In its theme that 'mind is the master weaver', creating our inner character and outer circumstances, As A Man Thinketh is an in-depth exploration of the central idea of self-empowerment writing.

James Allen's contribution was to take an assumption we all share - that because we are not robots we therefore control our thoughts - and reveal its fallacy. Because most of us believe that mind is separate from matter, we think that thoughts can be hidden and made powerless - this allows us to think one way and act another. But Allen believed that the unconscious mind generates as much action as the conscious mind, and while we may be able to sustain the illusion of control through the conscious mind alone, in actuality we are continually faced with a question, 'Why cannot I make myself do this or achieve that?' In noting that desire and will are sabotaged by the presence of thoughts that do not accord with the desire, Allen was led to the startling conclusion that, 'We do not attract what we want, but what we are.' Achievement happens because you as a person embody the external achievement; you don't 'get' success but become it. There is no gap between mind and matter.

We are the sum of our thoughts

The logic of the book is unassailable: noble thoughts make a noble person, negative thoughts hammer out a miserable one. To a person mired in negativity, the world looks as if it is made of confusion and fear. On the other hand, Allen noted, when we curtail our negative and destructive thoughts, 'All the world softens towards us, and is ready to help us.' We attract not only what we love - but what we fear. His explanation for why this happens is simple: those thoughts which receive our attention, good or bad, go into the unconscious to become the fuel for later events in the real world. As Emerson said, 'A person is what he thinks about all day long.'

Final word

Almost a hundred years after publication, As A Man Thinketh continues to get rave reviews from readers. The plain prose and absence of hype are appealing within a genre that contains sensational claims and personalities, and the fact that we know so little about Allen makes the work somehow more intriguing.

The book's title comes from the Bible - 'As a man thinketh, so he is' - but despite this provenance, As A Man Thinketh is religion-neutral. Allen believed that the dynamic that linked thought to action and outer circumstances was a metaphysical law that could not err. In the way it identifies universal laws and applies them to the mechanics of desire and prosperity, the book is appropriately the 20th century's first self-help classic.

Courtesy Tom Butler-Bowdon, Self-Help Classics