Book
Reviews 2020 - Theosophical Society in America
Awaken the Power Within:
In Defense of Self-Help
Albert Amao Soria
New York: TarcherPerigee, 2018. 287 pp., paper, $16.00.
Finally someone arises to call out the
hucksters and frauds who promise to make you rich, make you wise, make you
whole, and make you over. Albert Amao, PhD, is just that man. He is a
sociologist, author, and national lecturer for the Theosophical Society in
America. His recent book casts a shadow over false saviors while examining some
of the most effective elements of self-help practice from traditional esoteric
thought.
Hucksters in self-improvement are nothing new,
Amao complains, but they continue to pop out of nowhere with promises to take
away our pain, worries, and confusion, announcing themselves as New Age
messiahs. Typically they disguise themselves as authors, workshop leaders,
teachers, or life coaches who offer self-help to misguided souls.
Amao’s book suggests how many teachers and
healers in the so-called self-improvement arena will simply dumb down ancient
insights and attempt to repackage them in a diluted form for mass marketing.
Amao debunks many of these attempts,
outlining what has worked and not worked in the history of self-help. He
distinguishes modern self-help culture from earlier mystical and occult
movements and shows how we got to the current interest in the power of positive
thinking.
Real growth, understanding, and
transformation, Amao argues, come only from deep within you. The Indian sage J.
Krishnamurti famously said that truth is a pathless land that everyone must
negotiate personally. That is the hero’s journey of self-discovery.
Amao’s earlier work, Healing without Medicine, published
by Quest Books in 2014, offered a similar message. Real healing comes from
within you. Spiritual unfolding is uncomfortable, like peeling away layers of
skin, but only you can do it. The answers are all inside you. The truth is
there too. And you will find your true inner self along the way.
As Amao sees it, you won’t typically hear any
of that from the snake-oil sales agents who offer to make your transformation
easy, bring you instantly to self-realization, and grant you enlightenment in a
few easy lessons.
Yet this popular self-help culture has become
a pervasive social system worldwide and a staggering $12 billion industry in
the United States alone. There are more than 300,000 self-help books available
on Amazon.
The hidden harm Amao sees in this market is
the blind faith people often place in seminars, books, and tapes. Self-help
gurus tell them that redemption comes by empowering themselves with a new life
script, as provided in the books, CDs, DVDs, and workshops they sell.
Discouraged customers blame themselves when the material doesn’t deliver
promised benefits. Thus the effects can be detrimental, and the self-help
program can do much more harm than good.
Amao believes that a pattern of powerlessness
plagues many people. From early childhood, they have been disempowered and
indoctrinated with false ideas about their true nature by parents, mass media,
and conventional wisdom. Over time, these acquired ideas of disempowerment
become part of a personal belief system, and they subconsciously create a wrong
self-image. Moreover, Amao says, some religious organizations create a sense of
guilt in people.
Amao counters that quantum physics and
metaphysics demonstrate how humans are creators of their own reality and
destiny. As William James wrote, “Man alone, of all the creatures on Earth, can
change his own pattern. Man alone is architect of his own destiny.”
People are responsible for creating their own
reality with their thoughts and beliefs, Amao argues, and they are the only
ones who can take back their power and correct whatever isn’t working for them.
With that in mind, Amao’s book offers a deeper perspective on the culture of
self-help and self-improvement. It empowers individuals to rely on their own
inner voices for authentic self-empowerment and self-reliance.
In Defense of
Self-Help is well worth exploring
for anyone serious about self-empowerment and would be a welcome addition to
professional libraries as well.
Von
Braschler
Von Braschler is a Life Member of the
Theosophical Society and author of several books on consciousness, including
two forthcoming works on conscious thought forms.
