Golden Age Inspirational/Philospophical Authors

[Paisley]

Eric Hoffer was a stevedore and self-educated philosopher who wrote a book called The True Believer on the nature of mass movements and the people who join them. One of his observations is that certain types of people join mass movements, and the allure of a movement--losing oneself, moral superiority, sense of purpose--is more important than what a movement stands for.

 

[davidraphael]

For me, it's hard to beat Hermann Hesse:

When I was a younger man books like Siddhartha and Journey to the East really opened my eyes. I still have a strong interest in Buddhism (Theravadan, anyway; Tibetan Buddhism isn't "pure" Buddhism, as far as I'm concerned. I know it's more complicated than that, but I won't go into it here)

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Eric Hoffer was a stevedore and self-educated philosopher who wrote a book called The True Believer on the nature of mass movements and the people who join them. One of his observations is that certain types of people join mass movements, and the allure of a movement--losing oneself, moral superiority, sense of purpose--is more important than what a movement stands for.

That was a theme Woody Allen explored in the movie Zelig. The title character, the shape-shifting Leonard Zelig, has such an overwhelming desire to fit in and to belong that at one point in the movie -- though he's Jewish -- he even becomes a Nazi.

 

[Mystic]

The works of Ernest Shurtleff Holmes. His first book published in 1919 called "Creative Mind and Success" with many more to come throughout the 20th Century.
http://books.google.com/books?id=UGf4Of1-rScC&printsec=frontcover&dq=creative+mind+and+success&source=bl&ots=DGmoYB_HbE&sig=Zreeln6YPtMLBBH5K5t7DlKpLPc&hl=en&ei=NW-qS5aVLIPgtgP7krmwAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CCgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=&f=false

This little book pre-dates 'The Power Of Positive Thinking' by more than thirty years. In fact, Norman Vincent Peale was a student of Dr. Holmes.

-dixon cannon

There was a time when I was running out of the very last thing I had....simple Hope.....for no other reason than Hope that some how there was a way back up was the only thing left.

The early writers of the "New Thought" movement and similar writers kept me going and kept me from giving up entirely.

These were the front runners of what became the modern "Self Help" writers.

 

[LizzieMaine]

How about Elbert Hubbard, who wrote voluminously in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, was a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, and who died on the Lusitania. You'd be hard-pressed to find a middle-class American home between 1915 and 1940 that didn't have at least one of his books or pamphlets, and often full-leather-bound sets manufactured by Hubbard's own press. His philosophy, best encapsulated in "A Message To Garcia," was basically "Shut up, quit whining, and find a way to do what needs to be done." Rough stuff to modern sensibilities, but invaluable to a generation looking down the gullet of two world wars and a depression.

 

[skyvue]

The Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, he of The Power of Positive Thinking, started Guideposts magazine in the 1940s.

A little known bit of trivia: He envisioned the magazine appealing to returning servicemen who would enjoy having a small inspirational publication to toss in their bags when they were traveling. Peale and his staff were quite surprised when they realized some time later that his readership comprised mostly middle-American and Southern moms and grandmothers. And they're still the publication's audience today.

Here's a Guideposts story written by none other than Rosalind Russell back in 1954.

 

[Mystic]

How about Elbert Hubbard, who wrote voluminously in the first couple of decades of the twentieth century, was a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, and who died on the Lusitania. You'd be hard-pressed to find a middle-class American home between 1915 and 1940 that didn't have at least one of his books or pamphlets, and often full-leather-bound sets manufactured by Hubbard's own press. His philosophy, best encapsulated in "A Message To Garcia," was basically "Shut up, quit whining, and find a way to do what needs to be done." Rough stuff to modern sensibilities, but invaluable to a generation looking down the gullet of two world wars and a depression.

Yep...Elbert Hubbard was one of the group of men that actually went out into the world and business and had great success with their philosophy and methods before writing about them. Proving that they would work when they were properly worked.

Others that wrote along the same lines were Robert Collier, W. Clement Stone, Frank Bettger, Wallace Wattles, Orison Swett Marden, Edward Beals and Ben Sweetland.

 

[pipvh]

For me, probably Richard Wilhelm's translation of the I Ching - still more or less definitive, and something I use all the time.