Joseph Murphy

Joseph Murphy was an Irish-American minister and self-help author whose The Power of Your Subconscious Mind has sold millions of copies since its 1963 publication.

Joseph Murphy was a New Thought minister, author, and speaker whose prolific body of work drew on the traditions of New Thought and Religious Science to argue that the subconscious mind is the primary driver of human experience. Born in Ireland and eventually settling in Los Angeles, he became the senior minister of the Church of Divine Science in Los Angeles and reached a large audience through his radio broadcasts as well as his books. His most enduring work, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, was first published in 1963 and has remained continuously in print, selling tens of millions of copies across numerous languages.

The book’s central argument is that the subconscious mind operates independently of conscious will and responds to repeated suggestion, mental imagery, and belief. Murphy uses this framework to offer practical techniques — affirmations, visualisation, prayer — for achieving goals in health, wealth, and relationships. The writing style is confident and direct, and the book has provided genuine comfort and direction to many readers who found its framework useful as an organising lens for their lives.

Readers approaching this book from a scientific perspective should be aware that its claims about the subconscious mind do not align with contemporary psychology or neuroscience, and the testimonial-heavy evidence it offers is anecdotal. The New Thought framework it inhabits treats belief as causally primary in ways that are not empirically supported. That said, the book has clearly served as a useful motivational tool for a very large number of people, and its influence on the self-help genre — from Norman Vincent Peale to Rhonda Byrne — is substantial.