Showing results by publisher "Spoken Realms" in Personal Development

Like Wallace D. Wattles, the reclusive James Allen (1864-1912) has posthumously become an icon in the self-help industry and particularly for practitioners who promote a life of unrestrained abundance. Ironically, Allen actually recommended a life of simplicity and plain thinking and considered that a state of unshakeable peace and effortless wisdom constituted true wealth.

The concept of life as a pilgrimage, or a path from ignorance to realization, is central in the writings of the philosopher and New Thought pioneer James Allen (1864-1912). According to Allen, all men must and will follow this path, at the end of which is a state of spiritual satisfaction, which can be attained only by the earnest efforts of the seeker. While progress along the path necessitates the "strenuous tread" of the pilgrim, there are also valuable opportunities for rest and refreshment.

For James Allen, philosopher and pioneer of the New Thought movement, the highest expression of personal realization was to be "in the world" but not "of the world." As Allen says, "The turmoil of the world we cannot avoid, but the disturbances of mind we can overcome." In this collection of short essays he discusses the attitudes and actions required for the attainment of that abiding inner peace "where the Heavenly Silence reigns."

Two themes that recur very frequently in the works of James Allen are passion and purity. However, unlike many writers on moral discipline, the author regards purity as the natural state of man, which has been obscured by passionate attachment to external artefacts. Once the waves of passion are stilled, attachment falls away, allowing the seeker to attain a transcendent purity of vision and thus behold the reality that underlies the illusion of change.

In this work James Allen delineates the internal pilgrimage that commences with the cultivation of faith and courage and ends in knowledge and victory. In the words of the author: "Every being lives in his own mental world. His joys and sorrows are the creations of his own mind and are dependent upon the mind for their existence. In the midst of the world, darkened with many sins and sorrows, in which the majority live, there abides another world, lighted up with shining virtues and unpolluted joy, in which the perfect ones live."

Thought to have been written over 3,000 years ago, this missive has been included as a course of study in the US Marine Corps and military academies. These precepts have destroyed nations and built business empires. An executive, a general, a congressman, a businessperson, a student, or anybody just wanting to get ahead should pay heed to this missive.

As the distribution of power in the United States shifts to the privileged one percent, it becomes more and more difficult for those not born into that elite class to attain a degree of the success enjoyed by their fathers. Louis William Rogers, early 20th proponent of reincarnation, life after death, karma, esoteric mysticism, and matters of philosophical idealism has created this excellent motivational piece still applicable in the 21st century.

The collection Poems of Peace consists of the long lyrical/dramatic poem Eolaus, together with 37 shorter poems. As in all his other works, the author's focus is on the inevitable spiritual pilgrimage that all men must, sooner or later, undergo. In verse that is trenchant and often compellingly aphoristic, Allen describes the pitfalls and glories of the path, occasionally genuflecting to the masters who have blazed the way for humanity to follow.

In this short treatise, James Allen examines those spiritual qualities that are traditionally associated with the heart: love, compassion, gentleness, good will, and patience. In the words of the author: "He who aspires to the attainment of the Higher Life in its completion - who would perceive with unveiled vision the true order of things and the meaning of life - let him abandon all the wrong conditions of the heart, and persevere unceasingly in the practice of good."

In this audiobook James Allen makes a trenchant examination of one of the great conundrums of philosophy and religion: the problem of evil. As the author states in the foreword: All the problems of life, whether they be social, political, or religious, subsist in ignorance and wrong living. As they are solved in the heart of each individual, they will be solved in the mass of men.

The Shining Gateway can be seen as a prose commentary by James Allen on the experience of the pilgrimage described his dramatic poem "Eolaus". In search of enlightenment, the restless pilgrim, after having exhausted the delights of material creation, finally submits himself to the instruction of a reclusive sage.

This is one of the last works of James Allen and was first published posthumously in 1913. As Lily Allen says in her preface: "Like all his works it is eminently practical. He never wrote theories, or for the sake of writing, or to add another to his many books; but he wrote when he had a message, and it became a message only when he had lived it out in his own life, and knew that it was good. Thus he wrote facts, which he had proven by practice."

It cannot be said of this book that James Allen wrote it at any particular time or in any one year, for he was engaged in it over many years and those who have eyes to see and hearts to understand will find in its pages the spiritual history of his life. It was his own wish that The Divine Companion should be the last MS of his to be published.

After early adventures as a soldier, journalist and lecturer Henry Harrison Brown established himself as a practitioner and teacher of metal healing in 1893. In 1900 he became editor and publisher of NOW magazine in San Francisco which became a popular vehicle for his distinctively muscular presentations of the New Thought philosophy. In the first decade of the Twentieth Century Brown produced a number of tracts, which he categorized as "Lessons in Soul Culture."

Genevieve Behrend was a teacher and exponent of Mental Science, a New Thought discipline created by her mentor, Thomas Troward (1847- 1916). As the only direct student of Troward, the author had a unique insight into the philosophy and methods of her master. Your Invisible Power, published in 1921, is her first and most famous book. It is a guide to the use of visualization and other mental processes in life enhancement and the achievement of personal goals. A new recording of one of the first great self-help classics narrated by Denis Daly.

The world is full of self-made men and women, but try to find a self-made bum. The Book of Proverbs 23:7 says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” This was a truth over 2000 years ago, and is true today. An hour spent listening to this audiobook could change and your life. You are what you think.

In the midst of the world, darkened with many sins and sorrows, in which the majority live, there abides another world, lighted up with shining virtues and unpolluted joy, in which the perfect ones live. This world can be found and entered, and the way to it is by self-control and moral excellence. It is the world of the perfect life, and it rightly belongs to man, who is not complete until crowned with perfection.

In Rhonda Byrne's self-help book, The Secret, published in 2006, the theory of the Law of Attraction is presented as a re-discovery of an ancient metaphysical principle, buried in ages of historical neglect. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Exactly a century earlier, prolific New Thought author William Walker Atkinson published Thought Vibration, a succinct but thorough examination of the power of thought and its function in the creation and control of personal circumstances.

In this audiobook, New Thought philosopher James Allen contests the conventional wisdom that individual prosperity is dependent primarily on improvements in public welfare and political equity.

This book on memory is not a catalogue of mnemonic techniques but rather a survey of its whole structure and operation. In the first chapter, Atkinson writes: "We see that the cultivation of memory is far more than the cultivation and development of a single mental faculty—it is the cultivation and development of our entire mental being—the development of our selves."