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Positive Thinking in a Time of Coronavirus?
The question that positive thinkers must answer
The question of suffering ought to haunt people like me who subscribe to New Thought, the metaphysical philosophy of mind causation. It cannot be dodged or responded to with catechism or rehearsed answers.
This came home to me several years ago while I was researching the life and work of metaphysical writer and positive-thinking pioneer Joseph Murphy (1898–1981). I came upon a cache of handwritten letters that readers had sent to Murphy’s publisher, Prentice Hall, following his death in 1981. The letters originated from places ranging from Nigeria to Sweden to England to Canada to the U.S.
The minister and writer Murphy attained worldwide readership in 1963 with the publication of The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, a book of mind metaphysics that is perched in impact and timing between Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 The Power of Positive Thinking and Rhonda Byrne’s 2006 The Secret.
An editorial assistant plaintively replied to many of these readers, “We regret to inform you that Dr. Joseph Murphy is deceased. Prentice Hall was notified of this in January, 1983.” The editorial assistant attempted small acts of kindness, like sending one writer a Spanish-language edition of Murphy’s 1968 book, The Cosmic Power Within…
