USA
Leader profile
American self-help author and founder of Hay House, known for You Can Heal Your Life and her teachings on affirmations and self-love.
Profession
Author, Publisher, Founder of Hay House, Religious Science practitioner, Motivational speaker
Known for
Affirmations, Self-love, Mind-body connection, New Thought, Religious Science, Forgiveness, Inner child work, Heal Your Body, Self-help publishing, AIDS support groups, Prosperity thinking
Born
October 8, 1926
Died
August 30, 2017
Birthplace
Los Angeles, California, USA
Based in
California
Nationality
USA
On this page
Louise Hay, born Helen Vera Lunney on 8 October 1926 in Los Angeles, was an American self-help author and the founder of the publishing company Hay House. Her childhood included poverty, abuse by her stepfather and rape by a neighbour, and at 16 she gave up her newborn daughter for adoption.
After a career as a fashion model in New York and a 14-year marriage to Andrew Hay, she discovered the Church of Religious Science and became a practitioner and later a minister. She said she healed herself of cervical cancer in the late 1970s through forgiveness, therapy and nutrition, a claim never medically confirmed.
Her book You Can Heal Your Life (1984) became an international bestseller, and in 1985 she began the Hayride support groups for people with AIDS. She died in San Diego on 30 August 2017, aged 90.
Why they matter
Louise Hay (1926 to 2017) was a pioneer of the affirmation-based self-help movement. Her book You Can Heal Your Life has sold tens of millions of copies, with her publisher citing more than 50 million.
She founded Hay House in 1984 to publish her own work, and it grew into a major mind-body-spirit publisher. Her support groups for people with AIDS in the 1980s won her a devoted following, while critics argued that her teaching linked illness too closely to thought and could discourage medical treatment.
She changed her first name after moving to New York in 1950, and took the surname Hay from her marriage to Andrew Hay.
Her parents were Henry John Lunney and Veronica Chwala. Her stepfather, Ernest Carl Wanzenreid, physically abused her and her mother, and she was raped by a neighbour at about age five.
At 16, on her birthday, she gave up her newborn daughter for adoption. The daughter’s name has not been made public.
In 1954 she married English businessman Andrew Hay. After about 14 years he left her for Sharman Douglas. They had no children, and no later marriage is documented.
Hay left University High School in Los Angeles at 15 without a diploma. Her later education was spiritual rather than academic.
After moving to New York in 1950, Hay worked as a fashion model for designers including Bill Blass, Oleg Cassini and Pauline Trigère. Her turn to spiritual work began after her marriage ended in the late 1960s.
Reid Tracy, who joined as an accountant in 1988, became chief executive of Hay House in 1990. The company has published authors such as Wayne Dyer, Suze Orman and Tavis Smiley.
Hay’s teaching drew on the New Thought tradition of Ernest Holmes’s Science of Mind. She taught that thoughts and beliefs shape experience and that self-love is the foundation of healing.
Her Hayride groups offered acceptance to people with AIDS, mostly gay men in West Hollywood, at a time of intense stigma; her official site says attendance grew from six men in 1985 to about 800 a week by 1988. Critics, including writer Sarah Schulman and historian Beryl Satter, argued that attributing illness to thought patterns could blame patients and discourage medical treatment.
After her March 1988 appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and The Phil Donahue Show, the book spent 13 weeks on the Times bestseller list.
Awarded at Asilomar, California, in recognition of her ministry and teaching.
Presented by California First Lady Maria Shriver at The Women's Conference, which honours women for leadership and service to others.
A feature by Mark Oppenheimer profiling her life, teaching and the growth of Hay House.
Louise Hay (1926 to 2017) was an American self-help author and the founder of the publishing company Hay House. She was born Helen Vera Lunney on 8 October 1926 in Los Angeles and died at her home in San Diego on 30 August 2017, aged 90.
She is best known for You Can Heal Your Life and for popularising positive affirmations as a tool for personal change.
You Can Heal Your Life, published in 1984, set out Hay’s belief that thoughts and long-held beliefs shape a person’s experience of life, including their health and relationships. It encourages readers to practise self-love, forgiveness and positive affirmations.
The book became an international bestseller and was later adapted into a 2007 film.
Hay taught that repeating positive statements, such as “I love and approve of myself,” could help replace negative beliefs with more supportive ones. She often recommended saying affirmations while looking in a mirror.
Her approach comes from the New Thought tradition and the Church of Religious Science, where she trained as a practitioner.
Hay believed that many physical illnesses were linked to mental and emotional patterns such as resentment, criticism, fear or guilt. Her 1976 booklet Heal Your Body listed ailments alongside what she called their probable mental causes and suggested affirmations.
These ideas are not supported by medical science, and critics warned that they could discourage people from seeking proper treatment.
Hay said she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in the late 1970s and healed herself within months through forgiveness, therapy, nutrition and other methods, without conventional treatment.
This claim was never medically confirmed. Hay herself acknowledged that the doctors who could have verified it had died.
No. Hay’s books present affirmations as a complement to personal growth, but there is no scientific evidence that affirmations can cure diseases such as cancer.
Anyone facing a serious illness should rely on qualified medical care. Affirmations may help some people with mindset and emotional well-being alongside treatment.
Hay House is a publishing company that Louise Hay founded in 1984, initially to publish her own books. It grew into one of the best-known publishers of self-help, spirituality and personal growth titles.
It has published authors such as Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra and Doreen Virtue, and continues to run events and online programmes.
In 1985 Hay began holding support groups for people with AIDS in West Hollywood, which became known as the Hayrides and grew to gatherings of several hundred people.
The groups offered emotional support at a time of widespread fear and stigma, although some critics objected to her suggestion that illness had mental causes.
Her list of ailments, probable mental causes and suggested affirmations first appeared in the booklet Heal Your Body (1976) and was expanded in later editions. A version is also included in You Can Heal Your Life.
The list reflects Hay’s personal beliefs and is not medical advice.
Their work
Organizations
Hay House
The Hay Foundation
Books
You Can Heal Your Life
Heal Your Body
The Power Is Within You
I Can Do It: How to Use Affirmations to Change Your Life
Events and programs
The Hayride
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