Change We Can (Almost) Believe In

TIME
March 7, 2011

The American obsession with transformation isn't new. It's as old as the nation. In the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson preached about tapping into the "infinitude man." In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy founded the religions of Christian Science, premised on the limitless power of faith and mind. Norman Vincent Peale was an early best-selling self-help author with The Power of Positive thinking in 1952. But it was Werner Erhard, a learn, wolfish former salesman, who created the first modern transformation empire when he founded EST seminar in 1871 (pg. 59)....And the metaphysical is mainstream. A 2007 Gallup poll found that around 75% of Americans believe in angels and that 50% think they have their own guardian angels. A Pew report on religion said a quarter of Americans held some New Age or Easter beliefs like animism (pg. 61). [link]