PEALE CHARGED WITH OCCULTIC PLAGIARISMS

A comparison of the writings of occult writer Florence Scovel Shinn and the father of positive thinking, Norman Vincent Peale, have led two researchers to conclude that some of Peale’s affirmation theology originated with Shinn.

The Rev. John Gregory Tweed and the Rev. George D. Exoo reported on their conclusions in an article in the summer 1995 issue of the Lutheran Quarterly. Their investigation also received attention in the July 28 edition of The Miami Herald. The pair maintain that Peale’s publications not only parallel ideas in Shinn’s writings, but include similar or identical wording. The investigators have cited numerous examples of Peale’s alleged plagiarisms.

Shinn, who derived her beliefs from mystical sources including Egyptian philosophy and Freemasonry, expressed many of her ideas in the publication, The Game of Life and How to Play It. She died in 1940.

John Allen, president of the board of the Peale Center and son-in-law of the late Peale, told the Miami newspaper that the research is “built pretty much on ... coincidence” and stated that both Peale and Shinn “happened to be dealing with the same subject: the art of living.” He added that neither he nor Peale’s widow, Ruth, knew of Florence Scovel Shinn.

Yet the newspaper notes that Peale was indeed familiar with Shinn’s writings. In a reprinting of Shinn’s privately published metaphysical works by Simon & Schuster, Peale wrote in the introduction that he had “long used” her teachings. In addition to the Simon & Schuster edition, the Church of Religious Science also makes the Shinn’s writings available. Both printings are available in New Age bookstores.

Allen sought to offset Peale’s endorsement of Shinn by maintaining that his father-in-law “did write a very nice thing on the reissue. He’d write encouraging words on any book that was sent to him, and maybe read through it and pick up a few ideas. ... The rest is from the Bible.”

Tweed was a Peale protegé in the Dutch Protestant Collegiate Church, a branch of the Reformed Church in America. Exoo is an ordained minister in the Unitarian Church.

For more information on the unbiblical thoughts of “positive thinker” Peale, see The Quarterly Journal, Vol. 12, No. 4.

—MKG

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