Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-Help Gurus [Paperback]

Paul Damien (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2008

Under the guise of self-help, a disturbing tribe of "gurus" has formed; its leaders include Deepak Chopra and, most recently, Rhonda Byrne with her much-ballyhooed The Secret. Do these authors really provide helpful and coherent ideas about dealing with life's issues? In Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-Help Gurus, Paul Damien exposes these authors and other "professionals" in this field as emperors without clothing. With a devastating combination of humor, satire, and logic, he reveals the vagueness, vapidity, and utter silliness that constitute the work of many prominent self-help authors. Drawing on influences such as Emily Dickinson, Richard Feynman, and Bertrand Russell, Dr. Damien shows that self-help books are about as useful as a root canal on a toothless person.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Paul Damien holds a PhD in mathematics from Imperial College, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society of England. Paul is currently a professor at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas. His first book is titled Death at C Minor, and he has written over seventy-five papers in academic and industry publications.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Synergy Books (September 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934454141
• ISBN-13: 978-1934454145
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,794,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Well thought out, not well presented... Shoots himself in the foot., March 28, 2009

By 

Gary Dale Cearley "Gary Dale Cearley" (Bangkok, Thailand) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-Help Gurus (Paperback)

I found myself at a quandary when reading Paul Damien's Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-help Gurus. First of all, I wanted to be totally open to what Paul Damien had to say. I have read numerous books on The Secret and the Law of Attraction in the past few years and let me say beforehand that I have read books from the "gurus" and from those who took looks into the industry, movement, or whatever other label might fit it. And I must say that although Paul Damien's book might not have been the first to lambaste these gurus, it was the first book that I had the opportunity to read through and through.

First I would like to say that I have had many of the same doubts as Paul Damien regarding the industry of spiritual self help books. Though there is help to be found in many of them, or even most of them, they often do rely on alchemy and false logic to promote their causes. Paul Damien has an excellent nose for this, for which he points out many grand examples throughout his work. Several of these books would rely solely on false science and quasi-religious mysticism to pull in their readers like a symbolic venus fly trap. And I agree as Paul Damien points out that most of these author gurus feed upon one another in their shallow philosophies, often borrowing directly from one another's pages like medieval religious writers. In fact, one pet peeve of mine that Paul Damien didn't seem to cover the fact that so many of these guys use the same quotes of famous people over and over and very often even get the quotes wrong or out of context, which only backs up the author's overall argument.

That being said, all well and good... Paul Damien made many strong cases against Deepak Chopra, Rhonda Byrne and others but in my opinion he went overboard. Yes, overboard. Rather than simply taking points and dissecting them, which he did, Damien added far too much negative sarcasm to take all of his arguments seriously. Did he prove his point? Yes, at times. Did he miss his mark and get off the point? Yes, at times. I felt it very difficult to keep an open mind reading this book because the author's tirades were often so vicious you wanted to see his targets as victims rather than subjects of a book dissecting their theories and testimonies. It seemed he saved his biggest salvos for fellow countryman Deepak Chopra as well. In this way I felt that Paul Damien does himself an injustice in his own effort, no, let's say crusade against these self help gurus. By creating his own aggressive language for the book (Choprasinners, Insect Nation, She-Mantis and many others - often related to bodily functions as well...) and in describing negatively concocted, highly improbable imaginary scenes and conversations one is forced to wonder whether Paul Damien's only gripe with these people is that he believes they are resting on false science.

What I am getting at is this: I believe the author's rational arguments would stall much taller if they had been given simply as rational arguments and not emotive rants - meaning that he should have done a better job at keeping his cool. If Paul Damien's job was to pick apart the self help books I would call the book a triumph. If his job was to persuade I would have to say the author shot himself in the proverbial foot.

5.0 out of 5 stars Happy to recommend for those who are not at all sure they agree with gurus, December 15, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-Help Gurus (Paperback)

Writer Paul Damien says in the preface of his Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-help Gurus that the aim of Help! His intention is to assess critically what he calls a ominous class of trendy books that tends to rear its unsightly head from time to time.

Having read the preface; I set out to examine the book itself.

Chapter 0 is The Pustulates; in which the writer sets down what he views as the theories upon which Deepak Chopra bases his manuscript Ageless Body, Timeless Mind in addition to being the focus for many of his later works.

Chapter - 1 titled: The Negation in which writer Damien is persuaded that statistics used aimed at mass consumers in the US are an endeavor to deride us. In addition, Chapter 1 brings the reader information for Writing (Dirty) Secrets.

I found the chapter to be filled with a touch of the whimsical as the writer offered a series of words to learn by heart but not to necessarily comprehend in order to generate what he calls - guru type sentences - to 'grab the reader's attention by sounding as though a great, mystical concept is being put forth that could change the reader's life'. Damien says to become a guru; writers will need to develop a compilation of words to use. Whether the writer understands them is not important however. Writer Damien even offers some suggestions for writing self help books including a note that qualifications for doing so are actually none.

Reading through Help, it became evident that Author Damien has found a recent tome offered by author Rhonda Byrne to be particularly troubling. Damien states unabashedly that Byrne and Chopra are his main targets, Chopra because in the notion of Damien he is an amalgamation of Dr Fritjof Capra and Dr Scott Peck. Damien says where fitting, connections to Byrne's resent book are posited.

Other chapter titles include 2 Insect Nation, 3 Damien's Laws to combat the Seven Choprasin Laws and 4 The Three Tenors. Chapter 5 entitled The Guru talks of the Placebo Effect, and Originality, while Chapter 6 touches on Deadened Buyers. Chapter 7 wraps up the work with Final Thoughts before listing appendices, 4, and listing a group of notes prior to the bibliography.

I'm not sure how much sincerity Writer Damien intended readers would share while reading his book Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-help Gurus. His writing is proficient, sharp and laced with humor. Damien points out that Self Help gurus make lots of money by purportedly enlightening the public on the subject of the great secrets of the world. Gurus according to Damien tell the rest of us how to live and what to believe on the pages of their books.

Writer Paul Damien uses a blend of stinging wittiness and mordant satire to take on Deepak Chopra as well as others of the various gurus. Damien feels that the secrets they develop will aid us all toward becoming little more than intolerable people. He says that to be a guru, it is fundamental to generate an aura of writing with passion. To do so, according to Damien, the flourishing guru jazzes up inconsequential sentences with Eastern twaddle.

At time Paul Damien uses an almost overpowering blend of wittiness, lampooning, and common sense, to divulge the haziness, characterless, and entire ludicrousness that he feels encompasses the so called work of a good many well-known self-help authors. Interesting read, interesting premise, happy to recommend for those who are not at all sure they agree with gurus.

Molly Martin
Reviewer

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars author needs HELP!, May 13, 2010

By 

Zulu Warrior "71RoadRunner" (Antelope, OR) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-Help Gurus (Paperback)

NOt your average read. Book is scatalogical and does not present an A through Z presentation. Instead the reader is drawn into author's covert/overt agenda and you go for the ride. I don't think the Damien has quality skills for an obective challenge. Book is very subjective and his views are narrowed by sarcastic criticism of only a handful of gurus and limited in academic scope.