Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill: Summary and Notes
The full book, section by section.
Start hereThe short version
- 1Hill wrote the book in 1938 and his family kept it hidden for 72 years. Chapters 1 and 2 tell how Carnegie's challenge, repeated failure and a night walk around a West Virginia schoolhouse led him to discover his other self.The backstory
- 2In Chapters 3 to 7, Hill interviews the Devil, who claims to control 98% of people through fear and drifting, and explains hypnotic rhythm, the natural law that makes any repeated thought a permanent habit.The confession
- 3Chapters 8 to 12 give the seven principles that break the Devil's hold: definiteness of purpose, mastery over self, learning from adversity, controlling environmental influence, time, harmony and caution. The Summary ties them to drifting, hypnotic rhythm and time.The seven principles
The summaryIntroduction
Napoleon Hill wrote this manuscript on a manual typewriter in 1938, right after Think and Grow Rich, and his family kept it locked away for 72 years. Sharon Lechter, who edited and annotated the book for the Napoleon Hill Foundation, explains why. His wife, Annie Lou, objected to publishing it because of the role of the Devil. She feared the response from organized religion, and maybe for Hill's job with Dr. William Plummer Jacobs, president of Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. Hill died in 1970, but Annie Lou did not die until 1984, and the book was published in 2011. Lechter notes that Hill had drawn criticism over his views on schools and religion as early as Law of Success in 1928, and that he interviewed Andrew Carnegie in 1908. Her commentary runs between Hill's passages throughout the book, and she argues the message was meant for readers today.
"This book, even though written in 1938, was actually meant to be published today, meant to rock our society today."
Chapter 1My First Meeting with Andrew Carnegie
Hill recounts the commission that shaped his life. At the end of their first meeting, Carnegie challenged him to organize the world's first practical philosophy of individual achievement, a job that would require at least 20 years of continuous effort with no pay at the outset. Hill accepted, and with a letter of introduction from Carnegie interviewed Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford, Alexander Graham Bell, King Gillette and many others. Carnegie told him he would discover that the cause of success is a force inside each person, which might be called the other self. Hill says he analyzed more than 25,000 men and women rated as failures and over 500 classed as successful.
His own career kept rising and collapsing. After a run of success, including a Golden Rule magazine, launched on Armistice Day, 1918, that ended its first year with a profit of $3,156, which Lechter equates to $45,000 today, he lost his footing again. Don Mellett, publisher of the Canton, Ohio, Daily News, planned to resign and take charge of publishing Hill's philosophy as his partner. In July 1926, Mellett was murdered for exposing a hookup between bootleggers and the local police; an underworld figure and a Canton policeman were sentenced to life imprisonment. Warned to leave Canton within the hour, Hill fled to relatives in the mountains of West Virginia and spent months in hiding, afraid for his life, and felt helpless and humiliated: he had lectured all over the country on the 17 principles of success and could not apply them himself.
The turn came in the fall of 1927. Walking at night around a schoolhouse in West Virginia, he fought what he calls a terrible battle with fear, and an inner voice told him his mission was to complete the philosophy and that he would succeed. The next morning his other self gave him sharp, specific orders: borrow $50 from his brother-in-law and go to Philadelphia. Hill says he followed orders instead of asking questions, and that the faith entity had gained control of his body. Lechter asks readers whether they have faced a similar test.
Chapter 1 · The other self takes command
"Your mission in life is to complete the world's first philosophy of individual achievement."
Chapter 2A New World Is Revealed to Me
In Philadelphia, Hill's other self told him to take an expensive suite in a good hotel. He needed about $25,000 to publish his books, and he went through a list of more than 300 acquaintances who could supply it, starting with Henry Ford, for two days and nights. When he gave up and dozed off, the name of Albert L. Pelton came to him with a plan. Pelton had been an advertiser in Hill's old Golden Rule magazine. Pelton agreed to publish the books, the books reached students all over the world, and his first royalty check was for $850.
Hill reflects on what he learned. He says no experience of the future can wound him as deeply as those of the past, because he is now on speaking terms with his other self. He describes Ralph Waldo Emerson's law of compensation, the idea that every adversity carries a corresponding benefit, and argues that the Depression, which began in 1929, had left nature working exactly as before; only men's minds had stopped functioning normally because they were filled with fear. He describes how his prayers changed: he gives thanks for the blessings that have crowned his efforts, and says infinite intelligence seems not at all offended when he does. He also takes a personal inventory once a year to see which weaknesses he has eliminated.
Chapter 2 · The name that came in sleep
"A prayer is a released thought, sometimes expressed in audible words and at other times expressed silently."
Chapter 3A Strange Interview with the Devil
The Depression of 1929 cost Hill his 600-acre estate in the Catskill Mountains and left him, once again, the author of a philosophy of self-determination who could not lift himself out of despair. Sitting in his car in front of the Lincoln Memorial, he saw that he had never formed a master mind alliance, the harmonious coordination of two or more minds working to a definite end, which he had learned from Carnegie and more than 500 others was essential. That realization opens the interview.
Hill presents the rest of the book as a dialogue with the Devil, whom he forces to answer truthfully because he has discovered his other self. Hill invites readers to judge the confession by their own experience. The Devil demands to be addressed as Your Majesty and claims to control 98% of the people of the world. He is no beast with a forked tongue; he is negative energy, occupying half of all energy and matter, while his opposition, the power people call God, controls the positive forces that keep the planets in their courses. He works by planting fear, and every form of fear extends the space he occupies in the mind. He names his allies on earth, his enemies (including the Rockefeller fortune, which he says is fighting disease and financing campaigns for better government), and even cigarettes, which he says break down persistence. Lechter notes that Hill wrote this in 1938, long before tobacco's addictive nature was understood. The Devil admits he could not control 98% of people if they were skilled in thinking for themselves.
Chapter 3 · The Devil's 98 percent
"I plant the seed of fear in the minds of people, and as these seeds germinate and grow, through use, I control the space they occupy."
- You're Already an Impact Business22 to 30
- You're Closer Than You Think14 to 21
- You Have the Foundation7 to 13
- The Starting Line0 to 6
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Chapter 4Drifting with the Devil
The Devil reveals his main tool: drifting, the habit of letting circumstances and other people do one's thinking. He says that when a person begins to drift on any subject, he is headed toward hell, which the Devil describes as a state on earth. His best trick, he says, is to get children in the habit of drifting early, through parents who do too much and religious instructors who teach fear. The public schools help by teaching children almost everything except how to use their own minds, cramming them with facts and teaching them that the answers lie with the teacher. Lechter recalls fire and brimstone sermons from her own childhood.
Hill asks for a point-by-point description so he can recognize a drifter. The first thing to notice is his total lack of a major purpose in life. He lacks self-confidence and imagination, spends all he earns and more if he can get credit, and is sick or ailing from some real or imaginary cause. He lacks enthusiasm and initiative and takes the line of least resistance. He has opinions on everything and accurate knowledge of nothing, is jack of all trades and good at none, makes the same mistake over and over, begins many things and completes nothing, expects everything of others while giving little in return, and is narrow-minded and intolerant on all subjects. The non-drifter, as the Devil describes him, has a definite purpose and a definite plan, has a mind of his own and uses it for all purposes, and gives before he expects to get. The Devil says he has control over no non-drifter, past or present. He names the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, by fifty-six men as a blow to his control of the nation. Hill concludes that drifting is the most common cause of failure in every walk of life.
Chapter 4 · Drifting and definiteness of purpose
"Accurate thought is death to me. I cannot exist in the minds of those who think accurately."
Chapter 5The Confession Continues
Hill makes the Devil repeat his confession in as many ways as possible so readers can test it. The Devil explains that Hill is beyond his control, because Hill has found his own mind and taken charge of it. He lists his baits. Flattery catches the egotist. Propaganda fills the divorce courts and destroys business and industry, and he says he works through politics and labor organizations. His sure-fire baits for starting people drifting are food and sex, along with the desire for money, which he dangles before people and then snatches away. Lechter adds stories from her book Three Feet from Gold, written with a co-author, in which more than 35 leaders describe their toughest moments.
Pressed for a defense, the Devil gives a ten-point formula. It begins with the fact that human beings have complete control over nothing except the power to think their own thoughts. Then: decide definitely what you want from life, make a plan for it and be willing to sacrifice everything else before accepting permanent defeat. Analyze every temporary defeat for the seed of an equivalent advantage. Render useful service equal to what you demand of life, and render it first. Recognize the brain as a receiving set that can be attuned to the universal storehouse of infinite intelligence. Treat time as your greatest asset, the only thing besides thought that you own outright, and budget it. Recognize fear as a filler the Devil puts in the unused portion of the mind, and replace it with faith. When you pray, do not beg; demand what you want with no substitutes. Recognize that life is a cruel taskmaster that you either master or are mastered by, and never accept from life anything you do not want. Last, remember that your dominating thoughts attract their physical counterpart by the shortest and most convenient route, so be careful what thoughts you dwell upon. Asked to combine all ten into one, he answers with the line below. He adds that the habit of drifting can be broken with enough willpower, provided it is done in time.
Chapter 5 · Ten points, one rule
"Be definite in everything you do and never leave unfinished thoughts in the mind."
Chapter 6Hypnotic Rhythm
The Devil describes the law he uses to make habits permanent. Hypnotic rhythm is the natural law that keeps the stars and planets in their courses, and in the human mind it takes any thought or act repeated often enough and fixes it into a permanent habit. Habits must be broken before they reach the proportions of rhythm. He compares the energy of thought to water in a river. People who give their minds over to fear stop using them and begin to drift, and the law then makes their fear permanent. Fear of poverty and fear of criticism are among the fears he describes.
The Right to Be Rich
The same law works for the non-drifter. Hill says one's dominating thoughts, those mixed with emotion, are bound to clothe themselves in their physical equivalent. The Devil admits he lost control of Hill and credits the embellishment of a woman's mind; Lechter suggests Hill may have formed a master mind with his wife. The Devil also warns that whatever you have, you use it or lose it. Lechter notes that Hill first wrote about this law of attraction in the March 1919 issue of his Golden Rule magazine.
Chapter 6 · Hypnotic rhythm
"If your mind fears poverty, your mind will attract poverty."
Chapter 7Seeds of Fear
The Devil explains that he intercepts people early by planting thoughts that destroy their power to use their minds constructively, and that his cleverest move is using the allies of his opposition to keep the fear of hell burning. Hill asks whether hypnotic rhythm is dangerous when it is not applied to definite ends, and the Devil says it is. Every home, business, town and community has its own discernible rhythm, and people take on the rhythm of their surroundings. If a person knows what he wants, demands it, is willing to pay life's price for it and refuses substitutes, hypnotic rhythm takes over the desire and helps turn it into its physical counterpart. Hill then asks for the method, and the Devil agrees to describe seven principles.
Chapter 7 · The rhythm of surroundings
"This explains why both success and failure are the result of habit."
Chapter 8Definiteness of Purpose
Lechter lists the seven principles: definiteness of purpose, mastery over self, learning from adversity, controlling environmental influence, time, harmony and caution. The Devil starts with the first. Everyone is born with the privilege of being definite, but 98 out of every 100 people lose it by sleeping on it. He tries to claim children before they come into possession of their own minds, storing negative limitations in the subconscious to use later.
He names love as one of his most effective bribes, because it clouds reason and blinds people to facts, and he says that if he controls a person's fears and knows what he loves most, that person is his slave. Asked which is more apt to succeed, a weak plan applied with definiteness or a strong plan applied indefinitely, the Devil says weak plans have a way of becoming strong if definitely applied.
Chapter 8 · Definiteness of purpose
"In other words, if one cannot be always right, one can and should be always definite."
Chapter 9Education and Religion
The Devil calls schools and churches his most effective allies. Schools force students to cram their memories with facts instead of teaching them to organize and use facts, and churches teach fear of the hereafter. He argues that the first duty of every human being is to himself, and that infinite intelligence favors only those who understand and adapt themselves to her laws. Only two out of every one hundred people, he says, think for themselves.
Hill asks for a reform program and the Devil dictates a long list. Teach children how habits become fixed through hypnotic rhythm. Teach them that the brain is an instrument that receives energy from the great storehouse of nature. Teach that definiteness of purpose, backed by definite plans persistently applied, is the most efficacious form of prayer. Teach them to recognize practical ideas, to budget time, which is the greatest asset available and the cheapest, and to understand the basic motives that move people. Teach what to eat and how much. Lechter says she does not agree with everything on the list, and that we are still teaching to the test today.
Chapter 9 · Facts crammed or facts used
"Definiteness is the major difference between a scientist and a drifter."
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Chapter 10Self-Discipline
Mastery over self is the second principle. Self-discipline starts with three appetites: the desire for food, the desire for expression of sex, and the desire to express loosely organized opinions. People who have not mastered themselves overfeed the first, and the Devil makes claims about the body's waste and headaches that Lechter presents as Hill being ahead of his time. On sex, the Devil says the desire can no more be killed than a river can be stopped, but it can be transmuted into a driving force for one's work; if people spent on their work half the time they spend pursuing sex, he says, they would never know poverty. On opinions, he says the habit of expressing uninvited opinions, aloud or in letters, develops a grasshopper mind, hands others your plans and creates enemies. He closes by naming the seven principles as the way out.
Chapter 10 · Three appetites
"The seven principles are the media by which man may break the hold of hypnotic rhythm and take possession again of his own mind."
Chapter 11Learning from Adversity
The third principle separates temporary defeat from failure. If people knew the difference, they would not quit when they met opposition. Nature, the Devil says, uses mass failures like the 1929 depression to break up people's habits and hand out fresh opportunities. He extends the idea to human relationships: every new acquaintance ripens into friendship and harmony or plants a germ of suspicion, according to the habits of the people involved. Improper relationships can be corrected, and Lechter points back to the master mind. She adds stories from Three Feet from Gold of leaders who refused to quit.
Chapter 11 · Temporary defeat is not failure
"Life gives no one immunity against adversity, but life gives to everyone the power of positive thought, which is sufficient to master all circumstances of adversity and convert them to benefits."
Chapter 12Environment, Time, Harmony, and Caution
The last four principles complete the set. Environment: hypnotic rhythm makes thought habits permanent, so constant association with negative people forms negative habits, and a marriage partner has the greatest influence of all. Everyone is duty-bound to remove from his environment anything that develops negative thought. The Devil lists the ten most common motives behind human action, among them the desire for love and sex, food, self-expression, life after death, power, material wealth, knowledge, imitating others, excelling others, and the seven basic fears.
Time: time solidifies habits, positive or negative, and wisdom comes only to non-drifters through the lapse of time. Harmony: nature forces each person into the dominating influence of his surroundings, so a person must become that dominating influence through definiteness of purpose. Caution: the drifter moves without it and lets his closest associates attach themselves on their own terms, while the non-drifter thinks his plans through before acting. Lechter says the chapter shows the value of choosing associates carefully and learning to say no more often.
Chapter 12 · The last four principles
"Wisdom comes only through the lapse of time."
Hill's closingSummary
Hill pulls the book together around three forces: drifting, hypnotic rhythm and time. Failures, he says, are the climax of circumstances built up through the habit of drifting with the aid of time. Samuel Insull, who moved from England in 1881 to become Thomas Edison's secretary and rose to head Chicago Edison, did not lose his $4 billion empire because of the Depression; Hill says he began losing it earlier, when flattery turned his attention from utilities to grand opera. Hill also discusses Henry Ford and Franklin D. Roosevelt. What saved Hill himself was the definiteness of purpose with which he finally dedicated his life to the philosophy, after analyzing more than 25,000 people. Success and failure, he concludes, are both woven bit by bit out of dominating thoughts.
"Most of the difficulties in which people find themselves are of their own making."
AfterwordAfterword
Michael Bernard Beckwith reads the book as spiritual teaching. He notes that many of today's spiritual, philosophical, self-help and scientific authors share Hill's view of definiteness of purpose, which he calls intention setting, and he reads Hill as inviting people to begin with their inner state of consciousness and give outer expression to their highest potential for the benefit of all.
"Let us not fight with the mind."
In ReflectionIn Reflection
Lechter closes by placing Hill in his time. His pantheon included Carnegie, Edison, Ford and Rockefeller, and he loved his country despite seeing it as vulnerable to the Devil's work. She lists the seven principles again as a self-check: definiteness of purpose, mastery over self, learning from adversity, controlling environmental influence, time, harmony and caution. She says she sees God's hand in the manuscript reaching readers in 2011.
"Limits were self-imposed or imposed by the negative outside force of evil, personified by the devil."