A Teacher
Vernon Howard
Inner awakening: waking from the false self to a higher inner life
The transmission
Vernon Linwood Howard (March 16, 1918 – August 23, 1992) was an American spiritual teacher and author whose work bridges New Thought self-help with a more austere, nondual-inflected “practical mysticism.” Born near Haverhill, Massachusetts, he began in the 1940s as a writer of humor and children’s books, then turned in the late 1950s and 1960s to lecturing and writing on inner development.
Best-selling titles such as The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power (1965) and The Power of Your Supermind gave his teaching wide reach. Howard drew on what he called a “common thread” running through Christian and Eastern mysticism, the Gospels, Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way, Jungian psychology, Krishnamurti, and American Transcendentalism.
Where mainstream New Thought stressed attracting outer goods, Howard emphasized the prior work of self-honesty: waking from a mechanical, unexamined “false self” to a higher inner awareness that ends self-created suffering.
In 1979 he founded the non-profit New Life Foundation, where he taught until his death; the foundation, now in Pine, Arizona, continues his classes and recorded talks.
What they gave
Self-honesty as method: made the unflinching observation of one’s own mechanical reactions the core practice, deepening New Thought beyond positive affirmation.
- Inner awakening: taught that real change comes from waking out of the false self, not from rearranging outer circumstance.
- Synthesis of streams: wove Gurdjieffian, mystical-Christian, and Krishnamurti-style insight into an accessible practical teaching.
- New Life Foundation (1979): built a lasting teaching center and large body of books and recorded talks.
In their words
Man is hypnotized. His entire life is one great nightmare, which he takes for reality.
You feel good not because the world is right, but your world is right because you feel good.
Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity for self-change.
Self-Observation is the method of destroying uneasiness.
Self-Observation is like quietly watching the tiger walk by.
Self-Observation is the gate to a new sense of self.
The false self does not live his day; he is driven through it.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: Christian and Eastern mysticism; Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way; Krishnamurti; American Transcendentalism; the Gospels.
- Influenced: students of the New Life Foundation; later practical-mysticism and self-honesty teaching within the broader self-development field.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- Psycho-Pictography1965
- The Mystic Path to Cosmic Power1967
- The Power of Your Supermind1967