Hay House

I love Hay House, the publishing company and so much more, founded by the great Louise Hay). Before I go on, I want to be clear that I am not an employee of Hay House, nor am I affiliated with them in any way whatsoever (although honestly, I wish I were). I must be their ideal customer though, a paragon of their target audience. They are an amazing organization. Here are a few reasons why:

*the books they publish are consistently excellent

*they attract the very best New Age/spiritual authors, even those that have previously published multiple best-sellers with other publishing companies

*they sponsor fantastic events, seminars, and workshops by the authors

*they have great on-line radio programming (Hay House Radio)

I came to truly appreciate Hay House only recently, when I decided to attend one of their events. I was looking to see if Caroline Myss Caroline Myss would be speaking in my area because I am currently working the exercises in her excellent book, Entering the Castle (which, incidentally, is NOT published by Hay House). I noticed on her web site that she would be speaking about Entering the Castle in early October at the Hay House event called "I Can Do It! - Tampa". When I looked up the details of this four day event, I found that in addition to Caroline Myss, several of the authors that I have happened to read recently or have otherwise admired over the years were participating in this conference. I knew I had to go.

I was beyond excited when I registered for the conference, but being there actually exceeded my expectations. Every speaker was phenomenal and extremely inspirational. Not surprisingly, I most enjoyed Caroline Myss - she was, after all, the primary reason I was there. But that in no way diminishes the excellent workshops and lectures I attended, with speakers including Sonia Choquette, Colette Baron-Reid, Marianne Williamson, Doreen Virtue, and several others. It was New Age nirvana!

I plan to write more in future postings about these great authors, but the point here is that it is so impressive that Hay House is able to bring together such a group of brilliant, smart, incredibly talented individuals and then promote them not only through their books, but through live events and programming as well. It amazes me.

If there is a shadow side to Hay House (and just about everything casts a shadow), it is that they are a commercial enterprise after all, and this New Age marketing machine powerhouse takes every opportunity to pummel their patrons with advertising and cross-promotions. It is so tempting for people like me to buy piles of books, attend zillions of workshops, download their podcasts, on and on and on, but as Caroline Myss pointed out during her talk at the conference in Tampa (somewhat ironically), reading a book or attending a workshop does not make a person "spiritual." To be spiritual requires carefully directed thought, action, and especially discipline. With all that said, still I am so grateful for the information and opportunities that Hay House provides.