BOOKS
Beyond 'The Secret': self-help, New Thought and more

IN THE NORTHEAST
• Glenn W. Shuck is assistant professor of religion at Williams College in Williamstown, Mass. His areas of expertise include evangelicalism in North America and New Religious Movements. He edited (with Jeffrey R. Kripal) On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture (Indiana University Press, 2005). Contact 413-597-2338, glenn.w.shuck@williams.edu.
• Carol MacPherson Kauffman is assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard University Medical School. She founded Positive Psychology Coaches, which helps clients by focusing on their strengths rather than their weaknesses and stresses research-based measurement and exercises. Kauffman is an adherent of the new field of positive psychology and the scientific study of happiness. She says that it’s probably not possible to attract things with thought but that by being open to positive experiences, people notice and emphasize them. She can discuss research in the field. Contact 781-646-3600, carol@positivepsychologycoaches.com.
• Steve Carty Cordry is minister of Unity Church of God in Somerville, Mass., on Cape Cod. Contact 617-623-1212, steve.cartycordry@verizon.net.

IN THE EAST
• Eric Michael Mazur is associate professor and chairman of the department of religion at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. He edited (with Kate McCarthy) God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture (Routledge, 2000). Contact 570-577-3525, mazur@bucknell.edu.
• Beryl Satter is associate professor of history at Rutgers University. She can discuss the development of New Thought philosophy and religion in the United States. She wrote Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity and the New Thought Movement, 1875-1920 (University of California Press, 1999). Contact 973-353-5410 ext. 36, berylsatter@mindspring.com.
• The Rev. Joyce E. Anderson is minister at the New York Center of Truth in Brooklyn, a New Thought church affiliated with the Universal Foundation for Better Living. Contact 718-940-8700.

IN THE SOUTHEAST
• Henry S. Levinson is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He wrote The Religious Investigations of William James (University of North Carolina Press, 1981) and is an expert on 19^th-century American transcendentalist thinkers. Contact 336-334-5762, hslevins@uncg.edu.
• The Rev. Temple Hayes is pastoral care minister of First Unity Church in St. Petersburg, Fla. Contact 727-527-2222, reverendtemple@firstunity.org.
• Phillip Charles Lucas is a professor of religious studies at Stetson University in DeLand, Fla. He is an authority on new and minority religions. Among books he has edited are (with Thomas Robbins) New Religious Movements in the 21st Century: Legal, Political and Social Challenges in Global Perspective (Routledge, 2004) and The Future of New and Minority Religions in the Twenty-First Century: Religious Freedom Under Global Siege (Routledge, 2004). Contact 386-822-8894, plucas@stetson.edu.
• Amanda Porterfield, historian of American religion, is a religion professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee. She is particularly interested in the interplay of religion and culture and has written about Mary Baker Eddy. Contact 850-644-5433, aporterf@mailer.fsu.edu.
• Stuart E. Knee is a history professor at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. He wrote Christian Science in the Age of Mary Baker Eddy (Greenwood Press, 1994). Contact 843-792-5938, knees@cofc.edu.

IN THE SOUTH
• Catherine Wessinger, professor of religious studies at Loyola University in New Orleans, has written widely on Theosophy, millennialism, New Religious Movements and New Age religions. Contact 504-865-3182, wessing@loyno.edu.
• Phyllis Nelson is the teacher and director of Christ’s Jewels of Truth, a Nashville study group affiliated with the Universal Foundation for Better Living. Contact 617-847-9790.
• Tommie Novick-Lunsford is a minister of the Universal Foundation for Better Living who leads the Christ Delta study group in Indianola, Miss. Contact 662-887-1955.

IN THE MIDWEST
• Ruth A. Tucker is an independent scholar of religion based in Grand Rapids, Mich. She has taught courses on world religions, cults and New Age for 30 years, most recently at Calvin Theological Seminary. The Secret is typical of the think-yourself-healthy, think-yourself-rich genre, she says. Not all positive thinking is problematic, Tucker says, but she finds The Secret’s lack of compassion for the difficulties of others particularly troublesome. Tucker wrote Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions and the New Age Movement (Zondervan, 2004). Contact 616-647-1030, tuckerworst@comcast.net.
• Philip K. Goff is an associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University in Indianapolis, where he directs the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture. He co-edited (with Paul Harvey) Themes in Religion and American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and (also with Harvey) The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America Since 1945 (Columbia University Press, 2005). Contact 317-274-8410, pgoff@iupui.edu.
• Mark Anthony Lord is minister of the Center for Spiritual Living in Chicago, which is in the tradition of the New Thought movement. Lord has studied with Michael Bernard Beckwith, one of the figures featured in The Secret. Lord says that using spiritual power for material gain is only one aspect of the faith, which turns to a variety of sources for inspiration, including the Bible, Marianne Williamson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Deepak Chopra. Contact 773-248-5683.
• Johnnie Colemon is founder and minister of Christ Universal Temple in Chicago. A former Unity minister, she founded the Universal Foundation for Better Living, an association of New Thought churches and study groups, in 1974. Contact her at the church, 773-568-2282, or at the Johnnie Colemon Institute, 773-568-1770.
• James R. Lewis is a religious-studies expert in the philosophy department at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in Stevens Point, Wis. He has written widely on New Age religion, including (with J. Gordon Melton) Perspectives on the New Age (State University of New York Press, 1994). He edited The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of New Age Religions (Prometheus Books, 2004). Contact 715-346-3803, jlewis@uwsp.edu.
• Robert M. Fowler chairs the religion department at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio. He is a member of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture editorial board. His focus is on unconventional U.S. religions. Contact 440-826-2900 ext. 2173, rfowler@bw.edu.
• John A. Saliba teaches world religions and other liberal arts topics at the University of Detroit-Mercy and is an authority on the relationship between Christianity and New Age religions. He participated in a lengthy Vatican study of New Religious Movements, and he wrote the scholarly book Understanding New Religious Movements (AltaMira Press, 2003) and Christian Responses to the New Age Movement: A Critical Assessment (Cassell, 1999). He has not read The Secret but is familiar with its context in American religious history. Contact 313-993-1088, salibaja@udmercy.edu.
• William Michael Ashcraft is an associate professor of philosophy and religion at Truman State University in Kirksville, Mo. He has written about New Religious Movements. Contact 660-785-7531, washcraf@truman.edu.
• John K. Simmons is professor and chairman of the department of religious studies at Western Illinois University in Macomb. He has written about metaphysics, the Unity Church and Christian Science. Contact 309-298-1057, J-Simmons@wiu.edu.

IN THE SOUTHWEST
• Paul Harvey is a professor of American history at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. He co-edited (with Philip K. Goff) Themes in Religion and American Culture (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and (also with Goff) The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America Since 1945 (Columbia University Press, 2005). Contact 719-262-4078, pharvey@uccs.edu.
• Jerry Park is an assistant professor of the sociology of religion at Baylor University in Waco. His specialty is in racial, ethnic and religious identity. Ask about his research into religious consumption – he delivered a paper, “What Would Jesus Buy: American Religious Consumption in the 21st Century,” to the 2006 conference on the Scientific Study of Religion – and how it pertains to the popularity of New Age media products. Contact 254-710-3150, Jerry_Park@baylor.edu.
• The Rev. Jeffrey H. Mahan is professor of ministry, media and culture at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He is co-editor (with Bruce David Forbes) of Religion and Popular Culture in America (University of California Press, 2005). Mahan is a past chairman of the American Academy of Religion’s Religion and Popular Culture Group and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. He is ordained in the United Methodist Church. Mahan has not read The Secret, but he can comment more generally about New Age religion in the United States. Contact 303-765-3183, jmahan@iliff.edu.
• David Grandy is an associate professor in philosophy at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He says The Secret is quintessential New Age, a simple, old idea newly and successfully repackaged and marketed. The law of attraction is not itself without merit, Grandy says, but it does not guarantee material wealth or fame. Contact 801-422-5749, david_grandy@byu.edu.
• Hillary Warren is assistant professor of communications at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio. She is writing a book about religion and media. Contact 614-823-3377, HWarren@otterbein.edu.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• Della Reese Lett (aka the singer/actress Della Reese) is the minister of the Understanding Principles of Better Living Church in West Hollywood, Calif. The church, which calls its message one of practical Christianity, offers to teach worshippers not what to think but how to think. It is part of the Universal Foundation for Better Living association of New Thought Christian churches. Contact 310-641-7991, UPchurch@upchurch.org.
• Sarah M. Pike is an associate professor of religious studies at California State University, Chico. Her interests are in the areas of popular culture and the relationship between religion and the issues of identity, ethnicity and culture. She has written about New Age religion and the Burning Man festival. She is writing a textbook on New Age and neo-pagan religions for Columbia University Press. Contact 530-898-6341, spike@csuchico.edu.
• Susanna Morrill is an assistant professor of religious studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. She wrote entries on Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science for the Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics (Facts on File, 2003).Contact 503-768-7481, smorrill@lclark.edu.
• Rennie B. Schoepflin is a history professor at California State University, Los Angeles. He is interested in the historical interplay among science, health and religion. He has studied religious healers, including Christian Science healers, and can talk about the Christian Science view of the power of thought. Contact 323-343-2020, rschoep@calstatela.edu.
• Colleen McDannell is Sterling McMurrin Professor of Religious Studies and a professor of history at the University of Utah. She wrote Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America (Yale University Press, 1995). Contact 581-4748, Colleen.mcD@utah.edu.