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Science of Mind: Since you wrote Your Erroneous Zones nearly 30 years ago, your writing has become increasingly spiritual. Did you set out on this path or did your work just become more spiritual as you moved through your life?
Wayne Dyer: I never had a plan. There’s an old saying that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Or tell her your plans. I’ve always used what Jung spoke about in his Modern Man in Search of His Soul. He said that when you become an adult, you’re still going through developmental stages, called archetypes, and there are four of them. The lowest of them is what he called the archetype of the athlete, which is the time in our adult life when our emphasis is on our body and what it looks like and what it does. These become our means of identification.
As people mature, they move into the archetype of the warrior. The warrior is the time in our adult life when our primary emphasis shifts into what we can go out into the world and do in competition with other people. We rate ourselves on the basis of how much stuff we have and who we can defeat and who we’re better than. I really believe that my earlier books, Your Erroneous Zones and Pulling Your Own Strings in particular, were books written by an athlete and a warrior for athletes and warriors. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re going to be one, you might as well be as fine a one as you can.
The third one is the archetype of the statesman or stateswoman, which is the time in our lives when we stop asking what my goals are and begin to serve, instead of asking what’s in it for me.
Eventually, Jung said, we reach the archetype of spirit, which is when you understand what it means to be in this world but not of this world. I really think I have traversed these archetypes since the ’70s when Your Erroneous Zones was produced. It’s been a natural unfolding for me, although when I look back at Erroneous Zones, I see a lot of spirituality in it. I used different terminology and had different emphasis, but there’s always been an emphasis on serving and practicing kindness and understanding that there’s something more in this universe than us.
Science of Mind: How has this unfolding of spirituality shown itself for you outside of your writing?
Dyer: I’ve become the observer to my life. I sort of step outside of my body and just watch what I do. I watch the aging process, and I swear I don’t identify with it anymore. It’s not who I am now. It’s intriguing. I do the same thing when I watch the news. How strange it is that people want to blow themselves up to make a point, or blow up other people. I always say to myself, it’s not about me. And if there’s nothing I can do about the way people conduct themselves, I’m not going to feel bad, no matter
Wayne Dyer: I never had a plan. There’s an old saying that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Or tell her your plans. I’ve always used what Jung spoke about in his Modern Man in Search of His Soul. He said that when you become an adult, you’re still going through developmental stages, called archetypes, and there are four of them. The lowest of them is what he called the archetype of the athlete, which is the time in our adult life when our emphasis is on our body and what it looks like and what it does. These become our means of identification.
As people mature, they move into the archetype of the warrior. The warrior is the time in our adult life when our primary emphasis shifts into what we can go out into the world and do in competition with other people. We rate ourselves on the basis of how much stuff we have and who we can defeat and who we’re better than. I really believe that my earlier books, Your Erroneous Zones and Pulling Your Own Strings in particular, were books written by an athlete and a warrior for athletes and warriors. There’s nothing wrong with that. If you’re going to be one, you might as well be as fine a one as you can.
The third one is the archetype of the statesman or stateswoman, which is the time in our lives when we stop asking what my goals are and begin to serve, instead of asking what’s in it for me.
Eventually, Jung said, we reach the archetype of spirit, which is when you understand what it means to be in this world but not of this world. I really think I have traversed these archetypes since the ’70s when Your Erroneous Zones was produced. It’s been a natural unfolding for me, although when I look back at Erroneous Zones, I see a lot of spirituality in it. I used different terminology and had different emphasis, but there’s always been an emphasis on serving and practicing kindness and understanding that there’s something more in this universe than us.
Science of Mind: How has this unfolding of spirituality shown itself for you outside of your writing?
Dyer: I’ve become the observer to my life. I sort of step outside of my body and just watch what I do. I watch the aging process, and I swear I don’t identify with it anymore. It’s not who I am now. It’s intriguing. I do the same thing when I watch the news. How strange it is that people want to blow themselves up to make a point, or blow up other people. I always say to myself, it’s not about me. And if there’s nothing I can do about the way people conduct themselves, I’m not going to feel bad, no matter
