NEW YORK — Wayne W. Dyer, whose best-selling 1976 book decrying the vice of blame and preaching the virtue of self-reliance, "Your Erroneous Zones," propelled him to a prolific multimedia career of advice-giving and spiritual counseling, died over the weekend in Maui, Hawaii. He was 75.
He died Saturday or early Sunday, his daughter Serena said. He was known to have leukemia, but a spokeswoman for his publisher, Hay House, said the cause was a heart attack.
A popular lecturer and talk-show guest, he believed in sovereign individualism, the eternal human soul, and a nondenominational faith in a higher power — "God is the highest place within each and every one of us; it's our divine self," he told Oprah Winfrey — and taught that life is much more controllable than many think it is.
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The author of more than two dozen books that sold millions of copies, he specialized in the self-help genre, with titles like "10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace" and "Change Your Thoughts — Change Your Life."
Many of his books were made into public television programs, and he also made CDs, DVDs, streaming videos, calendars, online courses, and a blog.
In a 2014 memoir, "I Can See Clearly Now," he wrote about how he came to understand one key tenet of his philosophy: that the past and future are essentially irrelevant to how we live.
He told of a 1954 episode, when he was 14. After watching "The Tonight Show" — hosted by Steve Allen — he announced he would someday speak with Allen on the show. Decades later, after writing "Your Erroneous Zones," he was booked on the show. Allen, no longer host, happened to be at the studio making a call. The meeting made a deep impression, he wrote: "As I walked past that phone bank and saw that I was about to make an appearance on 'The Tonight Show' with Steve Allen. I had an immediate and almost overpowering sensation within me that I had actually created my own future by having such a strong knowing back when I was 14 years old. In fact, I am quite certain that time itself is much more of an illusion than we are capable of understanding."
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Wayne Walter Dyer was born in Detroit. His father, Melvin, left when he was a toddler, and his mother, the former Hazel Irene Vollick, placed him in foster care until he was 10. He graduated from high school in Detroit and served in the Navy before returning to continue his education. At Wayne State University's college of education, he earned a bachelor's in history and philosophy, a master's in psychology, and a PhD in counseling.
By the 1970s he was a psychologist on Long Island, an associate professor at St. John's University in Queens, and author of two textbooks. A literary agent encouraged him to put his ideas about self-destructive behaviors into a book for popular consumption.
The result, "Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life," had two main themes. The first: "You are the sum total of your choices." The second: "There is only one moment in which you can experience anything, and that is now."
Mr. Dyer, who lived in Maui, was married three times and divorced twice. In addition to his daughter Serena, his survivors include his wife, the former Marcelene Rowan, from whom he was separated; five other daughters; two sons; two brothers; and nine grandchildren.
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