Magnificent Obsession

By Lloyd C. Douglas

Robert Merrick is a young wastrel, content to live off his fortune, frittering away his days with drink and merry-making. One day, while out on the lake in his sailboat, he was knocked unconscious by the boom and fell into the lake. There was a suspicion that he was drunk at the time. Anyway, an inhalator (a device used to help people breathe) was rushed to his side and saved his life. Unfortunately, on that same lake a man died because the inhalator was not available to save him when his crisis happened at the same time. This man was a respected brain surgeon and his death was a great loss to the world.
When Merrick learned of the terrible coincidence, he felt really badly. He decided to turn his life around and even decided to go to medical school with the eventual goal of becoming a brain surgeon.
In the meantime, Merrick happened to meet the dead man's very young and beautiful widow and became completely smitten. She, of course, was not thrilled to met the man who indirectly was the reason for her own husband's death. Merrick pined after her but kept his distance.
He went on to become the brain surgeon and entered into practice at the same hospital as the dead man. Here he became friends with the dead man's friends and was given a journal, written in code, by the dead surgeon. Merrick managed to decode the journal and found within it a philosophy of living that the author claimed would increase a person's power and bring success to them if followed correctly. It was something to do with helping people, giving them secret loans, and not expecting to be repaid, instead the person helped would, in the course of time, help someone else. So Merrick decides to give the philosophy a go and it works for him even going to far as to give him a moment of intimate communication with God, or as he calls it, the Major Personality. To Merrick, religion becomes not a matter of faith but a science, using the method revealed in the journal to build his own personal power and establish communion with God. He becomes a very successful surgeon and helps out a lot of needy people, in secret, because that is required by the method.
Meanwhile, his love affair with the widow just continues to decline. Every time he tries to help her out, it blows up in his face. Her bad opinion of him grows and grows, until she is gravely injured in a train crash and Merrick rushed to her side in time to save her life. Her suspicions of him are gradually assuaged and they finally get together in the end.

The method is based on some verses in the Bible from the New Testament book of Matthew. The author refers to Jesus Christ as a man who figured out how to magnify himself using this method.

I didn't much care for this book. I thought the method sounded unlikely. I have no problem with helping people out but the idea that it will accrue power to yourself just didn't ring true. But besides that, I just found the book a little dull.