Wayne Dyer and Oprah Winfrey in 2012. 
 
 In 2012, not far from a waterfall, Oprah Winfrey sat down with an older man. The man, clad in open-toed sandals and jean shorts and bald as a cue ball, had advice to offer. And, in gentle tones, self-help guru Wayne Dyer proceeded to offer Oprah his version of the truth. 
 
 The talk quickly got mystical. 
 
 Winfrey: What is the soul? Dyer: The soul is the birthless, deathless, changeless part of us — the part of us that looks out from behind our eyes and has no form. Winfrey: Are we in the soul, or is the soul in us? Dyer: The soul is infinite, so there’s no in or out of it. It is everywhere. There’s no place that it is not. Winfrey: What is your definition of god? Dyer: God is the highest place within each and every one of us — it’s our divine self. Winfrey: What do you think will happen when we die? Dyer: I don’t think we die. I think our bodies leave, but we can never die. That which is never born, can never die. And that which never changes, can never die. Winfrey: What do you know for sure? Dyer: I love you. 
 
 All this, possibly, before lunch. 
 
 Now, Dyer — who has died at 75 as NBC and other outlets reported — is gone. The news came from his family via his Facebook page, which did not specify the cause of death. 
 
 “Wayne has left his body, passing away through the night,” their post read. “He always said he couldn’t wait for this next adventure to begin and had no fear of dying. Our hearts are broken, but we smile to think of how much our scurvy elephant will enjoy the other side.” (What’s a “scurvy elephant”? Keep reading.) 
 
 But Dyer’s advice — dispensed to countless talk-show hosts over decades — lives on. 
 
 “The world has lost an incredible man,” Ellen DeGeneres tweeted. “Wayne Dyer officiated our wedding & was an inspiration to so many. Sending love.” 
 
 The world has lost an incredible man. Wayne Dyer officiated our wedding & was an inspiration to so many. Sending love pic.twitter.com/kzsCS278jr — Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) August 30, 2015 
 
 Dyer offered a self-actualization philosophy. It was Christian-y. It was Buddhist-ish. And it all began with a hard-luck childhood on the streets of Detroit. 
 
 “My mother had three small children under the age of four; and an alcoholic husband who walked away without ever providing any support,” Dyer once wrote on his Web site. “She placed one of my brothers and me in a series of foster homes, while my other brother lived with my grandmother until I was ten years old. This is not a story of pity or blame; it’s precisely what had to take place in order for me to learn about self-reliance firsthand.” 
 
 Dyer turned his life around. And, after serving in the Navy and studying counseling at Wayne State University in the Motor City, he proceeded to help others turn theirs around as well. His debut book — “Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life,” published in 1976 — sold 35 million copies. And he went on to write about 40 more. 
 
 “The next time you are contemplating a decision in which you are debating whether or not to take charge of yourself, to make your own choice, ask yourself an important question, ‘How long am I going to be dead?’” Dyer wrote. “With that eternal perspective, you can now make your own choice and leave the worrying, the fears, the question of whether you can afford it and the guilt to those who are going to be alive forever.” 
 
 
 
 Dyer in 1978. (Phil Sandlin/The Associated Press for The Washington Post) 
 
 One of the pillars of this philosophy: being a “scurvy elephant.” Though others have used the term, Dyer made it his own, saying it was how he misheard a teacher who called him a “disturbing element” at an orphanage in the third grade. 
 
 “‘Scurvy elephant,’ that’s the term I’ve used as long as I can remember,” he said in 2007. “… There are some people who have a sense of who they are and what they are going to be and they really are, very early in their life, independent of the good opinion of other people. I was one of these people.” 
 
 Dyer sought to make scurvy elephants wherever he went and through whomever he visited: particularly the likes of Phil Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael and Merv Griffin. 
 
 “I couldn’t get past the past I had created for myself,” he told DeGeneres in 2007 of his attempts to overcome his poor academic record and gain admission to college. “But I’ve always believed a brick wall is just there for people who don’t really care enough or don’t really want something badly enough. And I wanted this very, very badly.” 
 
 Married three times with eight children, Dyer lived large — but did not prove a welcome guest everywhere. His long-standing relationship with PBS — where he would often appear for hours at a time during pledge drives, and for whom he claimed to have raised $250 million — sometimes drew fire. 
 
 “They reveal mostly a trend that those viewers who wrote find disturbing,” PBS’s ombudsman wrote of letters critical of Dyer in 2006, “a sense that PBS might be seen as lending its prestige to Dyer’s spiritual views and aligning itself with his teachings.” 
 
 Dyer was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2009, but claimed to have been healed via the power of positive thinking and “psychic surgery” by an unconventional Brazilian doctor. 
 
 “It’s a remote surgery,” Dyer told Winfrey in 2012. “It was 12,000 miles from where I was. I don’t know what happened. These are entities. They don’t have any form. These are just spirits that enter his body.” 
 
 “This sounds crazy,” Winfrey said — though she later interviewed the doctor. Dyer agreed. But he had a thought. 
 
 “Here’s a line from Jesus: ‘With god all things are possible,'” he said. “What does that leave out? … Nothing. So it doesn’t leave out this either.” ||||| Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, best-selling author of more than 30 self-help books, died in Maui, Hawaii at the age of 75. Dyer was a favorite guest of talk show hosts like Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. VPC 
 
 Dr. Wayne W. Dyer (Photo: Hay House) 
 
 Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, the best-selling self-help guru and author of 30 books, died late Saturday, his family and publisher said. He was 75. 
 
 A posting on Dyer's Facebook page said: "Wayne has left his body, passing away through the night. He always said he couldn't wait for this next adventure to begin and had no fear of dying. Our hearts are broken, but we smile to think of how much our scurvy elephant will enjoy the other side." 
 
 The posting was signed by his family. Within an hour, it had been shared more than 32,000 times. 
 
 Dyer died Saturday night in Maui, Hawaii, Reid Tracy, chief executive of Dyer's publisher, Hay House, told NBC News. On Tuesday, a statement on Dyer's Facebook page said the cause of his death was a heart attack. 
 
 Dyer was diagnosed with leukemia several years ago. In an interview posted to the KPBS-TV, San Diego, website in 2012 after his leukemia diagnosis, Dyer said he'd begun looking at the illness as "just the body's way of responding to, perhaps, psychological traumas, you know, from failed relationships in the past, or whatever it is, and that the body just always knows what it's doing - and the body is perfect." 
 
 On Tuesday, a statement on Dyer's Facebook page said a coroner's report indicated "he did not have a trace of leukemia in his body." 
 
 "For those of you who have been listening to his talks or reading his recent books you know that he was diagnosed with leukemia but felt he was able to eliminate it from his body and this report confirms what he already knew," the statement read. 
 
 For years, Dyer was a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey's talk show, and Winfrey's OWN network broadcast many interviews with and documentaries by him. The network began tweeting a series of interviews with Dyer beginning Sunday on the account of its spirituality and religion show Super Soul Sunday, NBC reported. 
 
 On Sunday, Winfrey tweeted: "It was always a pleasure to talk to @DrWayneWDyer about life's big questions. He always had big answers. RIP Wayne. You brought the Light." 
 
 Deepak Chopra tweeted: "Grieving deeply at sudden passing of my life long friend @DrWayneWDyer. I saw him 2 weeks ago at Chopra Center in good spirits." 
 
 Another self-help guru, Tony Robbins, tweeted late Sunday: "Wayne Dyer has passed away today. 4 those of us who loved him it's sad, but he knew death was a transition. We send love 4his next adventure." 
 
 Dyer's Facebook page on Sunday still advertised an upcoming two-week seminar, scheduled for October and dubbed "The Holy Land and Beyond: A Spiritual Journey of Self-Discovery." 
 
 A native of Detroit, Dyer had been living in Maui. 
 
 Dyer was a guidance counselor at a Detroit high school and went on to run a successful private therapy practice, but his motivational and self-help lectures at St. John's University, where he was a professor, attracted students beyond those enrolled, according to a biography on Dyer's Goodreads page. A literary agent persuaded him to package his ideas in book form, resulting in his first book, Your Erroneous Zones, in 1976. 
 
 Dyer eventually quit his teaching job and began touring the USA to promote the book, reportedly selling copies "out of the back of his station wagon," according to Michael Korda. The book, Korda said, made the best-seller lists "before book publishers even noticed what was happening." 
 
 Dyer may have lived in Hawaii, but he never forgot his Detroit roots. He was a million-dollar donor to the city's Wayne State University, establishing a scholarship fund at the college where he earned three degrees, including a doctorate in counseling. He helped raise more than $100 million for public broadcasting, including the local public broadcasting station, with motivational specials that ran for years. 
 
 "As a pioneer in the genre we now refer to as 'self-help' programming, he connected deeply with public television audiences that share his mission for personal improvement," Rich Homberg, president and CEO of Detroit Public Television, said Sunday 
 
 "For millions and millions of people, he was a touchstone of understanding and self-awareness and confidence," said Homberg. "He always just felt so genuine, and so real, and he went to such lengths to help people understand." 
 
 Homberg said public television stations around the country eagerly anticipated Dyer-staged shows, not only for the fundraising dollars they generated but because viewers so connected with Dyer's message. 
 
 He was born Wayne Walter Dyer in Detroit, and grew up in a series of foster care homes. His father was an alcoholic who left the family when Dyer was 3. 
 
 In the 1960s, he taught social studies at Detroit's Pershing High School, and then was a counselor for two years in the early '70s at Catholic all-girls Mercy High School in Farmington Hills. At Mercy, he also was a driver's education instructor. Not only did he teach students to drive, but he also taught several of the Mercy nuns, said Cheryl Kreger, the school's president. 
 
 When Kreger called him a few months ago to thank him for a recent donation, Dyer said he'd be happy to be included in a capital fundraising campaign for the school. 
 
 "Use my name. Use my picture. Whatever you want to promote Mercy," Kreger said Dyer told her. 
 
 The world has lost an incredible man. Wayne Dyer officiated our wedding & was an inspiration to so many. Sending love pic.twitter.com/kzsCS278jr — Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) August 30, 2015 
 
 Contributing: Patricia Montemurri, Detroit Free Press 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1EzAwkM ||||| Dr. Wayne Dyer, the renowned motivational guru and author of dozens of self-help books, has died at age 75, his family announced over social media Sunday. 
 
 DrWayneDyer.com 
 
 "Wayne has left his body, passing away through the night. He always said he couldn't wait for this next adventure to begin and had no fear of dying. Our hearts are broken, but we smile to think of how much our scurvy elephant will enjoy the other side. ... We Love You Forever Dad/Wayne," his family posted in a message on Dyer's Facebook page. 
 
 Wayne has left his body, passing away through the night. He always said he couldn't wait for this next adventure... http://t.co/cQuSi2Rqk6 — Dr Wayne W Dyer (@DrWayneWDyer) August 30, 2015 
 
 Dyer rose to prominence after the publication of his first book, 1976's "Your Erroneous Zone," became an international bestseller. That launched Dyer's career as an author and speaker and garnered him a legion of ardent fans, who dubbed him the "father of motivation." 
 
 His basic message was simple: Think good thoughts, and good things will surely follow. 
 
 "Take the last five minutes of your day," Dyer told CBS Sunday Morning's Tracy Smith in 2014, "and put your attention on everything that you would like to attract into your life: 'I am well. I am healed. I am in perfect health. I am abundant. I am happy.' Say those things to yourself. Then you'll marinate for eight hours, and you'll awaken and you'll begin to attract the things that are in your subconscious mind." 
 
 Dyer's own story is motivating in its own right: Born Michigan, he spent part of his childhood in orphanages and foster homes. He went on to earn a doctorate in educational counseling from Wayne State University and was teaching at St. John's University in New York when the success of "Your Erroneous Zone" altered his professional course. 
 
 His family didn't disclose the cause of death, but the news quickly generated reaction across social media. 
 
 The world has lost an incredible man. Wayne Dyer officiated our wedding & was an inspiration to so many. Sending love pic.twitter.com/kzsCS278jr — Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) August 30, 2015 
 
 Grieving deeply at sudden passing of my life long friend @DrWayneWDyer . I saw him 2 weeks ago at Chopra Center in good spirits — Deepak Chopra (@DeepakChopra) August 31, 2015 ||||| This page provides lists of best-selling individual books and book series to date and in any language. "Best selling" refers to the estimated number of copies sold of each book, rather than the number of books printed or currently owned. Comics and textbooks are not included in this list. The books are listed according to the highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources. This list is incomplete because there are many books, such as The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, or A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, that are commonly cited as "best-selling books" yet have no reliable sales figures. Similarly, many notable book series that sold very widely are poorly documented (Land of Oz) or consist of multiple sub-series (Tom Swift). 
 
 According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time, with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed.[1] The Qur'an is also widely reported to be one of the most printed and distributed books worldwide.[citation needed] The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, also known as the Little Red Book, has produced a wide array of sales and distribution figures — with some sources claiming over 6.5 billion printed volumes,[2] others claiming the distribution ran into the "billions,"[3] some citing "over a billion" official volumes between 1966 and 1969 alone as well as "untold numbers of unofficial local reprints and unofficial translations."[4][5] Exact print figures for these and other books may also be missing or unreliable since these kinds of books may be produced by many different and unrelated publishers, in some cases over many centuries. All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have been excluded from this list of best-selling books for these reasons. 
 
 Having sold more than 500 million copies worldwide,[6][7][8] Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling is the best-selling book series in history. The first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, has sold in excess of 120 million copies,[9] making it one of the best-selling books of all time. As of June 2017, the series has been translated into 80 languages,[10] placing Harry Potter among history's most translated literary works. The last four books in the series consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books of all time, where the final installment, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, sold roughly fifteen million copies worldwide within twenty-four hours of its release.[11][12] With twelve million books printed in the first U.S. run, it also holds the record for the highest initial print run for any book in history.[13][14] 
 
 List of best-selling individual books 
 
 More than 100 million copies 
 
 Between 50 million and 100 million copies 
 
 Between 30 million and 50 million copies 
 
 Between 20 million and 30 million copies 
 
 Between 10 million and 20 million copies 
 
 List of best-selling book series 
 
 More than 100 million copies 
 
 Between 50 million and 100 million copies 
 
 Between 30 million and 50 million copies 
 
 Between 20 million and 30 million copies 
 
 Between 15 million and 20 million copies 
 
 Notes 
 
 The Perry Rhodan series has sold more than 1 billion copies,[278] but is not listed because that figure includes magazine sales, not novels alone.[citation needed] Similarly, the Jerry Cotton series has sold over 300 million copies, but most of these were in magazine format.[279] 
 
 The figures given for some books are for the number printed instead of confirmed sales.[which?] 
 
 More than 100 million copies 
 
 Between 50 million and 100 million copies 
 
 Between 30 million and 50 million copies 
 
 Between 20 million and 30 million copies 
 
 Between 10 million and 20 million copies 
 
 See also 
 
 References 
 
 Footnotes 
 
 ^ Some confusion and controversy is commonly attached to the publication data for Le Petit Prince. Saint-Exupéry, its author, spoke almost no English and wrote exclusively in French. His handwritten (and almost illegible) French manuscript was converted by his secretary into a French typescript, which he submitted to his New York City publisher Reynal & Hitchcock in late 1942, which was then translated to English by their own translator. The story was first published in New York City in English in April 1943, followed a week later by its French counterpart. It was also licensed for publication in other countries by Reynal & Hitchcock before being published by Saint-Exupéry's normal publisher in France after the end of the Second World War. Le Petit Prince would not be published in France until its liberation, with Gallimard's first French printing in November 1945, which they say they did not release for sale until 1946. In approximately 1947 Gallimard sued Reynal & Hitchcock claiming it had an 'exclusive' publishing agreement with Saint-Exupéry (who was killed during the war), and later reached a rights agreement with them. 
 
 Citations
– Wayne Dyer, who wrote dozens of self-help books and was a guru of sorts for celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres, has died at age 75. "Wayne has left his body, passing away through the night," his family wrote on Facebook yesterday. "He always said he couldn't wait for this next adventure to begin and had no fear of dying." Dyer, who spent time in orphanages and Detroit's foster system as a child, eventually served in the Navy before going to Wayne State University to study counseling. In 1976, he published his first book—Your Erroneous Zones: Step-by-Step Advice for Escaping the Trap of Negative Thinking and Taking Control of Your Life—and it went on to become one of the best-selling books of all time. Dyer discussed his "self-actualization philosophy," which the Washington Post refers to as "Christian-y" and "Buddhist-ish," on shows including Oprah's, Phil Donahue's, and Sally Jessy Raphael's. He officiated Ellen DeGeneres' and Portia de Rossi's wedding. A sample Dyer quote, per CBS News: "Take the last five minutes of your day and put your attention on everything that you would like to attract into your life. ... Then you'll marinate for eight hours, and you'll awaken and you'll begin to attract the things that are in your subconscious mind." His family did not reveal the cause of his death, but Dyer was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2009; he claimed that the power of positive thinking and a Brazilian doctor's "psychic surgery" healed him. Per USA Today, Dyer once noted that such illnesses are likely "just the body's way of responding to, perhaps, psychological traumas" in a person's past.