Can you just think your way to success and prosperity? Yes, you can, if you believe Norman Vincent Peale, an American clergyman who wrote a bestselling self-help book that revolutionised how Americans ...

Mitch Horowitz is the author of “Occult America” and “One Simple Idea,” a history of the positive-thinking movement. On a fall morning in 1960, the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale stood before his ...