Ronald Reagan often spoke of Americas divine purpose and of a mysterious plan behind the nations founding. You can call it mysticism if you want to, he told the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1974, but I have always believed that there was some divine plan that placed this great continent between two oceans to be sought out by those who were possessed of an abiding love of freedom and a special kind of courage. These were remarks to which Reagan often returned. He repeated them almost verbatim as president before a television audience of millions for the Statue of Liberty centenary on July 4, 1986.

When touching on such themes, Reagan echoed the work, and sometimes the phrasing, of occult scholar Manly P. Hall.

From the dawn of Halls career in the early 1920s until his death in 1990, the Los Angeles teacher wrote about Americas secret destiny. The United States, in Halls view, was a society that had been planned and founded by secret esoteric orders to spread enlightenment and liberty to the world.

In 1928, Hall attained underground fame when, at the remarkably young age of twenty-seven, he published The Secret Teachings of All Ages, a massive codex to the mystical and esoteric philosophies of antiquity. Exploring subjects from Native American mythology to Pythagorean mathematics to the geometry of ancient Egypt, this encyclopedia arcana remains the unparalleled guidebook to ancient symbols and esoteric thought. The Secret Teachings won the admiration of figures ranging from General John Pershing to Elvis Presley. Novelist Dan Brown cites it as a key source.

After publishing his Great Book, Hall spent the rest of his life lecturing and writing within the walls of his Egypto-art deco campus, the Philosophical Research Society, in L.A.s Griffith Park neighborhood. Hall called the place a mystery school in the mold of Pythagorass ancient academy.

It was there in 1944 that the occult thinker produced a short work, one little known beyond his immediate circle. This book, The Secret Destiny of America,evidently caught the eye of Reagan, then a middling movie actor gravitating toward politics.

Halls concise volume described how America was the product of a Great Plan for religious liberty and self-governance, launched by a hidden order of ancient philosophers and secret societies. In one chapter, Hall described a rousing speech delivered by a mysterious unknown speaker before the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The strange man, wrote Hall, invisibly entered and exited the locked doors of the statehouse in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, delivering an oration that bolstered the wavering spirits of the delegates. God has given America to be free! commanded the mysterious speaker, urging the men to overcome their fears of being hanged or beheaded, and to seal destiny by signing the great document. Newly emboldened, the delegates rushed forward to add their names. They looked to thank the stranger only to discover that he had vanished from the locked room. Was this, Hall wondered, one of the agents of the secret Order, guarding and directing the destiny of America?

At a 1957 commencement address at his alma mater Eureka College, Reagan, then a corporate spokesman for General Electric, sought to inspire students with this leaf from occult history. This is a land of destiny, Reagan said, and our forefathers found their way here by some Divine system of selective service gathered here to fulfill a mission to advance man a further step in his climb from the swamps. Reagan then retold (without naming a source) the tale of Halls unknown speaker. When they turned to thank the speaker for his timely words, Reagan concluded, he couldnt be found and to this day no one knows who he was or how he entered or left the guarded room. Reagan revived the story in 1981, when Parade magazine asked the president for a personal essay on what July 4 meant to him. Presidential aide Michael Deaver delivered the piece with a note saying, This Fourth of July message is the presidents own words and written initially in the presidents hand, on a yellow pad at Camp David. Reagan retold the legend of the unknownspeakerthis time using language very close to Halls own: When they turned to thank him for his timely oratory, he was not to be found, nor could any be found who knew who he was or how he had come in or gone out through the locked and guarded doors.

Where did Hall uncover the tale that inspired a president? The episode originated as The Speech of the Unknown in a collection of folkloric stories about Americas founding, published in 1847 under the title Washington and His Generals,or Legends of the Revolutionby American social reformer and muckraker George Lippard. Lippard, a friend of Edgar Allan Poe, had a strong taste for the gothiche cloaked his mystery man in a dark robe. He also tacitly acknowledged inventing the story: The name of the Orator . . . is not definitely known. In this speech, it is my wish to compress some portion of the fiery eloquence of the time.

For his part, Hall seemed to know almost nothing about the storys point of origin. He had been given a copy of the Speech of the Unknown by a since-deceased secretary of the occult Theosophical Society, but with no bibliographical information other than its being from a rare old volume of early American political speeches. The speech appeared in 1938 in the Societys journal, The Theosophist, with the sole note that it was published in a rare volume of addresses, and known probably to only one in a million, even of American citizens.

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Ronald Reagan and the occultist: The amazing story of the thinker behind his sunny optimism

Napoleon Hill, author of "Think And Grow Rich" He was an American author and one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. His most famous and best-selling book Think And Grow Rich sold 30 60 million (data varies) copies since it was published for the first time in 1937.

Despite the title Think And Grow Rich Hills aim was not only to enable people to get rich. His intention was particularly to examine the power of personal beliefs and the role they play in personal success.

Napoleon Hill wanted to identify how achievement of any kind actually occurs and how to derive a formula of success that could be applied by the average person.

INTERRUPTION ALERT Before Think And Grow Rich in 1925 Napoleon Hill published his FIRST book titled:

The Law of Success in Fifteen Lessons. This is the actual book that Andrew Carnegie commissioned him to do in 1908. The original version of The Law of Success was finished by Napoleon Hill in 1925 and released as a limited hand made edition consisting of only 118 copies. Each of these distinctive editions were comprised of 15 booklets and given to many of the most successful businessmen of the day, self-made billionaires, inventors, Presidents, and others who shaped and built modern America; all of whom had contributed to the book's content. People like John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Alexander Graham Bell and many others. Hill interviewed over 500 people in all, but reserved the 118 copies for individuals who had been particularly important to his research. Andrew Carnegie

Henry Ford did not like the fact that Andrew Carnegie had shared SECRETS with Napoleon Hill and in turn Mr. Hill had published a book based on this information. Mr. Ford bought up all the published issues of The Law of Success in Fifteen lessons and allowed a watered down version of the book, this time titled "The Law of Success in Sixteen Lesson", published in 1928.

For whatever reason, "The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons" was reduced to a smaller more "convenient" book titled, you guessed it right, "Think and Grow Rich which was published in 1937.

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Bunk

I was highly disappointed when I read this book. Napoleon Hill is dead on on some very obvious and commonsensical things but way off on tons of others. Yes, autosuggestion & visualizing your outcomes are good exercises but are common sense for most people unless you have super low self-esteem. Nothing new here. Tips on how to write a resume and apply for a job are helpful to the would-be job applicant, but that isnt why you bought this book. My biggest bone of contention is due to the metaphysical/new-age overtones throughout the book. Napoleon Hill espouses a concept called infinite intelligence, but never defines it. It is something more like an omnipresent god-force or life force. This is total hogwash, and wont solve any MAJOR problems. You dont hear of scientists tapping into infinite intelligence to seek out a cure for cancer. How come I can't tap into this mysterious force, to say, tell me the winning lotto numbers or pick winning stocks? Maybe because it is total nonsense. Hill also commits the sunk cost fallacy in the story he tells where somebody stopped digging just three feet short from striking gold. While I see his point that many times just a little more effort will result in a sizeable payoff, sometimes one must know when to stop a futile endeavor. Hill advocates being persistent, but says nothing about how to identify situations when it should be stopped and a new goal should be sought. Hill is a strong advocate of positive thinking. Who isnt? Did I have to read this book to find out that it is better to think positively than negatively? No way. While positive thinking is good for many things, it cannot cure Parkinson's Disease or Alzheimers. Napoleon Hill says you can be anything you want to be. Total bunk. If this is true, why didn't he become the next Carnigee or Rockefeller? Does this statement not apply to him, and if it doesn't apply to him, why should it apply to others? Hill also commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, which is Someone did x to become successful, therefore x caused their success. You can't use an example of one person who achieved sucess against tremendous odds and say that therefore anyone can surmount these odds. We hear of the few who are successful against the odds but not of the many who fail. That is how the real world works. Not everyone can be a Bill Gates or a Micheal Jordan. Hill mentions nothing about realistically assessing your skillsets against your goals. He just says go for it. That is stupid. Better advice is to try lowering your standards a bit and you will find you can achieve your goals much easier. Maybe you cant build a huge software corporation but you can have a thriving small consulting firm. I don't care how positive you are, there's some things you can't do because of lack of competency. Thats the sober truth, and it won't sell books.

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Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill | 9781604591873 ...

Think and Grow Rich is a 1937 motivational personal development and self-help book by Napoleon Hill [1] and inspired by a suggestion from Scottish-American businessman Andrew Carnegie. While the title implies that this book deals with how to get rich, the author explains that the philosophy taught in the book can be used to help people succeed in all lines of work and to do or be almost anything they want.[2]Jim Murray (sportswriter) wrote that Think and Grow Rich was credited for Ken Norton's boxing upset of Muhammad Ali in 1973.[3][4] The Reverend Charles Stanley writes, "I began to apply the principles of (Think and Grow Rich) to my endeavors as a pastor, and I discovered they worked!" [5] The book was first published during the Great Depression.[6] At the time of Hill's death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold more than 20 million copies and by 2011 over 70 million copies had been sold worldwide.[7][8] It remains the biggest seller of Napoleon Hill's books. BusinessWeek Magazine's Best-Seller List ranked it the sixth best-selling paperback business book 70 years after it was published.[9]Think and Grow Rich is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List. [10]

The text of Think and Grow Rich is founded on Hill's earlier work The Law of Success, the result of more than twenty years of research based on Hill's close association with a large number of individuals who achieved great wealth during their lifetimes.[6]

At Andrew Carnegie's bidding, Hill studied the characteristics of these achievers and developed 16 "laws" of success meant to be applied by people to achieve success. Think and Grow Rich condenses these laws further and provides the reader with 13 principles in the form of a philosophy of personal achievement.[6] International Speaker Mark Victor Hansen says time has proven 2 of the laws/principles to be most important: 1) The MasterMind principle/process and 2) "Know very clearly where you want to go."

It is noted in the book that an individual with desire, faith and persistence can reach great heights by eliminating negative energy and thoughts and focusing on the greater goals in hand.

The 13 "steps" listed in the book are: 1. Desire 2. Faith 3. Autosuggestion 4. Specialized Knowledge 5. Imagination 6. Organized Planning 7. Decision 8. Persistence 9. Power of the Master Mind 10. The Mystery of Sex Transmutation 11. The Subconscious Mind 12. The Brain 13. The Sixth Sense

The first edition of Think and Grow Rich was released in March 1937. Despite limited promotion, mostly word of mouth, the original print run of 5,000 sold out in six weeks, at $2.50 a copy. Another 10,000 copies were printed, all of which also sold in six weeks. The third print totaled 20,000.[12]W. Clement Stone wrote: "One of the most important days in my life was the day I began to read Think and Grow Rich in 1937.[13]

Think and Grow Rich was revised in 1960. This version was originally published by Crest Book, Fawcett Publications. This revised edition includes the following testimonial from W. Clement Stone on the inside front cover page: More men and women have been motivated to achieve success because of reading Think and Grow Rich than by any other book written by a living author. [14] In 1987, Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton hosted a TV infomercial that sold the 1960 version with an audio cassette version of the book (the audio cassettes contained an introduction and conclusion by Tarkenton and supplemental study guides).[15] In the introduction noted above, Tarkenton stated that he believed Think and Grow Rich to be "the greatest most honored formula for success that has ever been developed."[16]

In 2004 a revised text was published in a version titled Think and Grow Rich: The 21st-Century Edition: Revised and Updated. It was published by High Roads Media. In this version, author and editor Bill Hartley introduces modern examples of Hill's principles combined with editorial commentary throughout the book.

Indian Low Price Edition - Published In 2007 with title ' Think And Grow Rich Napoleon Hill '[17]

Among recent adaptations of the book are several illustrated versions. The most well known was a graphic novel produced by Smarter Comics. This version sticks to the original content but adds the element of visual presentation and modern exemplars of similar events discussed in original versions.[18]

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Think and Grow Rich - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Choose from over 700 personal development ebooks and audios! Learn how you can become a member of Cornerstone Book Club. Claim your free prosperity ebook and email course . . .

Founder of The Science Of Success

"Whatever your mind can conceive and believe it can achieve." - Napoleon Hill

American born Napoleon Hill is considered to have influenced more people into success than any other person in history. He has been perhaps the most influential man in the area of personal success technique development, primarily through his classic book Think and Grow Rich which has helped million of the people and has been important in the life of many successful people such as W. Clement Stone and Og Mandino.

Napoleon Hill was born into poverty in 1883 in a one-room cabin on the Pound River in Wise County, Virginia. At the age of 10 his mother died, and two years later his father remarried. He became a very rebellious boy, but grew up to be an incredible man. He began his writing career at age 13 as a "mountain reporter" for small town newspapers and went on to become America's most beloved motivational author. Fighting against all class of great disadvantages and pressures, he dedicated more than 25 years of his life to define the reasons by which so many people fail to achieve true financial success and happiness in their life.

During this time he achieved great success as an attorney and journalist. His early career as a reporter helped finance his way through law school. He was given an assignment to write a series of success stories of famous men, and his big break came when he was asked to interview steel-magnate Andrew Carnegie. Mr. Carnegie commissioned Hill to interview over 500 millionaires to find a success formula that could be used by the average person. These included Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Elmer Gates, Charles M. Schwab, Theodore Roosevelt, William Wrigley Jr, John Wanamaker, WIlliam Jennings Bryan, George Eastman, Woodrow Wilson, William H. Taft, John D. Rockefeller, F. W. Woolworth, Jennings Randolph, among others.

He became an advisor to Andrew Carnegie, and with Carnegie's help he formulated a philosophy of success, drawing on the thoughts and experience of a multitude of rags-to-riches tycoons. It took Hill over 20 years to produce his book, a classic in the Personal Development field called Think and Grow Rich. This book has sold over 7 million copies and has helped thousands achieve success. The secret to success is very simple but you'll have to read the book to find out what it is!

Napoleon Hill passed away in November 1970 after a long and successful career writing, teaching, and lecturing about the principles of success. His work stands as a monument to individual achievement and is the cornerstone of modern motivation. His book, Think and Grow Rich, is the all time best-seller in the field.

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A biography of Napoleon Hill (1883-1970) - Founder of The Science ...

Napoleon Hill

Portrait of a young Napoleon Hill

Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 November 8, 1970) was an American author in the area of the new thought movement who was one of the earliest producers of the modern genre of personal-success literature. He is widely considered to be one of the great writers on success.[1] His most famous work, Think and Grow Rich (1937), is one of the best-selling books of all time (at the time of Hill's death in 1970, Think and Grow Rich had sold 20 million copies).[2] Hill's works examined the power of personal beliefs, and the role they play in personal success. He became an advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1936. "What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve" is one of Hill's hallmark expressions.[3][4] How achievement actually occurs, and a formula for it that puts success in reach of the average person, were the focal points of Hill's books.

According to his official biographer, Tom Butler-Bowdon, Napoleon Hill was born in a one-room cabin near the Appalachian town of Pound, in Southwest Virginia.[5] Hill's mother died when he was nine years old, and his father remarried two years later. At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter" for small-town newspapers in the area of Wise County, Virginia. He later used his earnings as a reporter to enter law school, but soon he had to withdraw for financial reasons.[6]

Hill considered the turning point in his life to have occurred in the year 1908 with his assignment, as part of a series of articles about famous and successful men, to interview the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. At the time, Carnegie was one of the most powerful men in the world. Hill discovered that Carnegie believed that the process of success could be outlined in a simple formula that anyone would be able to understand and achieve. Impressed with Hill, Carnegie asked him if he was up to the task of putting together this information, to interview or analyze over 500 successful men and women, many of them millionaires, in order to discover and publish this formula for success.[7]

As part of his research, Hill claimed to have interviewed many of the most successful people of the time in the United States. In the acknowledgments section of his 1928 multi-volume work The Law of Success,[8] Hill listed 45 of those studied by him during the previous twenty years, "the majority of these men at close range, in person", like the three to whom the book set was dedicated, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Edwin C. Barnes, an associate of Thomas Edison. Carnegie had given Hill a letter of introduction to Ford,[9] who introduced Hill to Alexander Graham Bell, Elmer R. Gates, Thomas Edison, and Luther Burbank.[10] According to the publishers, Ralston University Press (Meriden, Conn.), endorsements for the publishing of The Law of Success were sent by a number of them, including William H. Taft, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, E.M. Statler, Edward W. Bok, and John D. Rockefeller.[9][10] The list in the acknowledgments also includes, among those of them personally interviewed by Hill,[10]Rufus A. Ayers, John Burroughs, Harvey Samuel Firestone, Elbert H. Gary, James J. Hill, George Safford Parker, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles M. Schwab, Frank A. Vanderlip, John Wanamaker, F. W. Woolworth, Daniel Thew Wright, and William Wrigley, Jr. Hill was also an advisor to two presidents of the United States of America, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.[9][11]

As a result of Hill's studies via Carnegie's introductions, the Philosophy of Achievement was offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success by Hill and Carnegie, published initially in 1928 as the multi-volume study course The Law of Success.[8] For this first edition, Hill had rewritten his previous 1925 manuscript,[9] also recently released in 2011.[12][13] The Achievement formula was detailed further and published in home-study courses, including the seventeen-volume "Mental Dynamite" series until 1941.

Hill later called his personal success teachings "The Philosophy of Achievement", and he considered freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony to be important contributing elements to this philosophy. Hill claimed throughout his writings that without these foundations upon which to build, successful personal achievements were not possible. He contrasted his philosophy with others' and thought that the Achievement Philosophy was superior. He felt that it was responsible for the success Americans enjoyed for the better part of two centuries. Negative emotions such as fear, selfishness, etc., had no part to play in his philosophy. Hill considered those emotions to be the source of failure for unsuccessful people.[14]

The secret of achievement was tantalizingly offered to readers of Think and Grow Rich, but Hill felt readers would benefit most if they discovered it for themselves. Although most readers feel that he never explicitly identified this secret, he offers these words about 20 pages into the book: If you truly desire money so keenly that your desire is an obsession, you will have no difficulty in convincing yourself that you will acquire it. The object is to want money, and to be so determined to have it that you convince yourself that you will have it. . . You may as well know, right here, that you can never have riches in great quantities unless you work yourself into a white heat of desire for money, and actually believe you will possess it. However, Napoleon Hill also states at the introduction that the secret that the 'canny, lovable old Scotsman carelessly tossed it into my mind' (Andrew Carnegie) was also the same secret that Manuel L. Quezon (then Resident Commissioner of the Philippine Islands) was inspired by to 'gain freedom for his people, and went on to lead them as its first president.' And although a burning desire for money is mentioned throughout the book, it would be both presumptuous and folly to presume it is this which is the secret that Hill refers to, especially since the 'secret' is far more effective if realised by the reader when they are ready for it.

He presented the idea of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers in order to make them ask themselves, "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, 98% of people had few or no firm beliefs, and this alone put true success firmly out of their reach.[15]

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