Böcker av John S. Haller

Patrician looking but not patrician born, Musmanno was a self-made man memorable in his appearance and congenial to the times until his intentions and aspirations ran afoul of the circumstances. From his journals we see a man of extreme contradictions who sometimes exercised troubling and even controlling relationships over people and events.

New Thought is a diverse movement whose practitioners have only one thing in common: a belief in the power of the mind to bring health, wealth, and fulfillment. In this comprehensive history of New Thought, John Haller traces its roots from the earliest influences to the mind-cure speculations of the late nineteenth century, and shows how its initial emphasis on healing disease morphed into a vision of the mind's ability to bring us whatever we desire. Authors like Dale Carnegie, Norman Vincent Peale, and, more recently, Rhonda Byrne are eagerly read and embraced by millions of people who remain unaware that these writers are merely repeating ideas introduced decades before. The History of New Thought demonstrates the broad and lasting impact that this movement has had on American culture.

Between the Parliament of Religions which met in Chicago in 1893 at the time of the Columbian Exposition, and World War I, Asian religions and philosophies made a significant impact on the United States, causing a profound change in thinking about them, including their relevance to the present. More so than any other religion, Buddhism became a crutch for those who, in the final decades of the nineteenth century, became disillusioned with Christianity‿s claim to superiority over all other faiths. Like so many intellectuals at the time, Carus was seeking a path from the older theologies into a new secular world and its uncertain future. Through The Buddha's Midwife, Paul Carus not only brought elements of Buddhism to the United States, but much of the Western world. This book was written to recount the journey of one of the principal contributors to the spread of Buddhist thinking in American thought and culture. Now, reissued for the first time since its original publishing, The Buddha's Midwife returns to excite and inspire new audiences.Â

John S. Haller presents a series of essays on key figures in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries connected by their fascination with the philosopher, scientist, and mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Highlighted figures include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Fourier, and D. T. Suzuki.

"A highly readable, thoughtful, and detailed study .... No one has yet set the story of Victorian sexuality so firmly in the context of medical history." -Journal of American History