Guru Ratings
Wayne Dyer
Bad.
Remember my ratings criteria. I’m not judging these gurus on “global” or moral values, but very specific criteria. Many of my favorite books would be rated “bad” by my criteria for self-help (probably, because they are not self-help books). My ratings don’t reflect how well an author met his own goals, but how well they met my criteria for useful, accurate self-help.
Your Erroneous Zones (1974)
Your Erroneous Zones sells itself as a common-sense approach to overcoming your self-defeating (“erroneous”) behaviors. But Dyer is more adept at confusing things than at making them sensible.
He tries to inspire by simply redefining terms. On page 11, he says “intelligence” is not mental ability, but the ability to live a happy life. How does changing the meaning of words help your readers to do something to help themselves?
He also says “there is no such thing as a nervous break down” because “nerves don’t break down.” But they do, and in any case that is not what “nervous break down” means.
Other times, Dyer is simply incorrect: “You cannot have a feeling (emotion) without first have experienced a thought” (pg. 15).
Worse still: “There is a burgeoning amount of evidence to support the notion that people even choose things like tumors, influenza, arthritis, heart disease, ‘accidents’ and many other infirmities, including cancer . . .” (pg. 24).
He also invents “facts,” apparently to sound exciting: “The brain . . . has enough storage capacity to accept ten new facts every second.”
The following passage is another verbal stunt. It sounds interesting, but has no reality or logic to it at all:
If you place a rock under a microscope and observe it carefully, you note that it never changes. But, if you put a piece of coral under the same microscope, you’ll detect that it is growing and changing . . . The only evidence of life is growth! This is also true in the psychological world. If you are growing, you are alive. If you are not growing then you might as well be dead.
The last four sentences are each plainly false.
The pattern
And that’s just the first chapter. Already Dyer’s pattern is clear:
- Point out a well-known principle of healthy living (you must choose to be different, you must find your own self-worth, etc.).
- Confuse the truth by redefining terms and saying illogical, untrue things that sound exciting and may motivate the reader.
- Over-extend the good principle and build false hopes (you can choose not to get cancer, you can simply choose to find yourself valuable, etc.).
I suppose this might motivate you to change. But it will also build up false hopes and tell you lies. When you are ready for a book that tells the truth—and tells you how to change your thoughts and behaviors—read something like Self-Defeating Behaviors.
Pulling Your Own Strings (1978)
A course on escaping the victim mentality. Repeats the problems in Your Erroneous Zones.
The Power of Intention (2004)
Dyer says you should connect to an energy field he calls Intention. He recasts basic wisdom like discipline and love in light of this quasi-spiritual gobbledygook. Bizarre.
Making life more confusing won’t help people.