Posts Tagged ‘self-help’
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people like me”*…
The Cummings Center for the History of Psychology has a large collection of some of the most important apparatus and objects related to psychological science and practice covering the past 150 years. There are brass chronoscopes from the 1800s that measured reaction time in one-thousandths of a second. There are a variety of rat mazes, tachistoscopes, and Skinner boxes. The “shock” machine used by Stanley Milgram in his famous obedience studies is in the Center’s collections as are a Bobo doll from Albert Bandura’s research, guard uniforms from Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford prison study, a surrogate monkey head from Harry Harlow’s studies of love in monkeys, and one of B. F. Skinner’s air cribs. The Center is always looking to add to its collections, including items that were of questionable scientific value. One such item is the Psycho-Phone [pictured above].
Similar in principle to audio devices today that play messages during a person’s sleep, for example, alleging sleep learning, the Psycho-Phone was the invention of Alois Benjamin Saliger (1880-1969) who patented his machine in 1932 as an “Automatic Time-Controlled Suggestion Machine.” The device was essentially an Edison-style phonograph with a timer that played the contents from a wax cylinder during the period of sleep. Saliger believed that the messages delivered during sleep would enter a person’s unconscious and have a powerful influence on the individual’s behavior…
The machine was quite expensive, selling for $235 in 1929. That would be the equivalent of $3,250 in 2017. It came with several wax cylinders, each with messages relating to a different theme; one was labeled “Prosperity”, another “Life Extension,” and a third “Mating.” Eventually Saliger expanded the record library to more than a dozen titles, even one in Spanish. According to a story in The New Yorker in 1933, the message on the Mating recording included the following statements: “I desire a mate. I radiate love. I have a fascinating and attractive personality. My conversation is interesting. My company is delightful. I have a strong sex appeal.” Saliger was convinced of the effectiveness of the Psycho-Phone noting that 50 of his customers reported finding a mate…
From the annals of self-help: “The Psycho-Phone.”
[TotH to Ted Gioia (@tedgioia)]
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As we get better every day, we might recall that it was on this date in 1934 that Mandrake the Magician first appeared in newspapers. A comic strip, it was created by Lee Falk (before he created The Phantom)… and thus is regarded by most historians of the form to have been America’s first comic superhero.
“Sooner or later, everything old is new again”*…
Maude Mayberg, a.k.a. Madame Yale, in her “laboratory”
On an April afternoon in 1897, thousands of women packed the Boston Theatre to see the nation’s most beguiling female entrepreneur, a 45-year-old former homemaker whose talent for personal branding would rival that of any Instagram celebrity today. She called herself Madame Yale. Over the course of several hours and multiple outfit changes, she preached her “Religion of Beauty,” regaling the audience with tales of history’s most beautiful women, a group that included Helen of Troy, the Roman goddess Diana and, apparently, Madame Yale.
The sermon was her 11th public appearance in Boston in recent years, and it also covered the various lotions and potions—products that Yale just happened to sell—that she said had transformed her from a sallow, fat, exhausted woman into the beauty who stood on stage: her tall, hourglass figure draped at one point in cascading white silk, her blond ringlets falling around a rosy-cheeked, heart-shaped face. Applause thundered. The Boston Herald praised her “offer of Health and Beauty” in a country where “every woman wants to be well and well-looking.”
Madame Yale had been delivering “Beauty Talks” coast to coast since 1892, cannily promoting herself in ways that would be familiar to consumers in 2020. She was a true pioneer in what business gurus would call the wellness space—a roughly $4.5 trillion industry globally today—and that achievement alone should command attention. Curiously, though, she went from celebrated to infamous virtually overnight, and her story, largely overlooked by historians, is all the more captivating as a cautionary tale…
A century before today’s celebrity health gurus, an American businesswoman was a beauty with a brand: “Madame Yale Made a Fortune With the 19th Century’s Version of Goop.”
* The Colorado Kid)
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As we contemplate comeliness, we might spare a thought for writer who explored our fascination with fascinating, Philip Kindred Dick; he died on this date in 1982. A novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher, Dick published 44 novels and 121 short stories, nearly all in the Science Fiction genre. While he was recognized only within his field in his lifetime, and lived near poverty for much of his adult life, twelve popular films and TV series have been based on his work since his death in 1982 (including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, The Adjustment Bureau, Impostor, and the Netflix series The Man in the High Castle). In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923; and in 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.
We might also note that it’s the birthday of Chris Martin, front man of the inexplicably-popular pop group Coldplay, and the “consciously uncoupled” ex of Gwyneth Paltrow, the heir to Madame Yale.
“All we are not stares back at what we are”*…
I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
– George Carlin
Napoleon Hill is the most famous conman you’ve probably never heard of. Born into poverty in rural Virginia at the end of the 19th century, Hill went on to write one of the most successful self-help books of the 20th century: Think and Grow Rich. In fact, he helped invent the genre. But it’s the untold story of Hill’s fraudulent business practices, tawdry sex life, and membership in a New York cult that makes him so fascinating…
Modern readers are probably familiar with the 2006 sensation The Secret, but the concepts in that book were essentially plagiarized from Napoleon Hill’s 1937 classic Think and Grow Rich, which has reportedly sold over 15 million copies to date. The big idea in both: The material universe is governed quite directly by our thoughts. If you simply visualize what you want out of life, those things and more will be delivered to you. Especially if those things involve money…
You can see the influence of Hill in everything from the success sermons of Tony Robbins to the crooked business dealings of Trump University. In fact, you can draw a direct line to Donald Trump’s way of thinking through Norman Vincent Peale, an ardent follower of Napoleon Hill. Reverend Peale, author of the 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking, was Donald Trump’s pastor as a child [c.f. here]…
I’m not here to say that there’s nothing to be learned from some of Hill’s writings—especially those that speak of self-confidence, being kind to others, and going the extra mile for something you believe in. But the real story behind Napoleon Hill’s life is long past due…
That fascinating tale in full at “The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time.”
* W.H. Auden
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As we tell ourselves that we’re OK, we might send speculative birthday greetings to the anti-Hill, Philip Kindred Dick; he was born on this date in 1928. A novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher, Dick published 44 novels and 121 short stories, nearly all in the Science Fiction genre. While he was recognized only within his field in his lifetime, and lived near poverty for much of his adult life, twelve popular films and TV series have been based on his work since his death in 1982 (including Blade Runner, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, Minority Report, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, The Adjustment Bureau, Impostor, and the Netflix series The Man in the High Castle). In 2005, Time magazine named Ubik one of the hundred greatest English-language novels published since 1923; and in 2007, Dick became the first science fiction writer to be included in The Library of America series.
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day”*…
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, as the saying goes.
Lumberjack beards, old typewriters, old-timey drinks, thick rimmed glasses, your grandmother’s knitting, fixed gear bicycles, mason jars for every occasion, workaday heritage brands, you name it – if it’s oldish, it’s in. All things vintage have now become eagerly sought after status symbols by modern-day consumers of a particular stripe, albeit with an ironic twist, under the insidious guise of counterculture coolness.
These are some of the hallmarks of today’s so-called hipster, the caricatured figure of a subculture much mocked in the media and on the internet, yet who somehow persists in having a widespread impact on popular culture and counterculture as it moves, sometimes unwillingly, into mainstream consciousness…
So if all sorts of retro symbols from the past are being revived, consumed, and regurgitated by a fast-moving hipster culture, it’s a fair question for us language obsessives to ask: is vintage language, perchance, also making a comeback?
In this decidedly unscientific investigation, the answer seems to be a resounding: mayhaps?…
Do the linguistic lambada at “More Hipster than Thou: Is Vintage Language Back in Vogue?”
* Proverbial
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As we twist our tongues, we might send improving birthday greetings to Samuel Smiles; he was born on this date in 1812. A Scottish Chartist writer of many personal improvement books, his “masterpiece,” Self-Help (1859), promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits, even as it attacked materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called “the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism”, and turned Smiles into a celebrity overnight.
George Bernard Shaw called Smiles “the modern Plutarch”; but, as F. A. Hayek wrote, “It is probably a misfortune that, especially in the USA, popular writers like Samuel Smiles…have defended free enterprise on the ground that it regularly rewards the deserving, and it bodes ill for the future of the market order that this seems to have become the only defense of it which is understood by the general public. That it has largely become the basis of the self-esteem of the businessman often gives him an air of self-righteousness which does not make him more popular.”
Your correspondent is headed, as he hopes readers are, into the warm embrace of family and friends for the Holidays; thus (Roughly) Daily is going into its customary Holiday hiatus. Regular service will resume just after the New Year. Many thanks for checking in throughout 2015. Have the Happiest Holidays!
“Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life”*…
Beyoncé’s father (pictured above with his daughter at the 2004 Grammy Awards) can make you a star…
It is 10am, and the lights in Houston’s Hobby Center theater dim to black.
“Mathew Knowles was born on January 9, 1951,” a voice booms over the sound system. “Excelling at education and sports,” it continues, he went on to become the “No 1 salesman in the world at Xerox”.
The 75 people in the audience, who have spent up to $320 for a day-long “bootcamp” with Knowles – titled “The entertainment industry: how do I get in?”– might well be wondering what they have paid for.
A video begins to play. We see a series of images of Beyoncé and hear some of her most famous songs. Now we know why we are here. This is a seminar with Beyoncé’s dad. Her former manager.
This is the man who created Destiny’s Child. The man who, according to the voiceover, “took a risk that changed history”. The man who also managed his other daughter Solange. The man whose new book, The DNA of Achievers, is available for purchase in the lobby for $19.95 plus shipping and handling, a price which includes the opportunity to have your photo taken with him at the end of the day…
Partake of the secrets of success at “Can Beyoncé’s dad make me a star? Inside a one-day fame ‘bootcamp’.”
* Beyoncé Knowles
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As we reach inside ourselves to make contact with the passion that will propel us, we might recall that it was on this date in 1962 that the Country Music Festival in Nashville kicked off its annual celebration of the form, at which Patsy Cline was named “Queen of Country Music.” Cline, a stalwart of the early 1960s Nashville sound known for such now-standards as “Crazy” and “I Fall to Pieces,” was one of the first Country artists to cross-over, and was one of the most influential, successful and acclaimed vocalists of the 20th century. The following year (at the age of 30) she died in the crash of of manager’s private plane.
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