Dreaming Peace:
Your Thoughts Can Change the World
by Nori Muster
Learn from history. America has a tradition of optimism, honesty, good will, and common sense that may help us in the new century.
Now available as a paperback - click here to buy it now for $17.94 ($10.95 + $6.99 shipping in U.S.)!
BOOK PREVIEW
Table of Contents
One Researcher's Dig
The author explains her reasons for writing this book.
The History of Positive Thinking
Trace the roots of this philosophy back to the foundations of modern civilization.
How It Works
Learn how to put autosuggestion and positive mental attitude into practice.
The Positive Thinking Dream
The author's plan for peace in the post-9/11 world, and logical conclusions for the future of humankind.
One Researcher's Dig
I come from a family of philosophical positive thinkers, but only started to research the subject in 2002. America was reeling from the terror attacks of 9/11. TV news pundits and politicians proclaimed that 9/11 had changed everything. Refusing to accept the grim future of eternal war everybody else seemed to buy, I spent 2002 to 2004 reading positive thinking books, looking for ways to heal our collective wounds and nurture the peace-loving side of America. I stated with a thorough study of the classics:
My Method, by Emile Coué (1922)
How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie (1936)
Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill (1937)
The Power of Positive Thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale (1952)
The Strangest Secret, by Earl Nightingale (1956)
Psycho-Cybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz, M.D., F.I.C.S. (1960)
I found that Americans misunderstood positive thinking and abused the process. Prominent national figures had turned it into a tool of manipulation. They treated citizens like we were ignorant children, declaring that we had to think positive and revere our leaders. If anybody attempted to criticize the leaders' wars or financial dealings, they told us we were anti-American. To fit in, we had to conform. In the years following 9/11, the leaders kept their critics off balance and afraid to make rational arguments.
Similar manipulation goes on in cults. Cult leaders may withhold information or try to convince their followers to ignore contradictions. It also happens in dysfunctional families that harbor embarrassing secrets of incest or family violence. The brainwashing went on in subtle ways, among friends, business colleagues who were afraid to criticize, and in the media, which bought into the leaders' political agenda to promote the War on Terror. Brainwashing in this sense means ignoring the truth to suit a narcissistic agenda. The leaders and mainstream media told us to forge ahead, wage the War on Terror, support our government, spend money to keep the economy going, and all would be well.
Enforced happiness is a form of repression. Society would take on Orwellian tones if everyone had to measure up to a standard of optimism no matter how bad things got. For example, if your neighbor's house burned to the ground, you would not tell them to look on the bright side. It might make you feel better if their grief went away immediately, but repressing pain and problems in the name of optimism is not rational and does not represent true positive thinking. Life is not always happy and carefree. It is not like those old black and white TV sitcoms Leave it to Beaver and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
Real positive thinking is never forced or phony. You retain your right to grieve and make decisions based on your own common sense. No boss, preacher, author, politician, or peer group should try to tell you how to think. You are the only person who knows what's positive for you. Positive thinking grows from inner integrity and courage. It takes serious work to face life's challenges with a positive attitude. For example, recovering from the hell scape left in Manhattan after 9/11 has taken (and will take) more work than we originally may have thought.
In the years since 9/11, the world of literature dabbled with positive thinking, producing one significant book that captured the American imagination for a time The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne (2006), became a huge best seller and a movie, but after the wave of optimism died out, things got worse. Many rejected the notion that thoughts could improve reality. Recent books that criticize positive thinking include Burying the Secret: The Road to Ruin Is Paved with Books about the Law of Attraction, by Carol Rutter (2008), and Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, by Barbara Ehrenreich (2009).
The main reason positive thinking does not work for Americans anymore is that we carry subconscious shadow material that makes our minds automatically go to fear. It is like the old wise man who attained the power to create whatever he thought about. His first thought was, "What if I think of a tiger and it eats me up?" then a tiger came and ate him. After 9/11 I noticed a similar dynamic. People's own guilt and fear disabled their capacity to do anything about what they were afraid of, like a bad dream. The tigers we dreamed after 9/11 marked the first decade of the new century. Like any vicious cycle, the harder people tried to stop it, the worse things seemed to get. We became a nation of unhappy, crying children locked in a struggle with phantoms of our own imagination.
I knew there had to be a way to reverse the negative cycle and create a peaceful dream. I found hundreds of supportive quotes going back to Classical Greece, but a thought by contemporary visionary philosopher John Dear guided my vision for this book. He said,
Few dream of a world of nonviolence. If we do, we are dismissed as naïve or idealistic. Yet without the imagination for peace, the vision of peace, we will never get out of the downward cycle of violence that is destroying us.
He also said, "We need to exercise our imaginations, and envision a new world, no matter how crazy others think we are." It is crazy because so many are hurting. Nevertheless, America needs its optimism. If we are to believe there is no new thought that can ameliorate our global predicament, then we are lost. Considering the spiral of negativity since 9/11 and the dire consequences we face if we continue to fall, do we just throw our fine history of positive thinking in the trash and forget it?
The trend is to criticize our government, cities, institutions - and even our families - and doubt that our struggles since 9/11 contain any value. There is much to learn, and if we could just get it, then we would stop our slide into a negative future. An appropriate dose of optimism will help. My intention in this book is to illuminate the true nature of positive thinking, clear its name, and restore it as a useful tool for all Americans, and all people in the new century.
Buy it now for $17.94 ($10.95 + $6.99 shipping in U.S.)!
Buy it from the author - send $17 to Nori Muster, P.O. Box 41750, Mesa, AZ 85274 (includes shipping in US). Neighbors! Save $2, send a check for $15 and pick the book up from Nori at the Clubhouse! More writing by Nori - click here.