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Abstract
“You are what you think” is a popular self-help philosophy, outlined in books written by Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Shakti Gawain, and others. In a mutable, responsive, quantum universe, the energetic vibrations of thoughts and feelings determine one's life circumstances. Wealth, love, happiness, health, even physical immortality can be obtained by anyone who understands the “Law of Attraction”—that positive vibrations reliably generate positive results. These claims are presented as literal truth, buttressed by developments in modern physics and the insights of Eastern spiritual practitioners. But “you are what you think” is best understood as a myth, a contemporary manifestation of archetypal patterns. I call this self-help philosophy “the myth of unlimited human potential.”
In this study, I undertake an archetypal analysis of the central images or ideas in the myth of unlimited human potential as it appears in bestselling self-help books. For example, “energy” and “abundance,” the “higher self,” and the prescribed “evolution” to a “higher consciousness” in the myth are powerful variations of the archetypal Hero, the Child, and Paradise, the lost state of blissful innocence and security. These come together in the image of the “unlimited,” a free, expansive human being in an infinite cosmos, capable of endless transformation, that is the heart of the myth. The image of the unlimited, as New World, frontier, and the Land of Opportunity for the self-made man, is also an essential component of the American Dream.
The myth of unlimited human potential is relentlessly optimistic about the natural goodness and creative role that individuals play in the world, and this dogmatism creates an unacknowledged shadow. The mythic or archetypal perspective opens up this fundamentalist philosophy of optimism to reveal the psychological fantasies of power, divinity, immortality, and innocence that fuel the myth, along with their less desirable and difficult aspects. What are the implications of the American attachment to the unlimited and to belief in abundance as birthright and singular proof of the well-lived life? What must be denied to participate in the literal enactment of these fantasies? I attempt to shed some light on these questions and problems.
