Norman Vincent Peale didn't cotton to whiners much. Feeling down? Buck up, buster. Get happy. "Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities!" he exhorted.

Are your thoughts dark and depressing? Well then, change them!

"Let mental pictures of the most peaceful scenes you have ever witnessed pass across your mind, as, for example, some beautiful valley filled with the hush of evening time. . . . Or recall the silvery light of the moon falling upon rippling waters."

He was the Mr. Feelgood of his day, peddling a sensibility and a smile - and millions listened.

So isn't it strange that now, nearly 50 years later, we're hearing that these ideas are all some big secret? The Secret, in fact.

By now, Rhonda Byrne's hot little New Age book, based on her popular DVD, has inspired rage from everyone from Nora Ephron to a blogger named Marcus who admits he hasn't read the book but holds his nose just thinking about it, as if asked to put out a dog that's just peed on the rug.

"The Secret just smells like something I'm going to hear about far more than I want to," he sniffs.

Self-help books will do that to certain crowds. And a self-help book that advocates that you can have that dream car, that long-awaited vacation, that amazing-whatever-you've-always-wanted - just by willing it - well, that might as well have a bull's-eye on its title page.

But no one has more right to be peeved than Peale. Not only has Byrne come so close to his ideas that they border, on occasion, on plagiarism, but she has turned his earnest, Christian take on life into a New Age playground with little or no adult supervision. Believe in yourself! she agrees. But don't stop there.

"Begin right now to shout to the universe, 'Life is so easy! Life is so good! All good things come to me!' "

I recently picked up Peale's 1952 hit The Power of Positive Thinking at the library. With The Secret making news, I wondered how the self-empowerment classic, which spent 186 consecutive weeks on the best-seller list, would compare.

To be honest, I was surprised at Peale's stringent Christian stance. The title has become such a sectarian catchphrase, I had forgotten Peale was a trained minister, leader of one of the largest churches in New York at the time.

Strip the words "God" from his text and substitute "the universe," though, and Byrne has all but co-opted his advice.

Consider Peale on the subject of being upbeat in the morning: A person should "start each day by affirming peaceful, contented, and happy attitudes and your days will tend to be pleasant and successful," he writes.

Ditto Byrne: "Create your day in advance by thinking the way you want it to go, and you will create your life intentionally."

Peale advises readers to picture what they want in life. "Do this and you will be astonished at the strange ways in which the picturization comes to pass."

Ditto Byrne: "When you visualize, you generate powerful thoughts and feelings of having it now. The law of attraction then returns that reality to you, just as you saw it in your mind."

Byrne notes that like attracts like on a scientifically proven physical level. Put out thoughts of what you want and you'll get back exactly that.

"Thoughts are magnetic," she writes, "and thoughts have frequency."

Wouldn't you know, Peale beat her to the punch decades ago: "The human body's magnetic power has actually been tested," he writes.

The similarities are striking enough to raise an eyebrow, though some have accused Peale of taking ideas from earlier theorists, himself. And even in Peale's day, much of the pseudo-science stuff was considered, by some, off-the-charts crazy. But a punch-drunk Byrne makes her predecessor look downright sober, in comparison. It's the differences between them that have no doubt set Peale to muttering in his grave - and not positively, either.

Here's where we've come in 50 years:

• Peale wrote about his theories after 30 years of counseling people in the church and observing tactics that he claimed work.

• Byrne's book was born of "a few short weeks" tracing The Secret "back through the centuries," she says, and a few months filming self-help gurus.

• Peale speaks in the restrained voice of Robert Young in Father Knows Best. You might not get everything you want, he says, because: "Perhaps that would not be good for you." He repeatedly asks readers to be sure what they desire is "the right thing." "Forget self, think of others," he admonishes. Consider throwing yourself into "good causes."

• Byrne, by contrast, is a breathless teen IM-ing her friends about a big sale at the mall: "Just ask once," Byrne tells readers of sending their desires out into the universe. "It is exactly like placing an order from a catalogue." Self-sacrifice, she says, is for the birds. "Sacrificing," after all, "does not feel good."

Draw your own conclusions about what this says about modern culture. As for me, I admit that I'm not a deeply devout person. With all the religious strife in the world, I sometimes wonder if we wouldn't learn to get along better with fewer houses of worship and more episodes of Beauty and the Geek.

Even so, I have to side with minister Peale. When it comes to happiness, should it be all about me? All the time? Do we really want a party princess leading the way with a spiritual charge card in her hand?

It's telling that while Peale offers 10 ways to make friends, near the end of The Power of Positive Thinking - including: "Don't be egotistical . . . Be natural and normally humble" - Byrne doesn't much approve of that sort of talk: "The earth turns on its orbit for You," she writes.

I can almost see Peale, the eternal optimist, rubbing his eyes beneath his owlish glasses and recoiling at the very thought.

Of course, then he would quickly gather his wits about him, recognizing the necessity of the task at hand: Think about rippling waters, he'd repeat to himself. Rippling waters, rippling waters . . . .

Double take

Norman Vincent Peale? Or Rhonda Byrne? It isn't always easy to tell when reading The Secret.

• Peale: "The happiness habit is developed by simply practicing happy thinking. Make a mental list of happy thoughts and pass them through your mind several times every day. If an unhappiness thought should enter your mind, immediately stop, consciously eject it, and substitute a happiness thought."

• Byrne: "You have the power to change anything, because you are the one who chooses your thoughts and you are the one who feels your feelings. . . . Make a list of some Secret Shifters to have up your sleeve. By Secret Shifters, I mean things that can change your feelings in a snap."

• Peale: "Ask God for any right thing, but as a little child, don't doubt. Doubt closes the power flow."

• Byrne: "When you allow a thought of doubt to enter your mind, the law of attraction will soon line up one doubtful thought after another. The moment a thought of doubt comes, release it immediately."

• Peale: "All of the universe is in vibration. There are vibrations in the molecules of a table. The air is filled with vibrations. . . . When you send out a prayer for another person . . . you awaken vibrations in the universe through which God brings to pass the good objectives prayed for."

• Byrne: "In simple terms, all energy vibrates at a frequency. Being energy, you also vibrate at a frequency, and what determines your frequency at any time is whatever you are thinking and feeling."

Who are we kidding?

Last week we asked if you were tired of the political correctness that keeps us looking over our shoulders with every joke we tell. How you voted:

90.6% of voters said "Yes! enough with the political correctness already!"

9.4% said "No! We should be sensitive to others' feelings."

thornp@RockyMountainNews.com (303)954-5419.

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