} He was also the subject of the 1964 film One Man's Way.

In 1947, Peale co-founded—with educator Kenneth Beebe—The Horatio Alger Association. This organization aims to recognize and honor Americans who have been successful in spite of difficult circumstances they have faced.

Other organizations founded by Peale include the Peale Center, the Positive Thinking Foundation and Guideposts Publications, all of which aim to promote Peale's theories about positive thinking.

For his contributions to the field of theology, President Ronald Reagan awarded Peale the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest civilian honor in the United States) on March 26, 1984.

Peale was also a Freemason (33°) [1].

Controversy

Peale's works came under criticism from theologians, mental health experts, scholars, and even politicians like Adlai Stevenson, who was famously quoted as saying "I find Paul appealing and Peale appalling." (Brainyquote.com). These critics came out in the early 1950s after the publication of The Power of Positive Thinking to warn the public, claiming that Peale's message was dangerous and that he was a con man and a fraud.

A main criticism of Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking is that the book is full of anecdotes that are hard to substantiate. Some of the experts and many of the testimonials that Peale quotes directly as supporters are unnamed, unknown, or not sourced. Examples include a "famous psychologist" (p. 52, Fawcett Crest, 1990 edition), a two-page letter from a "practicing physician" (p.149-150), another "famous psychologist" (p. 169), a "prominent citizen of New York City" (p.88) and dozens more. Despite the repeated quotations, the reader can not find one example of a mental health expert, quoted, named and verifiable, who directly endorses Peale or his methods. Peale also refers to many studies which seem to support his cause but are not verifiable. As psychiatrist R. C. Murphy puts it "All this advertising is vindicated as it were, by a strict cleaving to the side of part truth", and Murphy calls the quoted material "implausible and woodenly pious". ("Think Right: Reverend Peale's Panacea", The Nation, May 7, 1955, p. 398-400). Murphy goes on to say that "the cornerstone of Peale's philosophy is the reliance on self-hypnosis" and that "Self knowledge, in Mr. Peale's understanding is unequivocally bad; self-hypnosis is good."

A second criticism of the Peale philosophy was that the "techniques", which Peale promises in book after book will give the reader absolute self confidence and deliver the reader from all suffering, are actually a form of self-hypnosis (autosuggestion). Critics claim that Peale is deceptively calling self-hypnosis by names such as "techniques", "formulas", "methods", "prayers", and "prescriptions" among other benign names to persuade the reader to practice them. Some mental health experts contend the hypnotic "techniques" don't work and could be injurious to the mental health of the reader. They contend that the constant repetitions of these autosuggestions not only interfere with true thinking, but that they destroy self-knowledge and religious growth in the process.

Harvard Scholar Donald Meyer in his book The Positive Thinkers (Pantheon Books: 1965, p.264) called The Power of Positive Thinking the "Bible of American autohypnotism" and claims that Peale attempts to induce the reader into conditioning himself into a permanent state of hypnosis, which Meyer refers to as the "automatized power of positive thinking". (p.268). Meyer asserts that Peale knows he is using hypnosis to persuade his readers. Meyer also claims that Peale does not want the reader to know this. Not once in "The Power of Positive Thinking" does Peale call his "techniques" hypnosis.

Psychologist Albert Ellis, the founder of cognitive therapy and one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, compares the Peale techniques with those of the hypnotist Emile Coue, and Ellis' writings through the years repeatedly warn the public not to follow the Peale message. Ellis calls the Peale approach dangerous, distorted, unrealistic, and says that the black or white view of life that Peale teaches is similar to that of borderline personality disorder patients. Ellis says of the Peale hypnotic techniques "In the long run they lead to failure and disillusionment, and not only boomerang back against people, but often prejudice them against effective therapy." (Overcoming Resistance: Rational Emotive Therapy With Difficult Clients, New York: Springer Publishing, 1985, p. 147).

The third major criticism of Peale and "positive thinking" is the underlying message that Peale is teaching is one of fear, hatred, and intolerance. Here psychiatrist Murphy is worth quoting at length:

"A subtler influence is his denial of unpleasant unreality. With saccharine terrorism, Mr. Peale refuses to allow his followers to hear, speak, or see any evil. For him, real human suffering does not exist; there is no such thing as murderous rage, suicidal despair, cruelty, lust, greed, mass poverty or illiteracy. All these things he would dismiss as trivial mental processes which will evaporate if thoughts are simply turned into more cheerful channels. This attitude is so unpleasant that it bears some search for its real meaning. It is clearly not a genuine denial of evil but a horror of it. A person turns his eyes away from human bestiality and the suffering it evokes only if he can't stand to look at it. By doing so he affirms the evil to be absolute; he looks away only when he feels that nothing can be done about it.... The belief in pure evil, an area of experience beyond the possibility of help or redemption is automatically a summons to action: 'evil' means 'that which much be attacked.' Any thing which strengthens the belief that evil exists as a tangible force outside of oneself thereby endorses the cruelties which men commit against each other.... We are encouraged to give up our striving and feel free to hate as much as we like and wherever we see the work of Beezlebub, whether under our own roofs or on the other side of the ocean. Thus Mr. Peale's book is not only inadequate for our needs but even undertakes to drown out the fragile inner voice which is spur to religious growth. While people honestly seeking help will find it almost anywhere they look, the book as a whole is anything but friendly towards religious experience." ("Reverend Peale's Panacea", The Nation, May 7, 1955, pp. 398-400).

Harvard University scholar Donald Meyer agrees with Murphy's interpretation of Peale's message. In his not so subtly titled article "Confidence Man" (The New Republic, July 11, 1955, pp. 8-10), Meyer says of Peale's claims that the reader can have absolute power to achieve anything he wants by using the Peale techniques, "In more classic literature, this sort of pretension to mastery has often been thought to indicate an alliance with a Lower rather than a Higher power." The mastery Peale speaks of is not the mastery of skills or tasks, but the mastery of "negative thoughts."

Meyer writes that the Peale view of life is actually a grim and depressing one, one afraid to take on the challenges of life, one resigned to the status quo, one resigned to frustration, anger, and impotence. Negative realities can not be looked at, challenged, confronted, constructively changed, or even thought about. Peale's true view of the world at large and of his readers in particular could hardly be clearer, Meyer writes "And battle it is; Peale, in sublime betrayal of the aggression within his philosophy of peace, talks of 'shooting' prayers at people." ("Confidence Man" The New Republic, July 11, 1955, pp. 8-10.)

Psychologist Martin Seligman, the originator of "positive psychology," and one of the world's leading experts on the scientific study of happiness, says "positive thinking" is unproven and dangerous, and he cautions readers not to confuse "positive thinking" with positive psychology. Speaking specifically about Peale, Seligman wrote "First, positive thinking is an armchair activity. Positive psychology, on the other hand, is tied to a program of empirical and replicable scientific activity.... Where accuracy is tied to potentially catastrophic outcomes (for example, when an airline pilot is deciding whether to de-ice the wings of her airplane) we should all be pessimists.... Positive psychology is a supplement to negative psychology, not a substitute." (Authentic Happiness, Free Press, 2002, pp. 288-299)

One of Peale's supporters is the Rev. Billy Graham who said at the National Council of Churches on June 12, 1966 "I don't know of anyone who had done more for the kingdom of God than Norman and Ruth Peale or have meant anymore in my life for the encouragement they have given me. (Hayes Minnick, BFT Report #565 p. 28).

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Dr. Peale

Trivia

Modern televangelist and minister Robert H. Schuller was mentored by Peale. Like Peale, Schuller has also authored many religious self-help books, including Move Ahead With Possibility Thinking (1973).
Peale is sarcastically referred to as a 'deep philosopher' in the Tom Lehrer song 'It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier' (on the album An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer, 1959).
In the "Treehouse of Horror VI" episode of The Simpsons, a building with the sign "Birthplace of Norman Vincent Peale" is destroyed.
A clip of Peale's radio program is heard briefly in the film Grey Gardens (1975), and Peale himself appears as a character in the musical based on the film (2006).
A widely reprinted editorial in the Los Angeles Times says that the 2006 book and DVD The Secret both borrow some of Peale's ideas, and that The Secret suffers from some of the same weaknesses as Peale's works.| accessdate = 2007-01-13
M*A*S*H (TV series) episode 135 (The Smell of Music) contains a grossly injured soldier (guest star: Jordan Clarke) who rejects counsel from Col. Potter (Harry Morgan) stating “Doc, if there’s one thing I don’t need right now is a Norman Vincent Peale sermon . . .”

A selection of his books

The Power of Positive Thinking, Ballantine Books; Reissue edition (August 1, 1996). ISBN 0-449-91147-0
Guide to Confident Living, Ballantine Books; Reissue edition (September 1, 1996). ISBN 0-449-91192-6
Six Attitudes for Winners, Tyndale House Publishers; (May 1, 1990). ISBN 0-8423-5906-0
Positive Thinking Every Day : An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year, Fireside; (December 6, 1993). ISBN 0-671-86891-8
Positive Imaging, Ballantine Books; Reissue edition (September 1, 1996). ISBN 0-449-91164-0
You Can If You Think You Can, Fireside Books; (August 26, 1987). ISBN 0-671-76591-4
Thought Conditioners, Foundation for Christian; Reprint edition (December 1, 1989). ISBN 99910-38-92-2
In God We Trust: A Positive Faith for Troubled Times, Thomas Nelson Inc; Reprint edition (November 1, 1995). ISBN 0-7852-7675-0
Norman Vincent Peale's Treasury of Courage and Confidence, Doubleday; (June 1970). ISBN 0-385-07062-4
My Favorite Hymns and the Stories Behind Them, Harpercollins; 1st ed edition (September 1, 1994). ISBN 0-06-066463-0
The Power of Positive Thinking for Young People, Random House Children's Books (A Division of Random House Group); (December 31, 1955). ISBN 0-437-95110-3
The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking, Fireside; Fireside edition (March 12, 2003). ISBN 0-7432-3483-9
Stay Alive All Your Life, Fawcett Books; Reissue edition (August 1, 1996). ISBN 0-449-91204-3

External links