Pawling's Optimism No "Secret"

According to a new study conducted by the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School, Americans are the most depressed people on Earth. That finding helps explain why so many people reacted to "The Secret," a book that tells people anything can be attained simply by having a positive outlook on life.

With all the buzz surrounding the Oprah-touted tome, many Americans have suddenly become interested in trading their gloomy outlooks for sunnier ones. But in one New York town, positive thinking isn't just a fad — it's a way of life.

Pawling, N.Y., is a village of optimists in a country of pessimists.

48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty learned that in this town, located 70 miles north of New York City, many real estate values are above the national average — and so are salaries. It's almost as though positive thinking is in Pawling's DNA. The town is home to the Peale Center for Positive Thinking , founded by the original self-help guru Norman Vincent Peale, author of the bestseller "The Power of Positive Thinking."

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According to realtor Taryn Tanner, locals are less likely to feel isolated for a simple reason: the importance of the family.

"Lots of family," he said. "My family goes way back here. There are certain names that you recognize here and that filters through the fabric."

Which is why Christine Pikel opened a scrapbook shop here — a rather risky business many other places. She said Pawling is something of a modern Mayberry and Peale's influence is still evident everywhere.

"We're a product of the people who lived here," Tanner said. "I mean, I was brought up here and you know, from the time I was little: 'Well, do you know who Norman Vincent Peale was?' And you learned the history and what was important to those people, and we may not be able to say 'This is exactly why we're more positive,' but I think it really filters down."

And it filters down far beyond the town's borders. People who go to bookstores today in record numbers to buy self-help books like "The Secret" may not realize that much of what seems so fresh and even revolutionary was — in fact — first popularized by Peale in "The Power of Positive Thinking" more than half a century ago.

"When Dad first wrote 'The Power of Positive Thinking' and it made an instant hit and became very popular," his daughter Maggie Peale Everett said, "that was the first time I think that this whole idea of positive thinking and how your thoughts can influence your actions came into the mainstream of thinking."

Peale, a minister in New York City in the 1930s, wanted to inspire parishioners during the dark days of the Depression when he came up with his simple but effective philosophy: Think your life will improve and it will.

"So he began to talk in an uplifting way that they needed to believe in themselves — that God had put into them as human beings, wonderful potential and the possibility to be all that they could be," Everett said.

Peale and his wife Ruth were also preaching his philosophy on a weekly inspirational television program when he decided to put it into a book.

"But the story goes he was discouraged by it and threw it in the wastebasket and that she retrieved it from the wastebasket and sent it to the publisher," his other daughter Liz Allen said. "I don't know whether that's true or not, but that's the story."

"The irony is that of course she was acting more positively in this situation than he was," Everett said.

The book, published in 1952, still resonates today, even though the economy is no longer depressed but Americans are.

"Some people have characterized it as the poverty of affluence," University of Scranton psychology professor John Norcross said. "The more we have, the more we want, the more expectations. A night at home in front of a crackling fire no longer suffices. We need more and more juice. So when you have impossible expectations, they can't be met, and down goes the esteem."

This emptiness, says Norcross, explains the continuing boom in self-help programs, with 3,000 new books coming out every year.

"Some people call it the Home Depot effect," Norcross said. "We can do this by ourselves. We don't have to go to professional treatment."

Norcross said the fact that so many self-help books exist means that they don't really work, and if they do, usually work for just a short time. More importantly, he said, it means they sell.

"These things would not be published if they weren't selling," Norcross said.

But nothing has ever sold as well as the "The Secret." The book was turned into a blockbuster by television personality Oprah Winfrey who featured it on her show not once, but twice. And it was developed not by a psychologist, but by a former television producer, Rhoda Byrne. Neither Byrne nor any of her collaborators on "The Secret" would sit down for an interview.

"Some of these ideas are certainly not new," Everett said. "They go way, way back. And some of them were very familiar to us as Peale children. I don't think it's a real big secret. I kept going through trying to find, you know, where is the 'secret'?"

Pawling residents gathered at Sunday Morning's request in the local book store to talk about "The Secret."

Some agree with the Peale daughters.

"I thought to myself when I was reading it, 'Oh, it's 'The Power of Positive Thinking,' you know, just re-packaged,'" Michelle said.

Others thought that "The Secret" has something special.

"I heard of it when Oprah had it on television and it really kind of fascinated me and I had to have it," Gabrielle Wilkins said.

At the heart of "The Secret" is something called the Law of Attraction, which the book claims simply gives you whatever you are thinking about. Want money, a new home or how about just a regular parking space? According to "The Secret," just ask and believe and you will get it.

"In some things, it seemed to work," Wilkins said. "There's a thing in there about the parking space and I normally have a hard time finding a parking space. And I had been thinking this morning, 'There's no way I going to find a parking space,' and I say 'I can't think that way,' and then I said, 'I'm going to find a parking space.' And sure enough, I did get one. You know it's nice to have something to believe in. I think in today's world, we need something to believe in, something that will make us go for our goal instead of giving up too easy."

But it is the notion that you will reach your goal simply by believing that has made many psychologists take a rather negative view of "The Secret."

"It is pseudo-scientific babble," Norcross said. "I think it's New Aged-packaging of century-old snake oil."

He said the idea that positive thinking will attract positive people into your life is sound, but "The Secret" goes beyond that.

"It's guaranteed," he said. "There are no guarantees in the psychological world. We would like to believe there is. We want instant, magical solutions, but they're not there."

Everett says that she trusts most people to read the book and not go off the deep end with it.

"I think some people probably do and will with 'The Secret.' And when they don't make a million dollars, they'll go into a depression," she said. "But I think most of us would read 'The Secret' and say, 'Well, this I can take and that doesn't resonate with me.'"

In the process you might just gain some faith in yourself — and if you are really lucky — a little happiness.

"As I say," Allen said, "we all need to have all the help we can get to get through the day, you know?"

For more on positive thinking go to Positive Thinking magazine and The Peale Center for Positive Thinking.