Book Report: Secret Mental Power: Miracle of Mind Magic by Frank Rudolph Young (c)1973

Secret Mental Power: Miracle of Mind Magic by Frank Rudolph Young (c)1973

Background Information: Frank Rudolph Young ("F.R.Y.") is a bit of a cult figure, an author who wrote a number of books on health practices, psychic powers and self-development. Many were published in hardcover by Parker Publishing. What distinguishes Young's books stylistically is the hyperbole. He must have been a naturally intense individual and he really tries to impart that, while presenting his material as mysterious and exotic. It makes the books a lot of fun to read!
Trying to find reliable biographical material is a bit difficult, partially since he seems to have presented several different stories about himself. The Legend is that he and his other family members traveled the world, ferreting out mystical secrets of longevity and occult powers.
According to some diligent researchers on the internet, he was born in Panama in 1911 and lived in Chicago (Chicago was a major center of the "New Thought" movement). He may have been a dentist, a chiropractor, and a body builder. From his published works it's safe to assume he was an avid yoga practitioner, at least.
You can find much more research here: https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/64281/what-biographical-information-do-we-know-about-author-frank-rudolph-young

The kind of "magic" the author discusses in this book are powerful, practical, mental habits of reasoning, decision making, projecting confidence, making friends, pain control, improving one's health, and so forth. Each skill gets at least a chapter of it's own, with a lively discussion, clearly defined how-to instructions and further hints and a few "testimonial" type stories. He writes with incredible enthusiasm and encouragement as you'd expect from a pop-psychology book of the 60s.

His approach to achieving success lies in combining logical methodologies with a powerful emotional intensity, and you'll find variations of this idea in all of his books, and he usually has a specific exercise to develop it and a specific bit of hyperbolic terminology. In this book he calls the practice of developing the required intensity the Miracle Mind Magic Stimulator, which consists of visualizing your goal with increasing detail to the point of being "savagely real." The subsequent exercises for decision making, confidence, making friends and so forth mostly all employ the Miracle Mind Magic Stimulator in some way. (in other books of his, you'll find the same or similar techniques with different names).

One of the interesting principles of this book are what he considers the use of the conscious mind to make the changes you want to, rather than the subconscious because he feels you're more resent and able to make needed decisions. I suppose this puts him more in the camp of the New Thoughtists who felt one could overcome all obstacles with will power.

Despite the over-the-top style, it's really a very practical book for improving emotional self control, achieving goals, dealing with others and more. Not all of it may be the best or most current approach, but he puts forth a workable approach. And I've noticed that somebody must be making good use of FRY's books. He seems to have a growing fan base on line, and while I used to be able to pick up his hardcovers for about 6 bucks, some of them are now going for ten times that.