To be honest, there were so many stories and they were so similar in arc, if different in setting and circumstance, I found myself skimming large chunks of text that added nothing new to the analysis of prophet Robinson. Schrand’s writing employs brief but soaring descriptive passages about both people and place and he develops clever similes and metaphors to keep his commentary interesting and flavorful. But Robinson was also a thinker, a dreamer, a schemer, and no one worked more diligently or longer hours than he did.īe prepared to laugh out loud, thrill to nail-biting drama, quicken with anger at the personal damage an egomaniac can inflict on people in their most desperate times of need. Robinson was a master of not just mail-order marketing, but brilliant spin that turned the reality of a sinking ship into the idea of lost opportunity. Expecting Psychiana students to reveal evidence of wrong-doing, esteemed Postal Inspector Stephen Morse instead observed that they “doubled down in their devotion and loyalty to a man so many others considered to be a pathological liar and con artist.” Conniving swindler he may have been. He slipped through serious federal legal battles that included mail and tax fraud, and lying on a passport application. The reader travels vicariously from the Carlisle Indian School to Alexandria, Egypt, and many places in between.įlamboyant to a fault, Robinson spent his life never far from default. These chapters provide mini-history lessons about the politics and economic conditions of America and the world. Each student chapter provides a glimpse into the troubles these folks encountered, mostly the consequence of national political or financial instability or personal ill health. Their precious payments funded Robinson’s extravagant lifestyle. Though many lived impoverished lives, they scraped together and borrowed money to pay for Psychiana’s installment, mail-order lessons. These individuals, who responded to Robinson’s highly effective marketing strategies, came from all walks of life and from locales around the world. Many chapters are devoted to Robinson’s followers, who are always referred to as students rather than followers or believers. Robinson lived through two world wars and countless personal failures and scandals. The book spans Robinson’s life, from his 1886 birth in England to his death in the small western town of Moscow, Idaho in 1948. The book is less about the rather perplexing “inclusive faith” of Psychiana than it is about the hubris of the man behind a New Thought belief system- “the dynamic power in the universe-the power of the living God.” Brandon Schrand compiled copious research about the life and times of Frank Bruce Robinson, a man of tremendous hubris, ambition, and determination. There’s a little something for just about everybody in this book.
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