Louise Hay, Founder Of The New Thought Metaphysical Self-Help Movement Dead At 90
Louise Hay and her book, “You Can Heal Your Life”, brought a whole new concept to self-help by asking yourself who really is in charge of your life? You or everyone else? She introduced the idea of positive thought, stop “stinkin” thinking and helped you understand the power words and belief systems could make the “you” that you exist with, a healthy and happy person or sick and miserable. It was a totally new approach to healing and how to deal with your day to day trials. Thousands eagerly embraced her new beliefs because they were ready to but she also met with many disbelievers that having that much power over our life was a scam. Free will was a way of life for her, not just a concept.
Hay died on Wednesday at her home in San Diego. She was 90. Her death was announced on the website of her company, Hay House. Hay built her self-help publishing empire from that 1984 best seller that attracted millions of devotees with its messages about the power of thought and attitude. In books like “You Can Heal Your Life,” “The Power Is Within You” and “Meditations to Heal Your Life,” she put across an upbeat message with metaphysical undertones. She wrote that there is a link between thoughts and disease and life’s other misfortunes and she urged people to find a positive way to deal with even the worst of them. She became an early example of self-improvement doctrine that has taken hold over the last several decades. She was once labeled by the Times as “The New Age Queen”.
She started Hay House in her living room in the mid-1980s, which grew into a multimillion-dollar company handling a long roster of authors and an extensive line of products, including books, CDs and online courses. The company also staged lectures and workshops featuring its authors. She had a story like all of us and her youth dealt her many challenges for her to overcome. She recalled being abused by her stepfather and raped by a neighbor around the age of 5. As a teenager, she dropped out of school and gave birth to a girl, her only child, whom she gave up for adoption. She moved to New York, became a fashion model and then married an English businessman. She divorced 14 years later and her devastation over it brought her to the First Church of Religious Science in Manhattan, whose message about the power of thought to improve one’s circumstances resonated. “I heard somebody say there, ‘If you’re willing to change your thinking, you can change your life,’” she told The Times Magazine. “My jaw dropped. I said, ‘Really?’” Hay began to study and practice that philosophy and around 1977, as she told the story, she had a chance to put it to a serious test when she was given a diagnosis of cervical cancer. “She concluded, she said, that the disease had been caused by lingering resentment over the childhood abuse.” Refusing medical treatment, she cured herself with a regimen that included nutrition, reflexology and forgiveness. She went on to become heavily involved with HIV patients at the beginning of the epidemic, giving them hope and comfort long before a medical treatment was found.
Susan Z’s Conclusion:
Louise Hay and Wayne Dyer were both ground breaking self-help metaphysical teachers that changed the way you could live your life. Being enlightened certainly does not keep you from experiencing life’s bumps and bruises, sometimes you wrote it that way but those positive mind teachings did help you find the strength to come out the other side of it with a better understanding of to deal with a bad situation and then make it better. An interesting FYI, Hay and Dyer were great friends and she passed away on the 2nd anniversary of his death. They were followed devoutly by those who believed and also called charlatans and scammers by those who didn’t. Once again, either it works for you or not but I believe Louise Hay intentions were from the heart. Namaste
King of Swords:
Bringing advice and carrying out contracts. Can also represent a cruel person. I believe this card was pulled representing what Hay tried to teach…to be kind to ourselves regardless of the life contract we were dealt.
Four of Cups: Inverted (Upside Down)
Feeling of boredom and stuckedness. (my new word, lol!) I feel this is the energy in which Hay passed. She felt she did what she had come to do here in this life and her body could not keep up anymore.
Ace of Pentacles: Inverted
Financial gain, wealth and self-worth. Since inverted, I believe Hay was not in it solely for the money but to truly help. It is interesting how our society still holds poverty consciousness for helpers and healers if they happen to gain wealth from sharing their gifts.
Susan Z Rich is an emotional addiction counselor, spiritual intuitive and holistic therapist. She counsels others to see life in a more positive way and teaches personal accountability for life choices. She is also the author of several children’s books and Soul Windows…Secrets From The Divine.