Michelle Goldberg
Religion Dispatches
Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:12 EDT
A new book reveals the historical roots and conservative uses of the positive thinking movement, showing how it encourages victim-blaming, political complacency, and a culture-wide flight from realism.
Last month, the front page of the
New York Times style section ran an inadvertently depressing story about a group of young life coaches sometimes referred to as the "spiritual cowgirls." These hip young women, who have lots of charisma but no professional qualifications, are setting themselves up as ersatz gurus to their questing peers. They charge hundreds of dollars for sessions that combine new age atmospherics with the kind of power-of-positive thinking nostrums that made a phenomenon out of
The Secret.
"[N]ow there is a new role model for New York's former Carrie Bradshaws - young women who are vegetarian, well versed in self-help and New Age spirituality, and who are finding a way to make a living preaching to eager audiences, mostly female," reported the
Times. One 31-year-old member of this eager audience is quoted praising her spiritual tutor Gabrielle Bernstein, a 29-year-old former nightclub publicist who lectures on using the "laws of attraction" to "manifest" one's desires. "A lot of women look up to her," the student says. "We need this guidance and we are searching for this guidance." Bernstein's audacity in marketing herself as a sage appears to be matched by the piteousness of her customers.
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