Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-help Gurus
Paul Damien
Synergy Books

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Writer Paul Damien says in the preface of his „Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-help Gurus“ that the aim of Help! His intention is to assess critically what he calls a ominous class of trendy books that tends to rear its unsightly head from time to time.

Having read the preface; I set out to examine the book itself.

Chapter 0 is The Pustulates; in which the writer sets down what he views as the theories upon which Deepak Chopra bases his manuscript Ageless Body, Timeless Mind in addition to being the focus for many of his later works.

Chapter – 1 titled: The Negation in which writer Damien is persuaded that statistics used aimed at mass consumers in the US are an endeavor to deride us. In addition, Chapter 1 brings the reader information for Writing (Dirty) Secrets.

I found the chapter to be filled with a touch of the whimsical as the writer offered a series of words to learn by heart but not to necessarily comprehend in order to generate what he calls - guru type sentences - to ‘grab the reader’s attention by sounding as though a great, mystical concept is being put forth that could change the reader’s life’. Damien says to become a guru; writers will need to develop a compilation of words to use. Whether the writer understands them is not important however. Writer Damien even offers some suggestions for writing self help books including a note that qualifications for doing so are actually none.

Reading through Help, it became evident that Author Damien has found a recent tome offered by author Rhonda Byrne to be particularly troubling. Damien states unabashedly that Byrne and Chopra are his main targets, Chopra because in the notion of Damien he is an amalgamation of Dr Fritjof Capra and Dr Scott Peck. Damien says where fitting, connections to Byrne’s resent book are posited.

Other chapter titles include 2 Insect Nation, 3 Damien’s Laws to combat the Seven Choprasin Laws and 4 The Three Tenors. Chapter 5 entitled The Guru talks of the Placebo Effect, and Originality, while Chapter 6 touches on Deadened Buyers. Chapter 7 wraps up the work with Final Thoughts before listing appendices, 4, and listing a group of notes prior to the bibliography.

I’m not sure how much sincerity Writer Damien intended readers would share while reading his book „Help!: Debunking the Outrageous Claims of Self-help Gurus“. His writing is proficient, sharp and laced with humor. Damien points out that Self Help gurus make lots of money by purportedly enlightening the public on the subject of the great secrets of the world. Gurus according to Damien tell the rest of us how to live and what to believe on the pages of their books.

Writer Paul Damien uses a blend of stinging wittiness and mordant satire to take on Deepak Chopra as well as others of the various gurus. Damien feels that the secrets they develop will aid us all toward becoming little more than intolerable people. He says that to be a guru, it is fundamental to generate an aura of writing with passion. To do so, according to Damien, the flourishing guru jazzes up inconsequential sentences with Eastern twaddle.

At time Paul Damien uses an almost overpowering blend of wittiness, lampooning, and common sense, to divulge the haziness, characterless, and entire ludicrousness that he feels encompasses the so called work of a good many well-known self-help authors. Interesting read, interesting premise, happy to recommend for those who are not at all sure they agree with gurus.