Dr. Wayne Dyer's Positive and Motivational Thinking for the Spiritual Conscience

I am concerned about the fact that people watch all kinds of shows on TV and form an opinion that supports the view being presented, which they now believe to be true, and it then seems to be a problem when trying to understand Reformed thinking and how it fits in with their new understanding. This issue is one of them.

Has anyone had discussions about Dr. Wane Dyer’s material? Is there an element of truth with a lot of wrong understanding? Or is the whole thing ‘out ta lunch’? Are there pieces of Positive and Motivational Thinking that are valid within the Christian life? Can it be applied in the way Dr. Dyer applies them to the spiritual conscience? What is the Reformed thinking when it comes to interpreting the passages below? 

Recently, I watched a show on PBS where Dr. Wayne Dyer made some presentations about his book Wishes Fulfilled. You can find more information about who he is and his books at http://www.drwaynedyer.com/

At a high level, Dr. Dyer seems to take the “Positive Thinking” era and the “Motivational Thinking” era to a new level. This level seems to be about the nuts and bolts of entering the space of the “spiritual conscience” using positive and motivational thinking. I can say from personal experience that there is likely value in exercising positive thinking. However, I’m not sure that, that in its self does not necessarily bring about more ability and awareness to enter the “spiritual conscience”. It may provide a better understanding of how the human psyche works.

In the presentations, I was struck by a couple of points he made.

He talks about going back to your source, which seems to be a recurring theme in his works.  He identifies that source as whatever you were born and raised with. That could be God, Muhammad, whatever Eastern religion leader, etc. He also talked about that “You are God”.

The idea of going back to your source would clearly seem to be misdirected advice. We know that there is one God who created heaven and earth. To me that would also include the spiritual conscience. However, for me, the issue becomes complicated when you consider the idea in our confessions about things that are “common to man”.  What parts of the spiritual conscience are common to man that you can talk about? Is Dr. Dyer’s material just the stuff of what’s common to man? Or, is he confusing things, by linking other ideas, when he talks about going back to your source? Do people have a natural ability to sense some things in the spiritual conscience? As I have watched other shows on PBS by Dr. Dyer, the statements and how he defends them, would on the surface, seem to be okay, at least in the way he puts it. However, my gut feel from a Christian perspective tells me it is wrong, and at the very least, misdirected advice.

The other point that caught my attention was that “You are God”. This, to me, is clearly, as he himself puts it in the presentation, blasphemy, when talking about how people have responded to him. To make a long story short, he defends his statement with Gen 3:1-14 focusing on the first part of verse 14 and Romans 4:17. Is there an element of truth in his premise? He seems to base his understanding on the idea that the word, God, means I am who I am. So if you are created in God’s image that includes all things about God. So you can say that “I am who I am”, thus you can say, “I am God”. Here he is talking about that in context of the how to manage your spiritual conscience.  The details are more than I can put here. It has to do with how to use Positive and Motivational Thinking in your spiritual conscience. His defense of his statements seem to be convincing, however, my gut feeling tells me this is not how Reformed thinking would understand these passages and how it is applied to being created in God’s image