Shakti Gawain

Born in 1948 and educated in psychology and dance at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Shakti Gawain helped shape the California human-potential and New Age publishing landscape of the late 1970s. In 1977 she co-founded Whatever Publishing—later New World Library—with Marc Allen, and in 1978 she published Creative Visualization, a slim guide that sold millions of copies worldwide before her death in 2018.

Gawain’s handbook distilled relaxation, mental imagery, written affirmations and collage-style treasure maps into short, calm exercises for readers outside formal religious movements. She asked practitioners to enter a quiet physical state, picture a desired scene or personal quality in present-tense sensory detail, and pair that image with a clear, non-coercive statement of intention. In her later books, including Living in the Light, she also emphasized intuition and acknowledging disowned emotions rather than forcing relentless positivity.

Like much of the late-seventies California synthesis, Creative Visualization mixed two different explanations for why imagery matters. On one page Gawain described visualization as a way to clarify priorities, focus attention and rehearse constructive behaviour; on the next she invoked metaphysical ideas of thought energy, vibration and magnetic attraction drawing external events toward the practitioner. The first account describes human attention and preparation; the second asserts a causal power over the external world that evidence does not support.

Kept on the side of attention and rehearsal, Gawain’s exercises remain easy to use thoughtfully. Picturing how you want to conduct yourself in an upcoming conversation or clarifying what a balanced week looks like can surface conflicting desires and guide practical choices, without asking a mental image to command outside circumstances.