Dewayne Dyer

Dyer died from a heart attack, said his publicist, Lindsay McGinty on Maui, Hawaii on August 29, 2015, at age 75. He had been diagnosed with leukemia in 2009.

In 2010, writer Stephen Mitchell filed a lawsuit against Dyer and his publisher, Hay House, for copyright infringement for taking 200 lines, without permission, from his version of the Tao Te Ching for Dyer's books Living the Wisdom of the Tao and Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life. The suit was dismissed in 2011 after Dyer and Mitchell agreed to a settlement.

Dyer was married three times. With his first wife, Judy, he had a daughter. With his second wife, Susan Casselman, he had no children. With his third wife, Marcelene, he had five children, and two stepchildren from Marcelene's prior marriage. Wayne and Marcelene legally separated in 2001, after 20 years of marriage.

Although Dyer initially resisted the spiritual tag, by the 1990s he had altered his message to include more components of spirituality when he wrote the book Real Magic and discussed higher consciousness in the book Your Sacred Self.

Psychologist Albert Ellis wrote that Dyer's book Your Erroneous Zones was probably "the worst example" of plagiarism of Ellis' Rational Emotive Therapy (RET). In a 1985 letter to Dyer, Ellis claimed that Dyer had participated in an Ellis workshop on RET before he published Your Erroneous Zones, in which Dyer appeared to understand RET very well. Ellis added that "300 or more people have voluntarily told me... that [the book] was clearly derived from RET." Dyer never apologized nor expressed any sense of wrongdoing. Ellis admonished Dyer for unethically and unprofessionally failing to credit Ellis's work as the book's primary source, but he never took legal action and that is because in the final analysis, he actually felt overall gratitude for Dyer's work, writing: "Your Erroneous Zones is a good book, ... it has helped a great number of people, and ... it outlines the main principles of RET quite well,... with great simplicity and clarity." In the book Your Erroneous Zones, Dyer makes reference to Albert Ellis in chapter seven.

The Sky is the Limit (copyright 1980) was the 3rd work published by Dyer as sole author. Dyer introduces the concept of the "critical inch", that portion of life where the ultimate meaning of our life is considered. He is critical of the "hurry up" Western world society. In Chapter 8, "Cultivating a sense of Purpose" he recommends such strategies as "Do something you have never done before", "Make a point to talk to a stranger today", "Stop defending things as they have always been".

Pulling Your Own Strings.(Copyright 1978) This was Dyers' 2nd work published as sole author. It developed the idea of habitual "belief systems" hampering our personal effectiveness. Chapter 7 "Never Place Loyalty to Institutions and Things Above Loyalty to Yourself" listed "Strategies for eliminating institutional victimisation".

Dyer, a Detroit native, worked as a high school guidance counselor there and as a professor of counseling psychology at St. John's University in New York City. He pursued an academic career, published in journals, and established a private therapy practice. His lectures at St. John's University, which focused on positive thinking and motivational speaking techniques, attracted many students. A literary agent persuaded Dyer to document his theories in his first book, called Your Erroneous Zones (1976). Dyer quit his teaching job and began a publicity tour of the United States, doggedly pursuing bookstore appearances and media interviews ("out of the back of his station wagon", according to Michael Korda, making the best-seller lists "before book publishers even noticed what was happening"). After Your Erroneous Zones dozens more books followed, many of them also best-sellers. Among them were Wishes Fulfilled, Excuses Begone and The Sky’s the Limit. The success of these books eventually led to national television talk show appearances including The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show, and The Phil Donahue Show.

Dyer was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Melvin Lyle Dyer and Hazel Irene Vollick. He spent much of his first ten years in an orphanage on the east side of Detroit, after his father walked out on the family, leaving his mother to raise three small boys. After graduating from Denby High School, Dyer served in the United States Navy from 1958 to 1962. He received his Ed.D. degree in counseling from Wayne State University. His dissertation was titled Group Counseling Leadership Training in Counselor Education.

Wayne Walter Dyer (May 10, 1940 – August 29, 2015) was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker. His first book, Your Erroneous Zones (1976), is one of the best-selling books of all time, with an estimated 100 million copies sold to date.