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NEW THOUGHT’S DARTH VADER MOVE

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BY HARV BISHOP

How do New Thought, the white nationalists of the alt-right, an uptick in racially based harassment, and the election of Donald Trump connect?

A few month’s ago, I would have said that New Thought has nothing to do with those disturbing trends. But New Thought concepts about the power of the mind to influence reality are inspiring some white nationalists on the alt-right and also inspiring their infatuation with Trump who has embraced New Thought teachings at different times in his life.

Granted, it may not be New Thought in any form we recognize, but some of the teachings are being applied to the “dark side” of the force in this Darth Vader move and we ignore it at our peril.

Earlier this year this blog presented a series of articles looking at the Democratic contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders from a New Thought perspective.

Donald Trump and New Thought

These articles touched a nerve with James J. O’Meara, which he wrote about in a lengthy critique on the alt-right site Counter-Currents. O’Meara rightly identifies Trump’s New Thought leanings and embrace of Norman Vincent Peale. (Religious Science Minister Dr. William Arrott also told me that Trump attended a Religious Science church in California for a time). Fair enough, but it is where O’Meara goes from there that sent chills up my spine. For the record, it certainly wasn’t because he trashed our blog articles as representative of New Thought’s “looney left” because we didn’t acknowledge Trump’s New Thought connections. The chills came because O’Meara believes the aborted German Nazi bid for Aryan supremacy in the 1930s and 40s was a lost opportunity that should be rebirthed in the present. His anti-Semitism in the essay is overt.

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Donald Trump with Norman Vincent Peale in 1988

How does O’Meara account for Trump’s improbable rise? O’Meara credits New Thought. Trump visualized himself as president and lived from that reality as Neville Goddard famously advised.

O’Meara blends Goddard’s teachings with those of Julius Evola, an Italian far right philosopher-occultist who inspired Mussolini. Some of Evola’s less political books are still standards at New Age bookstores.

Fascism is about discipline and exerting one’s personal will. Goddard’s teachings are about realizing ourselves as a “slumbering branch of the Divine” in Mitch Horowitz’s words. O’Meara conflates these two things seeing one’s personal will and the “I Am” presence as the same.

 

Machiavelli Gone Cosmic

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David Metcalfe

This Darth Vader move is also seen in other less overtly racist blogs that also draw inspiration from the enigmatic Evola. Fascism celebrates the rule of the strong. In a metaphysical context, these bloggers equate enlightenment and manifestation with physical and mental strength. The poor are weak-willed and so do not manifest health and abundance. In my conversations with the esoteric scholar David Metcalfe, he explained that Evola is a complex and nuanced metaphysical thinker who lost his way. Evola, said Metcalfe, has been described as “Machiavelli gone cosmic.”

Evola belongs to a European school of right wing metaphysics where enlightenment is based in class and racial privilege, secret teachings, and initiation. This school of thought is well documented in Gary Lachman’s 2008 book Politics and the Occult. Neville comes from the American school of DIY New Thought; what Horowitz calls a Democratic inclusive spirituality long based in tolerance and equality.

All this distortion of New Thought teachings could be written off as scary but inconsequential fringe views, which is pretty much what I and my contributors did last May. How seriously can you take someone who explains Trump’s abrasive personality by the ugly assertion that he was copying the Jewish real estate people he worked with in his business?

Then last week Alt-Right icon Richard Spencer’s video of his Trump rally celebration went viral.  The chills came back and reminded me of the article by O’Meara. These views were no longer fringe but receiving widespread mainstream coverage because of their connection to a U.S. president-elect.

“We Made This Dream Our Reality!’

“We willed Donald Trump into office, we made this dream our reality!” Spencer told the crowd in words that resonate with O’Meara and other Alt-Right metaphysicians.

Spencer’s refrain of “Hail Trump, Hail to our People, Hail Victory” then inspired supporters to Nazi salutes.  Spencer almost held his rally in a Trump hotel due to the intercession of William Regnery. Regnery’s family founded the Regnery Press that publishes the ultra-right books that are a staple at Costco (including Phyliss Schlafly’s “The Conservative Case for Trump”). The reclusive William, unlike other members of his family, funds and initiates white nationalist websites and publications. Fortunately, the Trump folks thought better of it and rescinded the invite. But even that it was entertained as a possibility is shocking.

Add to that the appointment of Steve Bannon as Trump’s chief strategist. Under Bannon’s leadership, Brietbart.com referred to Spencer as “leading intellectual” of the Alt-Right. This is the Richard Spencer who deliberately used the word luggenpresse (the Nazi term for lying press) at his recent celebration rally. Spencer told a reporter before the rally that “we’re going to party like it’s 1933,” invoking the year Hitler came to power. Bannon, in an interview, also approvingly noted that Evola’s  Traditionalism was an major influence on one of Russian leaders Vladimir Putin’s advisers. Traditionalism celebrates a hierarchical social order, ardent nationalism,  and a distrust of modern industrialism.

Trump was later quoted as disavowing the Alt-Right after being largely silent and dragging his feet on rejecting KKK icon David Duke’s endorsement during the campaign. Can we fairly say Trump and Bannon are anti-Semitic or support white nationalism? People who know Bannon deny it and Team Trump points to Trump’s close relationship with his Jewish son-in-law. Nonetheless, Bannon’s website’s praise of Spencer is an indisputable fact whatever Bannon’s personal views.

None of this is to say all Trump voters are white nationalists, or neo-Nazis, but that element was visibly and vocally present at his rallies. Yet Trump offered no moment in this campaign akin to John McCain’s 2008 challenge of the woman who said she was scared of an Obama presidency because he was “an Arab.” McCain said, “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that’s what this campaign’s all about. He’s not [an Arab].”

Playing Footsie With Fascism

This year’s election strategy of playing footsie with fascism and white nationalism while leaving room for plausible denial reminds me of my pediatrician when I was an adolescent. “Oh, you’re interested in politics?”, said the good doctor as he reached into his desk and gave me a copy of a Missouri-based white supremacist newspaper called White Lightning that had an article about the “danger” posed to white women by African-American utility company meter readers. “Of course,” said the doctor, “I don’t agree with everything in this paper, but I like to read widely.” I naively took him at his word and the next visit brought him a copy of a Black Panther Party newspaper I had received at an anti-war rally.

What is the practical impact of all of this? Spencer’s efforts to rebrand fascism in a user-friendly way, Trump’s most strident xenophobic rhetoric, and O’Meara’s, and others, efforts to recast New Thought in a Machiavellian way are all serving as a form of permission-giving to create a disturbing new normal.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reports a dramatic uptick in racial and ethnic intimidation. This was brought home to me at a recent post-election faculty meeting where a colleague, an Egyptian scholar in his early 40s, described an encounter with a young white male student that would have been unthinkable even a year or so ago. The student, approximately 20, stepped on the heel of my colleague while crossing campus. My colleague turned to face the unknown student and ask why he had done that. “You walked in front of me,” said the student. “I demand an apology.” My colleague declined to apologize for something he had not done and continued to walk to the building where he was scheduled to teach a class. The young man followed him and repeatedly attempted to provoke him. “What are you doing in this country? How did you get here?” “Are you a student? Don’t you have universities in your own country?”

As fellow faculty, we were horrified. We realized that many of us were blind to this kind of danger because of the color of our skin as our colleague was endangered at his place of work by the color of his skin.

In New Thought we are trained to focus on the positive. But as Metcalfe told me “there is something very, very dark swimming in the zeitgeist.” Whether or not Trump or Bannon are personally prejudiced, they have intentionally or unintentionally catalyzed and legitimized it. New Thought will have to develop a response to the threat of this New Normal and the Darth Vader move to appropriate its teachings.

For some ideas see the article on 8 Ways to Stand Up to Hate from the Greater Good Center. 

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23 Comments

  1. Harv, I think this points to an area where “further research is necessary.” I’ve wondered how it is that New Thought originated in a progressive/non-mainstream social context but later its ideas became the “unorthodoxy of the orthodox” via Napoleon Hill (who championed Andrew Carnegie & Henry Ford) and Norman Vincent Peale (Nixon supporter). The late 19th C. New thoughters were idealists, suffragists, pacifists, abolitionists, and free spirits. By, mid-late 20th c. you get cadres of salesmen, marketers, and politicians that are using NT mental techniques (the Law of attraction) for highly personal/socially dubious ends. (cf. Mitch Horowitz on Reagan.)

    How this jumped from one social milieu to the other is a critical question that has to be answered before your Darth Vader question can be resolved. Off the top of my head, I think there a few threads that need to be followed. 1) the changing meanings of American individualism: from 19th C. Toqueville’s discussion of “self-interest properly understood,” i.e., an individual takes into account that when the community prospers, so does he; vs. today’s idea of individualism, with its Ayn Rand overtones. 2) Goddard and others’ description of “the Law” as an impersonal creative process. 3) the impact of WWI & II. on the idealistic NT circles.

    1. All excellent questions for further reflection/research Maryjane.
      The issue here is also the influence of so-called European Traditionalism (of which Evola was a part) on these alt-right movements. Traditionalism is communal and ardently nationalist and antithetical to American individualism and even Rand. This can be seen in Bannon’s celebrating traditional Catholicism and being anti-Capitalist. Many traditionalists were also meta-physicians. And as Metcalfe told me the alt-right rejects scientific materialism and embraces metaphysics openly in a way the political left does not.
      So in any event there could be a book or two in this complex web and fusion of the spiritual and political.

  2. That Donald Trump and the alt-right are associated with New Thought and positive thinking is hardly surprising. When I first started attending a Religious Science church and taking classes, ministers and teachers would use Trump as an example of someone manifesting prosperity and creating powerful demonstrations. (I assume they don’t do that so much anymore.)

    “Trump visualized himself as president and lived from that reality” and “We willed Donald Trump into office, we made this dream our reality!” are familiar expressions that many see as clear expressions of the teaching.

    Of course, Trump is not an isolated phenomenon as some like to believe but an expression of a dark and very angry global movement. Minds are joining together across the planet and even secular writers have taken note of the relationship between them and that one is “infecting” the other. As a result right wing populism is rising throughout Europe and it’s quite possible that nations ranging from France to Germany to Finland could all be ruled by nationalistic populist parties within the next few years.

    New Thought fits neatly into this and many different political philosophies. Right wing conservatives and libertarians see it as a workable philosophical system. The wealthy see it as a justification for their own success. They deserve their wealth and the poor deserve their poverty. That life and expressing God might be complicated, random and influenced by many different factors doesn’t have much currency.

    While few would openly agree with Evola that “enlightenment is based in class and racial privilege,” it’s easy to see how positive thinking can be adapted to authoritarian philosophies. After all there’s no code of moral and ethical behavior as you find in Christianity or Judaism. For many the whole point of New Thought is how well you express yourself in the world not in how you prepare yourself for the afterlife or winning a place in heaven. (There’s not even a “as long as you harm none, do what you will.”)

    Still it’s ironic that so many working class people under economic pressure have flocked to Trump as their savior. This is the same man who said he couldn’t respect anyone who wasn’t as successful as himself. I’m sure New Thought teachings reinforce that idea for him.

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    1. The Science of Mind most definitely teaches that there is a wrong use of the Law. A good teacher of the SOM guides and directs his or her students to focus on the highest and best for all, not just for themselves. One of the many, many places in Ernest Holmes writings where he emphasizes this is on page 270 of the Science of Mind textbook, where he says, “The criterion for any man as to what is right or wrong for him is not to be found in some other man’s judgment. The criterion is: Does the thing I wish to do express more life, more happiness, more peace to myself, and at the same time harm no one? If it does, it is right. It is not selfish. But if it is done at the expense of anyone, then in such degree we are making a wrong use of the Law.”

      1. Hello, Sunday, Yes, I am in absolute agreement: the Law can be used in the wrong way. That’s what the article is saying.

  3. I feel that I must take exception here, Harvey.

    While many nefarious uses have been made of visualization and other psychological techniques over time, those techniques neither define New Thought, nor are exclusive to it. To me, New Thought is the application of psychological techniques incorporated into spiritual practices for the purpose of realizing one’s divine identity and potential to a greater degree. One who embodies New Thought principles, using psychological techniques in the process, is to be defined by the intention and the result more than by the tools used.

    Saying that visualization is New Thought is like saying that a wrench is the automobile it is used to manufacture. That same wrench can be used as a weapon when one uses that tool for a different purpose.

    Psychological techniques, as tools, have a variety of applications, some good, some benign, others harmful or destructive. They are not what New Thought is.

    Love and Light,
    Jim

    1. Hi Dr.Jim,
      I absolutely agree and do not believe that I wrote anything counter to the points you raise here. I am not in any way critiquing New Thought as a whole because some of its teachings have been misappropriated. Note that I said it may not be New Thought in any form we recognize. I also said that Evola, and those who follow him today, mistakenly conflate personal will and the the Divine I am presence and distort Neville’s teaching. What’s being hijacked and distorted are the tools of New Thought minus its seeing everyone as a unique expression of Divinity which is the basis of the world that works for everyone theme and the history of openness and tolerance that Mitch Horowitz has oft-cited.
      That said if some New Thought teachings or tools are being hijacked and distorted that is a matter for serious concern for our movement in my view. The alt-right has moved beyond the shadows with its aristocratic race hierarchy ideology and are way too close to positions of power. To say that is not to blame New Thought for this in any way. Most everyone has been caught by surprise by something that wasn’t widely known until the election.

  4. Great food for thought. As New Thought principles are universal anyone can use them.

    Perhaps this will be the impetus for more to become involved in our political process or as we say “to pray and move your feet”

  5. I am totally intrigued by this and feel a bit embarassed about the assumptions that I have made up until now. I will take this on as a personal research project.

  6. Well, I’ve been thinking about this some more. Went over to the other site and skimmed the O’Meara article. “Breathlessly tedious,” is my capsule review. Congrats for being able to read that whole piece and make sense of it.

    Upon reflection, I don’t think there’s any evidence that el Caudillo del Mar-a-lago engages in Neville-inspired practice. He may exemplify “living from the wish fulfilled” but I doubt there was any moment of “going into the silence.” Neville’s exercises, Ernest Holmes’ affirmative prayer, or even yogic breathing – all these things take discipline, dedication, and practice. El Caudillito has never given a sign of engaging in introspection or self-discipline. True, his bluster was expressed in unequivocally positive statements, and some think the Universe responded accordingly. How come that didn’t work when his casinos went bankrupt and he lost the Plaza?

    Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

    1. Hi Maryjane,
      These are all well reasoned points and a critique of O’Meara and “he who shall not be named” that I very much agree with. It absolutely is a pale and distorted imitation of Neville. O’Meara is somewhat literate and he can sound intellectual, but his antisemitism and fascist views are as crude as those things come. But we aren’t in an election year where well reasoned arguments carried the day. From fake social media news stories to conspiracy there is some evidence for what has been called the post-fact era. These alt-right folks are in some degree of ascendancy in the US and Europe and with Jason Jorjani also in the academy and being treated with respect by some mainstream academics. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I hold to belief that light and exposure is an antiseptic for these views.

  7. I’m not sure O’Meara distorted New Thought principles by conflating personal will and the “I Am” presence when New Thought teaches both as universal truths. There is no either/or.

    O’Meara may believe that the mental gymnastics of America’s bigots vaulted Mr. Trump into office. It didn’t. More than two million others visualized a different outcome.

    This reveals several problems that New Thought needs to address: First, metaphysical principles have been reduced to a tool used to manipulate matter and deliver desired outcomes. As mentioned by @Jim Lockard and Rev. Lorna, if the principles are really universal truths, anyone can leverage them, whether that person is a disciple of Darkness or a follower of Jesus.

    We can’t choose who leverages universal principles any more than we can choose who can use a mop. We can’t say that mops were only designed to clean the floors of certain people. And we can’t say that others who use mops “hijacked” them.

    Second, and perhaps more important, if New Thought principles are true, they would produce the same results for everyone–every time. They don’t. So what is the concern in this case?

    As one for whom reincarnation and the paranormal were common dinner-table topics, Harv, you probably have considered the possibility that our thoughts do not control our current circumstances and outcomes. If they did, there would be no such thing as a surprise or a disappointment. We’d always manifest our dominant thoughts and would never experience anything we didn’t think about.

    If New Thought needs to strategize anything, I’d suggest it starts with realigning its principles with the truth that the will of human body costumes cannot overpower the will of the immortal souls. The body does not know why the soul incarnated here and what experiences the soul desired to fulfill that purpose. If the brain-generated prayers, affirmations, denials, thoughts and visualizations were the powerhouses, wouldn’t they always produce the desired results?

    Souls have been thinking since “The Beginning.” We have been creating good and bad karma as long. Frankly, I suspect that the seeds of Mr. Trump’s election were planted centuries ago. America has accumulated a tremendous amount of karmic debt since its birth. Trump and the hateful Anti-Christ energy that surrounds him may tear this country to shreds–and make a substantial payment on that debt.

  8. In the August/September issue of First Things magazine, Matthew Schmitz wrote an interesting piece for the publication’s “The Back Page” titled Donald Trump, Man of Faith. He gave a good biography of Trump’s religious upbringing: baptized and confirmed in the First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, New York; in his late 20s he began attending Marble Collegiate Church when Norman Vincent Peale was the minister. Subsequently, Peale became Trump’s guru and “The Power of Positive Thinking” became Trump’s “bible.” Evidence of that was quite apparent in Trump’s extremely positive attitude that he was going to win the primary elections as well as the general election. He strictly abstains from alcohol, cigarettes, and even coffee (he’d make a good Mormon, which may be why he likes Mitt Romney in spite of Romney’s negativity toward Trump).

    Every political event will bring out the best and the worst in humanity because politics seems to such a “flash point” for humans who want the world to be exactly as they want it! I’d say Trump is a great example of what New Thought is about. The extreme negative ideas of a radical “right” movement by people who do not understand the world the way we who have embraced “New Thought” (I practice Buddhism, personally, and study Hinduism — The Life Divine has become a favorite of mine after reading Holmes suggestion that everyone should read it –but of course enjoy my relationship with the Center for Spiritual Living in my community) understand life and the world around us.

    A good book I just finished reading that explains the evolution of philosophy from Plato and Aristotle to the political evolution that resulted from those philosophies (The Cave and the Light by Arthur Herman) will be highly enlightening to anyone interested in that history to further their understanding of the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, etc. I highly recommend it.

  9. I agree with Jim Lockard that visualization alone is not New Thought. Many people have a misunderstanding of what New Thought is and use it for lots of reasons other than expansion and transformation individually and collectively.

    However, I must say that it is not surprising to me as a member of the New Thought community to the use of what I would call not white nationalism but outright racism. I do so because when you listen to what is said, there is a deep prejudice against whole groups of people because of their race as well as religion and sexual identity. It is not a surprise because I see in New Thought a reading of the teachings that supports a disregard for the challenges of poor and marginalized people when issues around race and discrimination are brought up. It is not across the board but there is a tone deafness that shows a lack of compassion for the experiences of those who have dealt with institutionalized exclusion for centuries.

    1. Hi Shelia,
      Thanks for these important comments.
      I would argue there is more going on than hijacking visualization practice here since these folks are also distorting our essential Oneness with the Divine by making the individual ego and personal will God.
      You raise a most important point that white supremacists could be drawn to elements of New Thought that hold the poor and marginalized as having created their circumstances. I agree there is blindness to systemic causes of poverty and racism in some parts of New Thought.
      I also want to direct interested readers to your post on this blog, “TRUMPeting the Call to Love In Politics,” that was the first article on these pages to address the dangers and opportunities to uplevel consciousness in light of of the Trump candidacy. https://www.harvbishop.com/?p=650
      Best,
      Harv

  10. I have witnessed the “wrong” use of the Law, but I have also seen it correct itself, in my own family. I trust that it will correct itself in our country and world because ultimately God is Love.

    In my own family situation, I did not sit by and let things happen. I was very active in my spiritual work as well as fully participating on the physical level to set things right. I am engaged in the current political situation too, more than I have been in the past. I am on fire now and admit that I was complacent. My feet are moving along with the rest of me.

    Thank you for a thought provoking article.

  11. Harv, the alt-right is a marginal bunch, even among Trump supporters, although they appear to have taken over Breitbart. (Andrew Breitbart was Jewish, BTW; he’d be rolling over in his grave.)

    WE had some of this same discussion on the thread about libertarians and New Thought. I remember citing things Rand had said that resonate well with New Thought. There is overlap, but not complete alignment. I also recall quoting the conservative/libertarian economist Dr. Leonard Read, founder of the Foundation for Economic Education in my hometown (whom I had the privilege of meeting and talking to.) Many sections from Dr. Read’s “Meditations on Freedom” were quoted in the July 1975 issue of Science of Mind, and his essay “I, Pencil”, which you can find online, is well worth reading for any New Thought person.

    so the notion that some of the “alt-right” might be attracted to New Thought doesn’t really surprise me. Fortunately, Mr. Spencer and his group have a following only in the hundreds. But if they bring more people to an awareness of our philosophy, that’s not all bad. Perhaps a deeper, fuller understanding of our principles leads the way out of that destructive movement.

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