Since 9/11, Americans have entered into two wars, witnessed a devastating tsunami in Asia, learned the inconvenient truth about global warming and watched the Middle East erupt in violence. Given all the chaos out there, it's no surprise that Americans are tempted to look inward, turning to the Mind/Body/Spirit shelf for books that promise comfort and individual enlightenment. The question is: At a time when Americans could use a heavy dose of political awareness and global understanding, do these books help readers become better citizens, or just help them feel better?
In Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion (Routledge, 2005), Jeremy Carrette and Richard King argue that the mind/body/spirit industry is privatizing and commodifying Eastern religious practices and texts like the Tao Te Ching. "New Age Capitalists," according to Carrette and King, are erasing the ancient religion and philosophy from these sources and repackaging them for profit. Even more disturbing, these repackaged products are lulling consumers into a stupor while Western political powers rage forward, unchecked.
The mind/body/spirit industry produces books and other products that act, say Carette and King, "like Prozac and give the impression of making life better, while hiding the real underlying problems of society."
Yet publishers who specialize in mind/ body/spirit titles argue that their books do help equip readers to tackle the world's problems.
Why Self-Help Leads to Other-Help
Consider Julie Fisher-McGarry's Be the Change You Want to See in the World (Conari Press, Nov.), which shows how transforming daily habits—recycling, for example—ripples out to affect the world. "Fisher-McGarry gets readers first to think about how living green is good for the self, then shows people why what's good for the self is also good for the planet," explains Jan Johnson, publisher for Red Wheel, Weiser Books and Conari Press. "Our books help people know more about themselves and better understand their place in the world," adds Johnson, who offers as another example Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women to Change, Save the World by Jean Shinoda Bolen (2005).
New World Library editors look for books that get beyond the personal to address global issues, says president and publisher Marc Allen—for example, The Power of Partnership: Seven Relationships That Will Change Your Life by Riane Eisler (2002), which starts with personal partnerships, then argues that partnership on many levels is the key to solving global problems. New World Library hoped that Eisler's book might compete with the bestselling The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenmentby Eckhart Tolle (1999). But Allen acknowledges that sales have been disappointing, indicating that not all readers are interested in books that nudge them to look beyond their own problems. "We've seen lots of submissions of books about the environment and activism, but it's a trick to get these books to sell well," he says.
"Activism is not the focus of the genre, and self-help and mind/body/spirit books should not tell people what to do," says Jill Kramer, editorial director at Hay House, though she cites the forthcoming Four Acts of Personal Power: How to Heal Your Past and Create a Positive Future by Denise Linn (Dec.) as a book that talks about community activism. For Kramer, mind/body/spirit books are not about doing but about being. "They are about making yourself the healthiest, best, most compassionate, loving person you can be, with the understanding that once you achieve this kind of state, then the world becomes a more compassionate place by you being in it." Hay House also published two memoirs this year it hopes will increase empathy—Spiraling Through the School of Life: A Mental, Physical, and Spiritual Discoveryby Diane Ladd and Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilbagiza.
The mother of the New Age genre, Llewellyn, champions the idea that if one first transforms the self, then he or she is able to make a bigger difference in the rest of the world. "Most of the books at Llewellyn have practical applications. Our longest-lived annual, The Moon Sign Book, first published in 1905, is about the application of lunar astrology to farm, garden and practical decision making," says Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, president and publisher. "And all of our yoga books are practical in nature, since a healthy body is a necessary foundation to a spiritual life." Weschcke explains that "to ignore the material in favor of the spiritual is like building a house without a foundation of any kind. It will blow away with any good wind storm—you don't have to wait for Katrina to do it." And Weschcke is not alone at Llewellyn when it comes to publishing books with worldly implications. "As we see more extreme weather—tsunamis, hurricanes, heat waves—coupled with the rise in terrorism, we brace ourselves for even more. Everyone feels global change breathing down their necks," says Elysia Gallo, the publisher's Wicca, paganism and magic acquisitions editor. Llewellyn is publishing Christopher Penczak's Ascension Magick: Ritual, Myth & Healing for the New Aeon(Mar., 2007), which explains ascension, a belief system that tries to help humanity evolve on both individual and global levels. These same concerns, says Gallo, are reflected in Penczak's other books, including The Mystic Foundation (Sept.).
It's clear that an industry that's often been derided for encouraging self-centeredness is aiming to enable readers to help themselves and the world.
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