As a Man Thinketh

By James Allen

As a Man Thinketh is James Allen's third book, first published in 1903. In it, he details how man is the creator and shaper of his destiny by the thoughts which he thinks. He rises and falls in exact accordance with the character of the thoughts which he entertains. His environment is the result of what he has thought and done in the past, and his circumstances in the future are being shaped and built by his present desires, aspirations, thoughts and actions. He therefore who chooses and pursues a particular line of thought, consciously builds his own destiny. Part of the New Thought Movement, Allen reveals the secrets to having the most fulfilling existence possible, and it’s easier than any of us could have imagined. The title for the essay comes from the Bible: “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” Proverbs, chapter 23, verse 7. In more than a century, As A Man Thinketh has become an inspirational classic, selling millions of copies worldwide and bringing faith, inspiration, and self healing to all who have encountered it. In this new edition of As A Man Thinketh, readers will be enthralled by James Allen’s thoughts and direction to take charge of their own destiny, as it has for over 100 years. In the series Classic Thoughts and Thinkers, explore some of the most influential texts of our time along with the inner workings of its greatest thinkers. With works from great American figures such as Theodore Roosevelt and Emily Dickinson and seminal documents including the Constitution of the Unites States, this series focuses on the most reflective and thought-provoking writings of the last two centuries. These beautiful hardcovers are the perfect historical perspective for meeting the challenges of the modern world. Other titles in this series include: Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Collected Poems of Robert Frost, Common Sense, Constitution of the United States with the Declaration of Independence, Helen Keller, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson, and Theodore Roosevelt’s Words of Wit and Wisdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9780760361054

James Allen

James Allen (1864-1912) was an English author, magazine editor and one of the founders of what would come to be known as the self-help genre. Including the works assembled by his wife after his death, Allen wrote 21 books, the most famous being As a Man Thinketh.

Book preview

AS A MAN THINKETH

JAMES ALLEN

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

FOREWORD

THOUGHT AND CHARACTER

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON CIRCUMSTANCES

EFFECT OF THOUGHT ON HEALTH AND THE BODY

THOUGHT AND PURPOSE

THE THOUGHT-FACTOR IN ACHIEVEMENT

VISIONS AND IDEALS

SERENITY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

INTRODUCTION

WHEN JAMES ALLEN’S SEMINAL WORK, As a Man Thinketh, was published in 1903, the new century was in its infancy. And what became known as the New Thought movement was putting down roots both in the United States and in Allen’s native England.

A spiritual movement with a loosely connected set of adherents, New Thought philosophy contained much of the same set of core beliefs that came to characterize the New Age movement of the 1960s and ’70s: the oneness of religious experience, the power of positive thinking, and the importance of the law of attraction. As much a literary movement as anything else, it captivated many of the leading intellectuals of the day.

Among its admirers was psychologist/philosopher William James, who outlined its guiding principles in his seminal work, The Variety of Religious Experience. New Thought, James wrote, is an optimistic scheme of life, with both a speculative and a practical side with doctrinal sources that included the four Gospels, New England transcendentalism, Berkeleyan idealism, spiritism, evolutionism, and Hinduism.

Although it’s unclear whether he thought himself as such, Allen was a member of this group in word and deed. Prior to writing his most famous book, he wrote and apparently helped edit Sidney H. Beard’s magazine, the Herald of the Golden Age, a London-based magazine that promoted animal rights, vegetarianism, and New Thought philosophy. After writing As a Man Thinketh, Allen left London and settled with his wife in the small English coastal town of Ilfracombe, where he wrote and published a magazine and more than a dozen additional books while promoting the science-of-mind-like principles that informed his entire life.

Allen’s offerings very much reflected the tenor of the times. During the same period, James published his masterwork and William Walker Atkinson published Thought-Force in Business and Everyday Life, a series of lessons that shared the same philosophic underpinnings of Allen’s twenty-one books. In Allen’s native England, Annie Besant was establishing the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Freemasonry prior to becoming the president of the Theosophical Society. In India, Henry Steel Olcott, at the time the president of the Theosophical Society, published The