Is there a self-help movement in Poland?

I saw Louise Hay's books have been translated into Polish. Is she popular there? And what about the controversial "The Secret"? And binaural beats?

They're NOT the same! The Secret made me depressed that no matter how much I visualized what I wanted, it never came.

On the other hand, Louise Hay taught self acceptance and positivity. She taught people to enjoy the road, even with the bumps without being too set to a specific end result. And that is what really makes one feel good. Her voice was warm and full of light "All is well in my world. All is well in my world... I love you." said she in a recording and it really makes me feel warm. Other people's voices have no effect on me.

Binaural beats are just frequencies said to help you feel good or cure a specific health issue. IMO old ones (made before 2014) had a good effect. New ones are useless, promise ridiculous things (changing your eye color, really?!) and only help producers get rich. What's Poles take on the New Thought and New Wave movements?

No, never heard of her.


Never heard of her coz I don`t need her any more. If I was younger, why not - I could gladly be educated by Loise how to gain self-acceptance and positivity. However, I didn`t know about her at the time and had to consult traditional therapists with my problems. I have been successfully working on them for decades and today I can say I am a free and happy man - self-accepted and positive, not worried about anything

She actually saved me once. I guess my subconscious mind is my worst enemy but what can one expect with a programming from a weak-willed mother that didn't thought me how to love myself and a verbally abusive father. The good thing is affirmations put me in a better state of mind but I have to do them often.

That's where I draw the line though, I don't like stuff like The Secret, crystals, homeopathy, chakras etc.

.youtube.com/watch?v=KhG1qjc6jSw

All that crapola, plus 'biomagnetic' 'therapy', Ayn Rand rubbish, 'ascended master teaching' , stuff with crystals, 'chiropracty' and reflexology too.

Self-improvement books seem largely unpopular on the Continent.
Not sure about Poland, but I know personally that for years, this US-style
self-help as well as exercise culture a la Jack La Laine or Vic Tanney, not
to mention Dale Carnegie, John Molloy ("Dress For Success") etc. didn't seem
to resonate much in France or Germany.

Perhaps things have changed some.

They've always been around, including some seriously weird stuff. A few years ago they were pushing drivel from a guy called Norman Vincent Peale though thank fúck it never caught on in PL.

Now the Ayn Rand cult is dumping her 'books' in PL as cheap editions. There's also 'NLP' now and worse besides.

They used to sell headsets where people used to listen to words being read out to a background of white noise in the hope they'd learn English without actually trying.

Norman Vincent Peale was the long time minister of the Marble Collegiate Church in
mid-town Manhattan! A lovely looking edifice as I remember.

Ayn Rand's character Howard Roark the architect in "The Fountainhead has been used to
heighten a Republican philosophy of total self reliance, even mocking the need for both G-d
and religion itself.

Hers was the forerunner of the EST movement during the late '70's "We are where we are by choice alone",
as you might recall.

Actually, the first self-help books in North America were both written by actor Douglas
Fairbanks around 1917, "Laugh & Live" as well "Making life Worthwhile", personifying
the American "Can do" spirit in more naive days. They pre-dated Dale Carnegie and Napoleon
Hill by at least ten to twenty years.

I've seen it and thought it was beautiful.


She didn't even believe the rubbish she wrote herself. A failed Hollywood screenwriter who hit on a scam to sell unreadable books to sad young men.


Were they something to do with 'Esalen'.? I knew a young actor once who used to pay a group either somehow connected to them or based on them thousands for 'training'. He went off and lived on a commune connected with them eventually and was never heard of again.


Have you read any Mary Baker Eddy? My old man used to recite a thing she wrote about illness not being real. He lived into his nineties and was going to the gym three times a week when he was 88 and was working u til the lockdowns so it obviously did him no harm.

It's weird - I never heard if Esalen and now that's the third time in a few weeks someone mentioned it - I must put it on my list of things to google

Mary Baker Eddy's Christian Science Movement of self-healing inspired that quip by
humorist Tom Lehrer in the '60's when he commented re: politicians
having their hands tied and therefore not able to pass legislation that
it was not unlike a Christian Scientist with appendicitis!

'Esalen'? No. EST was the abbr. for "Erhard Seminar Training" and was
the nightmare brainchild of an American businessman with the pseudonym
Werner Erhard adapted from the family name of the German economist and post-war
Chancellor who succeeded Adenauer, namely, Dr. Ludwig Erhard.
Apparently this American (who happened to be Jewish, by the way) so admired
former Chancelllor Erhard, that he decided to adopt his last name. Go figure.

Well dodgy. I think that was what the guy I knew did rather than Esalen.

There's a thing in Poland called Himavanti. I know someone who is or was in it. He's very respectable however the whole thing sounds freaky.

Apparently one of the top people was locked up in either a prison or a mental hospital or both for wanting to kill JPII. He evidently had't read a Polish translation of "How to win friends and influence people".

Yes, probably.

The "New Wave" movements have corrupted the Polish minds too, but such books have been popular for a few decades now in Poland. It's not something that happened yesterday.